A study through the Mental Health Prevalence Project which used three major indicators of mental illness : diagnosis of a serious mental illness, history of inpatient psychiatric care, and psychotropic medication use found that female offenders have on average, twice the rate of various indicators as males . The study found ( using a weighted sample ) that 17.8 % of male offenders and 35.1 % of female offenders have a mental health problem upon being committed.
