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Yes! Just because a person has sanity issues does not mean they should get a free pass. They should still be incarcerated but just in a different type of facility. Makes no sense to send these types to a traditional prison, instead build detention centers designed for their specific conditions.
There is no law, doctrine, or precedent that simply grants anyone with 'sanity issues' a free pass.
John Hinckley Jr. was institutionalized for 18 years before being allowed supervised off-premises visits with his parents. He remained institutionalized for another 6 years before being allowed supervised overnight visits with his parents. The duration of these periodic visits was gradually increased to over a week until 2016.
Hinckley was then released after 35 years of institutionalization. He is required to live with his mother. There are a long list of ordinary things he cannot do (consume alcohol, possess firearms, watch violent movies or television, speak to the media, erase his browser history, etc.) and things he must do (remain with a certain radius of where he lives, work, record his browser history, etc.).
Hinckley no longer has to live with his mother. However, his release remains conditional on a number of factors, including reqular approval of his attending physicians, taking his medication, and most of the aforementioned requirements and limitations.
Does that sound like a free pass to you?
None of this is meant to suggest that these things are unfair or unwarranted. But they most certainly do not amount to being given a free pass.
Movies and TV have given a false impression of the insanity defense. It is not easy to qualify for it, is not commonly attempted and even less commonly successful. I think it is fair to debate the contours of it, but I don't think it should be completely eradicated. If someone truly does not understand that what he or she did was wrong due to mental illness - for example, a delusion that makes the person honestly believe he or she is acting in self defense - then that person should receive care rather than imprisonment. But this will be a very small segment of cases. Mental illness such as being a sociopath is different - a sociopath that murders someone is mentally ill but understands that his or her actions are wrong by societal standards.
The greater majority of people who commit murder; child abuse, and a few other crimes are mentally insane; however for me that is not a defense, but a greater reason to bring back the death penalty in all states.
Do you realize how expensive it is for taxpayers to foot the bill for just one person on Death Row, with their 12 appeals which they're entitled to? $3 million +!
I just read Barbara Walter's Memoirs, and she interviewed a number of famous inmates over time, and one was with the killer of John Lennon. Now here's someone that should have qualified for the insanity defense and he didn't. Years in prison, when Barbara interviewed him, given what led up to him killing John Lennon, Barbara was flabbergasted that he's not in a mental institution instead.
Speaking more from a philosophical place than a "statistics" one...
My belief is that the most useful purpose of the criminal justice system in general, is to protect society from those who don't follow the social contract. Not to punish or get revenge, not for some kind of cosmic karmic reset, not as a form of threat to keep people in line...simply to take those who cause harm to others and remove them from society, and put them where they cannot do so.
I wish that there were a better process to definitively determine guilt. Some kind of fool proof brain scan that never failed would be really cool, allowing anyone accused of a serious crime to clear their name, and if one could establish beyond any doubt that someone is a murderer or rapist or something, they totally did that thing and may totally do it again, then I'm not even against the death penalty. And if someone is that much of a threat to society, it hardly matters to me if they couldn't help it.
I say this even though I have a mentally ill son. This could be my son I'm talking about, his mental state at times and unknown future circumstances could put him squarely into this category. But if he has murdered or raped people, then the sweet young man I know and love is already gone, to me, I am already having to grieve a loss. I hope that it NEVER comes to something like that. But I would not argue for him to be free to harm others, just because I love him, nor because he is mentally ill.
Thing is... We talk about the severely mentally ill going to hospitals, getting "help"...meds, therapy, this idea that they could get better, maybe even live a normal life. But the reality is, in some cases where the illness has a high probability to lead to criminality, you have a ticking time bomb. They could be on the perfect meds (it's hard to find the right meds, but let's just say for example you did) and they could be required to check in and do therapy often...but if they are not locked in a facility, then no one is, day to day, making sure that they take their meds. And in my son's case, if he forgets even once, out of the three times a day he's got to take pills, to do so, then his connection to reality starts getting very shaky. Delusions and paranoia start flooding in, fast. Fortunately, thus far, he isn't a danger to others. But I'm not stupid or naive enough to think it could never get that way.
I guess I'm saying...that I love my kid, yes, dearly, but I am not blind to reality or the right that others around him have, to be safe. And if the point of prison, or even death in extreme cases, is (as it is in my view) mostly to protect other people, rather than just punishment...then that does not vanish because of a "defense" such as insanity. Sure, you can lock them up in a hospital and try to "help" them become "well"...but then what? To what end? Are we hoping that the danger goes away? A pill is a pretty flimsy barrier between society and a dangerous person.
No, it shouldn't. We have a few millennia's worth of legal reasoning based on the idea that guilt comes from a combination of a criminal mind and a criminal act - mens rea, actus reus and all that.
If your mind is so unplugged from reality that you cannot at the time conceive that you did a wrong act, well - you're not legally guilty. This is why we don't prosecute five-year-olds, as well - their minds aren't developed enough to form the distinction.
The court may certainly confine a perpetrator to a mental institution, but not as the outcome of a criminal trial. It's not punishment and the defendant hasn't been found guilty.
My brother is seriously mentally ill. When he had his last complete mental breakdown, he committed several serious crimes. If it wasn't for the insanity plea (and he WAS insane - and still is, though treatment helps tremendously) he would have been thrown into a regular prison and that wouldn't have been good for him or his fellow inmates.
But he still had to comply with a program that greatly restricted his movements and actions and had a lot of requirements, and that was for years. If he completed the years in the program, which also stabilized him and gave him the long term treatment that he needed, then his crimes would be expunged. That's what he did so he no longer has felonies on his record.
But he's still mentally ill and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
Speaking more from a philosophical place than a "statistics" one...
My belief is that the most useful purpose of the criminal justice system in general, is to protect society from those who don't follow the social contract. Not to punish or get revenge, not for some kind of cosmic karmic reset, not as a form of threat to keep people in line...simply to take those who cause harm to others and remove them from society, and put them where they cannot do so.
I wish that there were a better process to definitively determine guilt. Some kind of fool proof brain scan that never failed would be really cool, allowing anyone accused of a serious crime to clear their name, and if one could establish beyond any doubt that someone is a murderer or rapist or something, they totally did that thing and may totally do it again, then I'm not even against the death penalty. And if someone is that much of a threat to society, it hardly matters to me if they couldn't help it.
I say this even though I have a mentally ill son. This could be my son I'm talking about, his mental state at times and unknown future circumstances could put him squarely into this category. But if he has murdered or raped people, then the sweet young man I know and love is already gone, to me, I am already having to grieve a loss. I hope that it NEVER comes to something like that. But I would not argue for him to be free to harm others, just because I love him, nor because he is mentally ill.
Thing is... We talk about the severely mentally ill going to hospitals, getting "help"...meds, therapy, this idea that they could get better, maybe even live a normal life. But the reality is, in some cases where the illness has a high probability to lead to criminality, you have a ticking time bomb. They could be on the perfect meds (it's hard to find the right meds, but let's just say for example you did) and they could be required to check in and do therapy often...but if they are not locked in a facility, then no one is, day to day, making sure that they take their meds. And in my son's case, if he forgets even once, out of the three times a day he's got to take pills, to do so, then his connection to reality starts getting very shaky. Delusions and paranoia start flooding in, fast. Fortunately, thus far, he isn't a danger to others. But I'm not stupid or naive enough to think it could never get that way.
I guess I'm saying...that I love my kid, yes, dearly, but I am not blind to reality or the right that others around him have, to be safe. And if the point of prison, or even death in extreme cases, is (as it is in my view) mostly to protect other people, rather than just punishment...then that does not vanish because of a "defense" such as insanity. Sure, you can lock them up in a hospital and try to "help" them become "well"...but then what? To what end? Are we hoping that the danger goes away? A pill is a pretty flimsy barrier between society and a dangerous person.
How does getting rid of the insanity defense make you less safe? It's already been discussed that it's rare, it's not easy to prove, and they don't just get let loose on the street.
How do we know that ANY criminal won't recidivate? Are we only concerned about the "insane" ones, thinking they are less predictable? Some murderers get life sentences but most don't...very few rapists serve that many years behind bars - how do you feel about them? Should we lock up any violent criminal for life with no chance of parole?
How does getting rid of the insanity defense make you less safe? It's already been discussed that it's rare, it's not easy to prove, and they don't just get let loose on the street.
How do we know that ANY criminal won't recidivate? Are we only concerned about the "insane" ones, thinking they are less predictable? Some murderers get life sentences but most don't...very few rapists serve that many years behind bars - how do you feel about them? Should we lock up any violent criminal for life with no chance of parole?
If we had a more certain way of determining guilt, then I would definitely be more inclined in that direction for some of them. And as I think I mentioned, that's my main objection to the death penalty also, that not everyone who has ever received it, was probably even guilty.
If someone violates the social contract in a harmful enough manner, an extreme enough one, I don't really expect them to change into someone who is fine to put back into the general population.
But then, I am not talking about non violent offenses here. I'm talking about pretty extreme things.
As for the mentally ill being loose on the streets? Well, a friend of a friend, was taken to jail after he destroyed a cop car with a hammer, among other things. He is definitely mentally ill. They had him a few months, and then let him out. He went back to his father's house. He'd been abusive to his father, and causing lots of problems in the neighborhood and in the street by their house. (Public nudity, violence and threats of violence, lots of wild stuff.) So they sent him back to his father's house. A few weeks later, to no one's surprise, he was on a rampage again and wrecking the house and the neighbors called the cops. This time he threatened an officer with a knife. So he's back in jail again.
Everyone is hoping he stays there. His father loves him, but cannot handle him, and this elderly man's life is being ruined, he's being terrorized by his adult son.
At least in America, the mentally ill wind up wandering the streets all the time. Sure, if they do something bad enough, they'll be locked away in a state institution...for a while.
My point is that I view incarceration less as punishment and more as protection to society, and if that is my underlying premise, a person is not less dangerous simply because the REASON for it is mental illness.
I know very well that not all mentally ill people are dangerous, and many might be dangerous to themselves but not to others.
Absolutely not. Insane people are still going to jail, they're just going to a jail that will actually attempt to somewhat rehabilitate them.
There's a distinction between a gang member shooting up a rival's party and the unabomber. Throwing them all in the same cell does society no favors.
America has the highest per capita prison population in the world. The more we can try to understand criminals, the better. Killing them all is just too easy, keeping them in cages is much harder.
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