It’s often heard in courtrooms that a criminal is not mentally ill and is able to stand trial; or as in some cases, the other verdict, they’re mentally ill and will be treated in a hospital. Aren’t all criminals mentally ill to some extent? What’s the difference?
Mental illness is a broad descriptive term that categorizes illnesses and mal-functioning of the brain and nervous system. It runs the gamut from mild to severe, acquired through drugs and environmental conditioning to inherited and those related to aging such as Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.
Criminally insane individuals are also mentally ill but they come into the court system because of some crime they’ve committed. Judges, aided by psychiatrists and other professionals must decide if they’re insane or sane. If they’re sane they stand trial for their crime; if insane they’ll be committed to a mentally ill hospital and possibly treated for their illness. They may or may not be released out into the public again; it all depends on how severe the crime and how severe their illness.
The two above explanations are easy to understand but nothing is as simple as one is often led to believe. While the two systems, medicine and the law, have two different ways of dealing with their particular problems, they are actually quite closely related. They depend on each other for answers when they come up with puzzling problems. Despite their ways of determining if a person knows right from wrong, both have guidelines that are often not enough to allow the victim, if found to be insane, to go out again in public.
Where are the loopholes?
Criminals with their cunning minds often fall back on the insanity plea to avoid incarceration for life, or worse still, in states where the option is legal, sentenced to death. The mentally ill, especially those with the ability to think rationally at times, will sometimes attempt to appear mentally healthy by giving the right answers to questions of orientation as to place, time and other relevant questions in order to get out of the hospital. Both of these situations are definitely not what a normal mentally healthy person will do. It depends on the reasoning mind behind the actions.
Inadequate terminology
Perpetrators of hideous crimes, if found sane, must stand trial. They are right in that assessment, they must be convicted and put away; but are they sane? Not according to the mental health side of the picture. No one in their right mind would do such a thing. What then? The lines are drawn between lawyers and doctors.
Courts have adopted sane and insane as a dividing line to decide how to proceed with the trial. If declared insane they are then given over to the psychiatric facilities for evaluation and treatment and if declared sane are tried and if convicted, penalized. This makes law possible and attempts as much as possible to be fair and honest.
Are the criminally sane devoid of mental illness?
Mental illness is a curse of modern life. Drugs and environmental habits and societal fallacies attest to that. Living sanely often goes against societal norms and more than that mental health is measured more by degrees than by precise dividing lines. Of course the criminally insane is not mentally healthy. Their minds runs counter to good mental health and regardless what led them astray they must not be allowed to walk the streets and continue on in their crimes.
The best approach is to attempt to correct their behavior problems while in prison. Many prisons try to salvage their criminals; many do not for whatever reason. The biggest drawback to rehabilitation is time and money and most of all over crowed prisons. Yet, no one knows for sure what a little human kindness can do to a sick mind but many humane wardens believe it’s worth a try.
Mental illnesses
“Just as diabetes is a disorder of the pancreas, mental illnesses are medical conditions that often result in a diminished capacity for coping with the ordinary demands of life.”
Insanity in the court system
“What happens to a defendant after a judge or jury returns a finding of insanity depends on the crime committed, and on the state in which the trial takes place.”
The importance of knowing the reasoning behind court decisions as well as medical terminology goes a long way in how mentally unhealthy people are treated. While horrendous crimes against society cannot be glossed over, many prisoners sent to prison can be rehabilitated. Society can no longer pretend the mentally ill are those on the other side of the fence; mental illness touches everyone in some capacity or another. Mentally healthy people are aware of this.
Other mental health articles I’ve written on similar subjects: Mental illness and the criminal justice system; and Mental Health: A new way of dealing with crime and mental health and Connection between intelligence and insanity. Other articles can be found on my Helum (About Me) page.
