Insanity Rehabilitation

The prevalence of individuals with severe mental illness entering the criminal justice system creates a social injustice and substantial cost. People with mental illness cycle thorough courtrooms, jails, and prisons, generating a concern among policy-makers, criminal administrators, practitioners, families, and advocates. These facilities lack the ability to provide adequate treatment and results in a damaging cycle. In 2000, The United States Congress responded to these individuals by authorizing Policy Law 106-515 or mental health court; combining court supervision and community-based treatment services for individuals with mental illness. Policy Law 106-515 is a therapeutic court approach which seeks to provide effective treatment and eliminate

I believe so many are diagnosed with mental illness in the criminal justice system due to their repetitive actions of law breaking. In the beginning, these offenders are unaware a mental illness exists. So many offenders have pre-existing mental illnesses which are untreated; others may acquire a mental illness while incarcerated. This could be due to aging, or an occurrence which takes place in prison such as segregation. Separating humans from and isolating them from any population is

Many individuals in prison have mental health and addiction problems. The only way they can be helped is by our system offering lower-cost alternatives to incarceration to address the problem which led them to criminal activity. Studies have indicated that only 10% or fewer inmates received mental health care while incarcerated which in turn is costly and ineffective. Studies have shown it cost $1.8 billion to house mentally ill offenders whom return quickly to the correctional system because these systems lack aftercare planning and communities lack sufficient services to meet their needs. If correctional staff and programs in the community could expand services as well as provide better coordination then it could help stabilize mentally ill offenders in the community, cut down criminal activity and prevent the return to jail or prison. The more often an individual is incarcerated the more likely they are a substance abuser. Once the person is release from a lengthy sentence with no skills to address the addiction, it’s actually the same skills they had when entering the system. Its clear treatment is more effective because it has been proven that individuals will less likely be arrested, less likely to use drugs again as well as being more effective in reducing drug-related crime than incarceration (Reducing Recidivism by Expanding Funding for Alternatives to Incarceration, 2011).

One concern that is raised when deciding if the insanity defense should be abolished is will criminals with mental illness receive the treatment they need in a prison verse not being sentenced to a mental health facility. Indeed they will get treatment in a prison for their mental conditions as they would in a mental facility. The public sometimes falsely overestimate the punishment and rehabilitation in the American prison system. Prisons in America are held to some standards to make sure their prisoners are safe and getting the treatment they need as well as making sure they are in a safe environment. For example, in the Yates case, she was

While most people are concerned and want violent offenders punished and thrown in prison (which is a valid concern), it is rare that violent acts are committed by the mentally ill. For those crimes the mentally ill commits, prison may not always be the right answer; instead, proper treatment and rehabilitation would be much better. In general, the statement has always been made that the

The way the criminal justice system should handle crimes has always been a debated subject. For over the last forty years, ever since the war on drugs, there are more policies made to be “tough on crime”. From then, correctional systems have grown and as people are doing more crimes, there are plenty of punishments for them. In the mid 1970’s, rehabilitation was the main concern for the criminal justice system. It was common that when someone was convicted of a crime, they would be sentenced to prison but there would also be diagnosed treatments to help them as well. Most likely, they would have committed a crime due to psychological problems. When they receive treatment in prison, they can be healed and would not go back to their wrong lifestyle they had lived before. As years have gone by, people thought that it was better to take a more punitive stance in the criminal justice system. As a result of the turnaround of this more punitive criminal justice system, the United States now has more than 2 million people in prisons or jails--the equivalent of one in every 142 U.S. residents--and another four to five million people on probation or parole. The U.S. has a higher percentage of the

State legislators should construct laws that mandate intake screenings of all prisoners before placement in a facility. Pre-booking programs should be conducted by specialized officers trained in mental illness who would intercept subjects entering the jail and conduct a screening prior to booking in efforts to “prevent arrest through de-escalation by transporting persons to mental health centers for assessment rather than jail” (p.8). State laws should mandate treatment in a secure mental facility for the duration of their court sentence. The implantation of mental health courts would be an option of a jail diversion program that could help provide treatment (p.8). This allows the subject to be held accountable for the crime that they have committed but allows the possibility of treatment and closing the revolving door. Most individuals that have a mental illness are subject to returning to jail or prison because there is no establishment of treatment for these people (p.12). Costs studies should be conducted to evaluate the most effective way to use the taxpayers’ money. The money is going to be spent, it is just an argument of which way is most beneficial to all people. Paying the money to the jail to acted as a over secured medicine cabinet is senseless when there is a possibility for the money to be used

According to the University of Missouri-Kansas City, a half of 1% of defendants in court cases plea mental insanity in a trial, and with this defense, only about 1/20,000 actually make the plea into a solution. Madness, mental instability, pure insanity; these names all define the nature of the mentally ill in a light of sadistic and melancholic misanthropy. In the mind of these few on our planet, they simply do not realize what has happened to them. Almost like a trance, or a trip of sorts, where nothing is comprehensible to anyone except the victim. Mental illness deemed as madness is a problem to only a few souls in the world, with many kinds focusing on violence, trauma, childhood memories, or simply lack of knowledge of what is the real

Mental institutions were founded to aid mentally ill individuals by providing proper care and medication. Majority of the mentally ill receive lack of attention out on the streets making their situation even worse. These individuals then commit minor crimes that will result in them going to prison for the reason of because unable to survive out in the world. The inability of survival out on the streets results in having an increasingly large handful sentenced in jail which makes a prison one of the largest mental institutions. Individual with a mental disorder see prison as the only way to obtain medication and attention.

In our county, state and federal correctional institutions across the United States, inmates are being imprisoned for awaiting trial, during trial or convicted for some crime. According to the Bureau of Justice (BJS, 2006), Fifty-six percent of inmates in a state prison and forty-five percent of inmates in a federal prison, suffer from or had a past of mental illness. In our American society, individuals who suffer from mental illness seem to be publicly perceived as a nuisance. This can be due to the fact that the media over the years consecutively scrutinized individuals who use the insanity defense in criminal trials. The insanity plea is negatively publicized if the defendant is using it in a high profiled case which their actions resulted in severe harm or death to another individual. In addition, the public perceives the use of this plea as a scapegoat for the defendant to avoid serving punishment in a penal environment. Mentally ill individuals, who are being civilly committed or charged with all levels of crimes, are being heavily prosecuted and sentenced into correctional facilities rather than psychiatric hospitals. This leads me to discuss the lack of treatment for patients in Bridgewater State Hospital (BSH) located in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. This three hundred and fifty bed facility houses Massachusetts most criminally insane. This facility is also use to evaluate patients/inmates for competency to stand trial and for those who get civilly

Mentally ill offenders are plagued with unique circumstances and needs when processed through the criminal justice system. When pleading insanity in the court of law, there is a differentiation in how offenders are tried. In cases where a mentally ill person has committed a crime, disputing whether the offender is insane is not predicated on whether they are innocent or guilty of the crime. However, it is what led up to the incident that determines whether the insanity plea is applicable or not and was the offender unable to distinguish right from wrong when committing the crime.

Each year defendants claim to be mentally insane so they may receive medical treatment for their illness instead of serving jail or prison time. It is my belief that all mentally ill citizens should have the right to be medically treated. Although, not all of these people should be allowed back into society after they have reached their sanity. Some extreme cases such as the case of John Wayne Gacy who was proven insane should still never be let back onto the public streets. John Wayne Gacy murdered and raped 33 young men from the Chicago area then plead and Gacy was found insane. Thankfully Gacy’s insanity was ignored and he was sentenced to death. Some cases of insanity should be sentenced properly with treatment after being proven insane by a psychiatric team, but extreme cases should still be treated the same as any sane person.

The United States criminal justice system has been continuously increasing incarceration among individuals who suffer from a sever mental illness. As of 2007 individuals with severe mental illness were over twice as likely to be found in prisons than in society (National Commission of Correctional Health Care, 2002, as cited in Litschge &Vaughn, 2009). The offenses that lead to their commitment in a criminal facility, in the majority of cases, derive from symptoms of their mental illness instead of deviant behavior. Our criminal justice system is failing those who would benefit more from the care of a psychiatric rehabilitation facility or psychiatric hospital by placing them in correctional facilities or prisons.

From a deontology standpoint, the criminal justice system have the obligation and duty to maintain a safer society and reduce crime rates, even though the offender may have mental abnormalities. Grachek state that the anti-therapeutic nature is flawed, it permitted the free will of the mentally ill, but did not take a step ahead to treat and transform them into productive humans (1496). Hence, I suggest that insane offenders should also be punished, they should be sentenced for imprisonment or social service along with a mandatory mental health treatment. There should also a stricter and more reliable testing procedure to validate the mental capability of the defendant. A uniform testing methodology can help to reduce the flaws brought by different testing, thus making it easier for juries to make accurate judgement (Grachek 1492). A more reliable insanity test can prevent cases of

Exclusion as a form of control is contingent upon the belief what you are excluding is the problem. Usually however, what is being excluded, like a criminal, is the symptom of a much bigger problem (a failing education system, poverty…etc). Additionally, the idea that a human can be “fixed” in a psychiatric facility is also contingent on there being one source and one problem that can be identified and dealt with. Humans are complex, and we can’t assume to know how effecting one part will effect the whole. Again, complexity is disregarded for the sake of the image that is at stake. The image in this case, is a safe and civilized community. Criminals threaten to disrupt the boundaries we have put in place in society. By breaking laws or