Unfair or not?

Post Reply New Topic

do you think its unfair that people with mental health problems get the same punishment as normal (put in jail) by the law if they commit a criminal offense like aggravated assult?

Well, I think being violent and anti-social in any form that breaks the law is perpetrated by someone who should be classified as mentally ill. If that is the case, all jails should be turned into mental facilities. But then, where would they place the mentally ill who weren't violent or anti-social?

Assault, yes, depending on the circumstances.

It would also depend on what the mental illness was, what the crime was, what the situation was, and how others were effected by it.

If it's a severe mental illness and the person couldn't distinguish right from wrong, like Andrea Yates, then I think they need to be put in a psych hospital for the duration of their sentence.

If it is a physical illness, that all depends too.

I do not think mental or physical illness should exempt someone from a civil suit though.

Example of a physical illness causing something: Guy driving down the road, following the speed limit and traffic rules, in good health as far as he knows and he suddenly has a massive stroke causing him to lose control of the car and run down several people, killing them.

I don't think he should be charged with any crime.

I do think the victims families have every right to sue him or his family/estate for damages.

Example of a mental illness: Guy with undiagnosed schizophrenia has a break and believes that his neighbors who are in their yard are invading soldiers and the country is at war. He has weapons, obtained legally and has no history of violent behavior. He shoots them all. He has a shootout with the cops until he runs out of ammo and then they come in and get him. If it was undiagnosed as I stated, and he had no clue he had anything wrong that he could have treated and prevented this, I do not think he should be charged with a crime. I think he would need to be put in a mental hospital.

If someone goes off their meds and assaults someone, I think they should be charged with a crime. It depends on whether or not someone can distinguish right from wrong at the time.

They don't. Well not always anyway, at least not in the UK. It is up to the CPS to decide whether it is in the public interest to prosecute them for the offence or not. Where the offence has been committed as a direct result of severe mental illness they are more likely to be sectioned under the mental health act and, even if sentenced through criminal proceedings, will usually be sent to a secure mental hospital rather than prison. This usually applies where at the time of the offence, the offender was so unwell that s/he could not be aware that what s/he was doing was wrong or out of proportion to the degree of threat s/he was experiencing etc.

Where things are a little greyer is with offenders who have a diagnosed mental illness, but are reasonably well at the time of the offence (i.e. their condition is managed by whatever medications, treatments etc. they are receiving) and therefore can be held responsible for their criminal actions. They may well end up in the prison system unless their condition deteriorates to such an extent that they have to be moved to a hospital setting at a later date.

Asking whether it is fair seems to imply a preference for one system over the other. The secure mental hospitals violent mentally ill people are sent to are very much like prisons and can be scary, intimidating places. They are not the "soft option" a lot of people think they are. Furthermore, detention under section lasts as long as the psychiatrist in charge deems appropriate and this may be far longer than the sentence would have been had the case been dealt with in the usual way. Although treatment for the underlying mental health condition is usually more readily available. Either way is likely to be difficult for the offender.

No.

I think it's unfair that some of them get a lesser sentence for the same crime.

In my opinion, the plea and verdict "Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity" should be abolished. In its place should be a two-fold plea and verdict of "Guilty While Insane", and that the person should receive treatment for the insanity, and then serve the usual sentence for the crime.

The legal authorities should also go after the criminal's caregivers and charge them with something like "Aiding and Abetting While Negligent", and those people should be held liable for any civil action that results from their failure to monitor their ward and prevent the crime.

So, if 32-year old "Crazy Johnny" is a in the custody of his parents, and he assaults some eight-year old girl, then he should be found "Guilty While Insane", locked away, treated for his insanity until he is deemed cured, and then serve out the criminal portion of his sentence. Meanwhile, his parents are declared to have aided and abetted his crime through their negligence, and they are held liable for not only the cost of the eight-year old's treatment (and possible funeral expenses), but for the court costs and legal fees - not to mention any other civil liabilities that the girl's family may bring against them.

If the person's receiving treatment for their insanity, then I would assume that ideally they aren't going to be released from the treatment until they are in a mental state that makes it unlikely they are going to commit their crimes again. If that's the case then I don't really know what good putting the person in prison would do, since under your plan they wouldn't go to prison until they were in a mental state in which they aren't dangerous.

I think it depends on the circumstances. If the person does it because of their disorder or life issues related to their disorder; I think the person should be treated & given help instead of put in jail. I think it would be more cost effective to treat that instead of keeping the person in prison & the person could commit crimes again when they get out of prison if he/she doesn't get the treatment & help

Except the idea of punishing a crime is that the individual knows they were committing a crime and that it was wrong at the time and all that, it would not really help anything to put someone in jail for a crime committed say while they where having a psychotic delusion. What purpose would a punishment(jail) serve for that individual? just so someone get's revenge? because that is the only reason I can see for such a thing.

I find this interesting. If someone commits a crime, is actually psychotic and doesn't know what they are doing, I don't think they go to jail. Now, someone mentally ill is a different story, and anyone who is a chronic substance abuser, whether mentally ill or not, commits a crime, then I think they should go to jail. Too many people fry their brains with recreational drugs then try and use it as an excuse, which it isn't.

On one hand, I want to say no, it's not fair, since people with mental health problems are already suffering enough, much more than anyone given a light jail sentence.
On the other hand, I think it's unfair that mentally ill people use that illness as an excuse all of the time. We still need to be held accountable for our actions. It's very rare that the illness is responsible directly for aggravated assault, although it may contribute indirectly to these situations. I've heard quoted a number of times the statistic that people with mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence rather than the perpertrators.

If someone is suffering a psychotic delusion and hurts someone as a result of that delusion then I would presume it to be an accident. If that person was under the care of somebody else, such as parents etc., I would be reluctant to prosecute the parents simply because the task of caring for a psychotic person is too difficult for a couple of elderly people -I would blame the system in this case; unless it could be shown that the parents were deliberately negligent. Sometimes even the best care does not prevent a psychotic episode from happening.

In the case of medication non-compliance, I would take that to be part of the mental illness itself and not something people could control. A reasonable person (usually) takes their medication because of the benefits - an unstable person can exercise poor judgement.

On a final and tangential note, last time I was hospitalised I shared a ward with a couple of criminals who were in for treatment. I overheard a discussion whereby they couldn't wait to get back to jail.

short answer is no, but of course it kind of depends on the individual situation...for instance if I was out in public and someone came up behind me or something and it startled me and I turn around and hit them as a instant reaction due to my PTSD then I don't think I should get charged with assault for instance. If I go steal a t.v for instance I can't very well blame it on any of my mental issues.

I do not see the logic in that at all.....not to mention Psychology regards substance abuse/addiction as a mental health problem. But ok say like someone with schizophrenia smokes marijuana regularly and they end up injuring someone while having a psychotic episode or whatever.......they should go to jail because they use a drug regardless of the fact they did not intentionally commit a crime?

Something else that comes to mind thats simple common sense is that anyone who commits murder, rape, assault etc, is pretty much crazy anyway. No sane person does that, unless the murder or assault is in self defense. So, I really can't get behind the idea of not locking people up because of mental illness. I'd say lock those with true , severe illnesses where they don't know what they are doing, or are delusional, in a mental institution, but people who do that stuff do need to be locked away from society.

<< Moved by mod, from bipolar, etc forum. >>

Its not about giving perks to the insane.

The issue is about knowledge of right and wrong.

If you perpetrate a crime while you are mentally impaired in a such a way that you cannot tell right from wrong then you are deemed "legally insane".

The mental condition could be tremporary (ie you the perp find your spouse in bed with a lover and start shooting) or it could be permanent ( like that ret*d kid that they tried to get off death row - dont know if they got him off or not).

So the question to ask is this: if you commit a crime while mentally impaired in such a way that you do not know right from wrong should you be punished as severely as a perp who did know right from wrong?

I think that the answer is that in some cases you should not be punished as severely if you are so impaired.

Asking if its fair "not to give perks to the insane" is an irrelevent question,and thats why its created a whole thread of irrelevent responses.


You can discuss forever what constitutes "sanity" and "insanity",but its all irrelevent.

The issue is not "sanity" in any either common nor clinical sense.
The issue is"sanity" in this one narrow legal sense of knowing right from wrong.

A person who flips out over jealousy and shoots their spouse and thier spouse's lover momentary leaves 'sanity' in a legal, common, and maybe even clinical sense but then returns to sanity.

So basically they are sane.

But another person who plots for years to kill their spouse to get insureance money might well be a sociopath who is in fact more truly 'insane' (by most common and even clinical measures) than the perp who killed out of passion of jealousy.

But the more truly insane person who commited premeditated murder, could not get an "insanity" defense because their brand of insanity did not stop them from knowing right from wrong.

In contrast the cheated on spouse who commited the crime of passion might well get an insanity defense. And thats how it should be. The calculating sociopath should be punished the more severely of the two.

You could claim that Jeffrey Daumier, and Ted Bundy, were both "insane" because "no sane person would commit the hienous crimes that they commited"( though neither was dx'd as psychotic). But again that is irrelevent to the topic.

Both Daumier and Bundy went to great lengths to conceal their crimes -demonstrating that they knew what they were doing WERE crimes- thus demonstrating that they were not "insane" in the strict narrow legal sense that we are talking about.

Who isn't in prison for disorders or life issues? I would like to see more focus on rehabilitation in the prison system vs punitive warehousing. I know they do offer some counseling and education, but if the government continued to focus more on this than the punishment aspect there might be less repeat offenders- which would be more cost effective in the long term anyway.
I'm not saying the punitive aspect doesn't have its place. There are some people who can't or won't be rehabilitated and should remained locked away from society. It just seems it would be most effective to try to correct whatever caused the criminal behavior(mental illness, drug addiction, lack of skills, etc) whenever possible to turn out a functional member of society. Otherwise, it's just a very long "time out".