Mentally_Ill_Criminals

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  Mentally Ill Criminals and the Criminal Justice System




                     Margaret Perez
College Composition II for Legal Studies Majors, CM222-02
                      Retahsia Gantt
                       April 3, 2010
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                     Mentally Ill Criminals and the Criminal Justice System




       Some people have been unfortunate enough to encounter, or be related to someone who is

mentally ill and off treatment. While off treatment anything could happen because mentally ill

individuals have a diminished mental capacity to understand right from wrong. Officials need to

implement treatment before punishment becomes necessary. “Mentally ill individuals are a

danger to themselves and others when they are not being treated, and they should not be left to

roam the streets leaving chaos in their wake” (Perez, 2010). This will only increase the number

of inmates in the already crowded prison system. Once they commit a crime and get put into the

system they are considered a criminal unless someone realizes that they have mental health

problems and gets them proper treatment. Mentally ill criminals are commonly looked over and

they are often never treated. Most of the time the insane aren’t aware they are ill and they get

incarcerated instead of treated. “The insanity defense serves a purpose higher than the

punishment of those committing criminal acts: it represents society's moral and social belief that

individuals who are charged with a crime, who admits the criminal act, but whose attorney

claims he/she was so mentally disturbed at the time of the crime that he/she lacked the capacity

to have intended to commit a crime deserve treatment, not punishment” (Lyons, 2007).



       A new study by Harvard researchers suggests many mentally ill criminals were off

treatment while committing crimes, which led to their incarceration (Lazar, 2009). It costs more

money to incarcerate someone than it does to treat them, which means if treatment increases than

the number of mentally ill persons incarcerated will decrease dramatically. This study published
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online in the American Journal of Public Health in 2009 found that a quarter of the inmates

nationwide had a history of chronic mental illnesses like schizophrenia, bi-polar illness, and

depression. Researchers analyzed data collected in 2002 and 2004 from local, state, and federal

correctional facilities. These alarming statistics prove that officials need to implement treatment

before punishment becomes necessary.



       A more recent report by the Federal Bureau of Justice Statistics said that half of all prison

and jail inmates have a mental health problem. That works out to be 705,600 offenders in state

prisons and 479,900 in local jails (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2006). This study was conducted

just two years after the Harvard study was published, and the numbers doubled, which indicates

a huge increase in mentally ill offenders in recent years. The deinstitutionalization of the

mentally ill in the 1960’s was designed to care for those with acute mental health needs in the

community instead of in state run asylums (Lyons, 2007). This plan has backfired, and now

many mentally ill individuals live in half way houses or on the street leaving them vulnerable to

the world around them. The system that is supposed to offer all of us certain rights and liberties

has effectively ignored those with no voice, leaving them to fend for themselves, with no

protection from themselves or others. It is not fair to expect someone with a diminished mental

capacity to fend for themselves and hope all goes well, because that leaves too much room for

things to go wrong. Which is why officials need to take notice of the problem at hand, and take

preventative measures to help future mentally ill offenders receive help before punishment

becomes necessary.
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       In the generations since many state mental hospitals closed and treatment approaches

shifted to the community, many people have failed to get the treatment they need. For some,

being without mental health care means homelessness and crime and advocates now decry what

they call the ‘criminalization of the mentally ill.’ (Lyons, 2007) They already know how this

happened over time, now they have to find a solution before it is too late. Right now our jails

and prisons have an overlapping population of sane and mentally ill inmates. There are multiple

scientific studies that report consistent findings and allow for generalizations about the different

populations of criminal defendants and the seriously mentally ill, and how the populations

overlap. In determining how many criminal defendants have serious mental illnesses, two

problems encourage underreporting. First, many jails do not have the expertise and facilities to

make an adequate diagnosis. Second, all jails will tend to limit their treatment and diagnosis to

the most acutely ill and dysfunctional. They are not built to assess the functioning yet mentally

ill inmate (Nora, 2007). At this junction in time there is nothing that can be done for those that

are already in the system, so by taking preventative measures we avoid sending more mentally ill

criminals to prison.



       One promising solution for preventing the mentally ill from becoming criminalized is to

implement mental health courts, which will help offenders get treatment instead of incarcerating

them. Mental health courts were created to aid mentally ill inmates, receive mental health

treatment, be able to manage their lives and keep out of jail. The term mental health court is

most often used to refer to a specialized docket for defendants with mental illnesses that provides

the opportunity to participate in court-supervised treatment; a court team composed of a judge,

court personnel, and treatment providers, which define the terms of participation. By
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incorporating mental health courts into the system officials can implement treatment before

punishment becomes necessary, and keep mentally ill criminals out of prison.



       The responsibility of deciding who is and who isn’t mentally impaired lies in the hands of

the men and woman who took oaths to serve and protect what’s in the best interest of the public.

It is not right to point the blame at anyone for this problem, but it is right to recognize that there

is a real problem and take steps to find a solution. If preventative measures are taken before

mentally ill criminals escalate into violent criminals they can decrease crime and prison

populations, by helping people change their lives before it is too late.




References

American Bar Association. (2010). American Bar Association. Retrieved April 3, 2010, from
Center for Professional Responsability: http://www.abanet.org/cpr/mrpc/mrpc_toc.html
Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2006, September 6). Bureau of Justice Statistics. Retrieved
April 4, 2010, from Bureau of Justice Statistics:
http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=447
Lazar, K. (2009, January 15). Harvard study: Under-treatment of mental illness contributes
to crime. White Coat Notes , p. 1.
Lyons, D. (2007, April). Encyclapedia Bertanica Online. Retrieved April 1, 2010, from
Helping Mentally Ill Criminals:
http://www.britannica.com/bps/additionalcontent/18/24691299/HELPING-MENTALLY-ILL-
CRIMINALS
Nora, G. E. (2007). MISUSING CRIMINAL JUSTICE AS ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE. Lexis Nexis
, p. 22 Crim. Just. 18.
Perez, M. E. (2010, April 25). Personal Experiances with my Bi-Polaroff treatment mother.
(R. o. life, Interviewer) Neptune, NJ, USA.
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