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Should a criminal's mental illness have an impact on how he or she is punished?

Should a criminal's mental illness have an impact on how he or she is punished?

  • Total voters
    69
People may mimic what they perceive as civilized behavior---we we are far from civilized.
 
liblady said:
of course mental illness should be taken into account. by your measure, a spur of the moment manslaughter, (say, shoving someone into a wall), that results in death, is the same as shooting someone point blank.
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Even with manslaughter someone is still found guilty of manslaughter and punished. With first degree murder someone is still found guilty of 1st degree murder and punished. The insanity BS basically lets someone off the hook even though they did do the crime, sure they may go to a hospital/nuthouse but it is not a punishment.
 
jamesrage said:
Even with manslaughter someone is still found guilty of manslaughter and punished. With first degree murder someone is still found guilty of 1st degree murder and punished. The insanity BS basically lets someone off the hook even though they did do the crime, sure they may go to a hospital/nuthouse but it is not a punishment.
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many states have pleas that allow for treatment THEN incarceration.
 
liblady said:
i don't understand your point.
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We have to be taught to"act" civilized from childhood. we are naturally aggressive killers, without supervision. Our Schools and all religions are set up to try to make civilized beings out of us. We have to teach Our Kids it is wrong to stab little Johnny in the face with a stick. --Kids left alone, would kill each other off, with no adult to intervene. ---Would you leave your Kids alone, and un supervised? they would burn the house down. Being "Civilized" is not our natural state, it must be taught.
 
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Absolutely it should. Our justice system is premised on the idea that we not only punish behavior but that we punish culpability.
A person who knowingly, deliberately and intentionally commits a crime should be treated differently than a person who commits a offense but without the same knowingly, delieberately and intentional mindset. That is not to say that the behavior cannot be punished, it is a question of culpability.

We treat children differently because they are not expected to have the same capacity to form intent and the same maturity to rationally think about their conduct. The same is true of the mentally retarded. That same belief extends to the criminally insane and the mentally ill.
 
Mentally ill offenders ought to be punished differently. I've seen some offenders be so mentally disorganized that they are not able to keep appointments with probation and parole and end up reincarcerated. They need alot of help to comply with the letter of the law in probation and parole. Showing up for a court ordered drug test, for example.

It's not fair. I'm talking about offenders with serious mental health diagnoses like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder etc.

I was a case manager for a MIOCR program. MIOCR stands for mentally ill offender crime reduction. All of my clients were dual diagnosis--mentally ill addicts. I know what I'm talking about because I coached these folks and without a lot of help they would have failed and been back in jail or prison in a heartbeat.

For the mentally ill, some of what is 'normal' prison procedure is 'cruel and unusual punishment' for them. It's not fair and I doubt it will change much. Public opinion allows very little sympathy for criminals and is quite cynical about mental illness.
 
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jamesrage said:
Even with manslaughter someone is still found guilty of manslaughter and punished. With first degree murder someone is still found guilty of 1st degree murder and punished. The insanity BS basically lets someone off the hook even though they did do the crime, sure they may go to a hospital/nuthouse but it is not a punishment.
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Not quite, there may be a sketchy incident where a percieved threat was presented, say, an abused spouse, an immenent physical threat to person, or even threatening someone's loved one's. In any one of the above instances any reasonable person could be expected to "black out" and use extreme force to end the threat presented, it could still be a manslaughter/murder charge and either way would be a homicide, however, the evidence may not be strong enough for a self defense aquittal, in that case, an temporary insanity plea would be more than acceptable and a very mild probation could be applicable. Other than that, there are instances of severe mental illness that could easily qualify. As others have said, it's about intent moreso than the actual result.
 
windovervocalcords said:
Mentally ill offenders ought to be punished differently. I've seen some offenders be so mentally disorganized that they are not able to keep appointments with probation and parole and end up reincarcerated. They need alot of help to comply with the letter of the law in probation and parole. Showing up for a court ordered drug test, for example.

It's not fair. I'm talking about offenders with serious mental health diagnoses like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder etc.

I was a case manager for a MIOCR program. MIOCR stands for mentally ill offender crime reduction. All of my clients were dual diagnosis--mentally ill addicts. I know what I'm talking about because I coached these folks and without a lot of help they would have failed and been back in jail or prison in a heartbeat.

For the mentally ill, some of what is 'normal' prison procedure is 'cruel and unusual punishment' for them. It's not fair and I doubt it will change much. Public opinion allows very little sympathy for criminals and is quite cynical about mental illness.
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My aunt has two grandchildren with problems, one is severly autistic and the other has a mild schizophrenia, in the latter case, he should be okay with meds, but it will be a lifetime battle, in the former case only special care will help, the one with autism is barely functional. It breaks our hearts but these are the cards we were dealt, I would hate to see a court system that would hold either one accountable at a full level when neither is exactly a criminal in the sense that they don't have malicious intent, and that they could have a mental break under certain circumstances.
 
jamesrage said:
Should a criminal's mental illness have an impact on how he or she is punished?

I say no. It doesn't change the fact that person committed the crime. Justice and the victims should not be ignored just because some quack deems the criminal insane.
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Do we have excessive "quacks" in our society?
I think so, judging from this and other forums.
 
earthworm said:
Do we have excessive "quacks" in our society?
I think so, judging from this and other forums.
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Ain't necessarily so.... let's look at it from the stand point of the innocent person that is injured or killed by a "mentally ill" person. where is the justice for them, and where is the guarantee that this "mentally ill" person will never harm another?

What would be your reaction if a loved one was killed by a person that had killed before, been cured, and then released to kill your Mother, Father, Son, Daughter, Wife, Husband, etc.?
 
earthworm said:
Do we have excessive "quacks" in our society?
I think so, judging from this and other forums.
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but now that you are here to share your wisdom, I feel certain the intelligence level will rise in leaps and bounds. :2wave:
 
Yes it should.

Today we have access to the workings of the human mind. Using this to help someone who is not necessarily a criminal is a good thing.

I am not saying use it as a crutch, I am saying it should be a factor in punishment and a possible reinsertion into society.
 
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If a chimpanzee kills a person we aren't going to punish them for life. Why should we do it to a human who happens to have the mind of a chimpanzee?

Orius said:
Any justice system that claims to be civilized must ascertain the intentions of the criminal when proceeding with a case. If your intentions are based on an uncontrolled hallucination, a psychotic delusion that is naturally occurring in your mind, or any mental factor beyond your control which severely limits your function and rational mind, then that must certainly be taken into account when rendering a verdict.
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I disagree with this part. You can never know a person's intentions. This is why I am against hate crime legislation and the like. You can prove pre-meditation if there is evidence of planning. You can also, to a certain extent, find out if a person's brain is working correctly or not. But the reason behind a crime can never truly be known.
 
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Tsunami said:
If a chimpanzee kills a person we aren't going to punish them for life. Why should we do it to a human who happens to have the mind of a chimpanzee?


I disagree with this part. You can never know a person's intentions. This is why I am against hate crime legislation and the like. You can prove pre-meditation if there is evidence of planning. You can also, to a certain extent, find out if a person's brain is working correctly or not. But the reason behind a crime can never truly be known.
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I think the chimpanzee would be destroyed.....;)
 
Blackdog said:
Yes it should.

Today we have access to the workings of the human mind. Using this to help someone who is not necessarily a criminal is a good thing.

I am not saying use it as a crutch, I am saying it should be a factor in punishment and a possible reinsertion into society.
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On that, we can agree.
 
Skateguy said:
We have to be taught to"act" civilized from childhood. we are naturally aggressive killers, without supervision. Our Schools and all religions are set up to try to make civilized beings out of us. We have to teach Our Kids it is wrong to stab little Johnny in the face with a stick. --Kids left alone, would kill each other off, with no adult to intervene. ---Would you leave your Kids alone, and un supervised? they would burn the house down. Being "Civilized" is not our natural state, it must be taught.
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[ame=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy]Psychopathy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame] I disagree.
 
To paraphrase Robert Heinlein in "Starship Troopers" (a book, for those illiterates who wasted time watching the movie and never bothered to read the source), a man deserted from an army in which anyone could quit at any time, and eventually kidnapped and murdered a child. Since he was a deserter, he was still on the company's roll, and was punished by the Army.

Who promptly whipped him then hung him until he was dead.

The narrator summed it up by saying "of course he was crazy. What difference does that make? If he was cured, the only thing he could do to escape living with the crime he committed was to kill himself. And if he couldn't do that, he was still crazy. So either way he should die. No matter, the purpose of the military is to protect little girls, not the men who murder them."

We shoot mad dogs, don't we? We don't worry about protecting the mad dog from society.

Some crimes deserve punishment by death, regarless of how crazy the perpetrator is.

Take, for example, the Shoe Bomber. Moussaoui's attempted murder has led to the requirement that every air traveler in the United States, if not the world, has to spend five minutes parading through the airport in bare feet. With ten billion or so passengers flying annually, that man has caused the destruction, annually, of fifty billion minutes. Since a single 80 year lifetime is merely forty two million minutes, the Shoe Bomber has caused the annual loss of over 1000 lives.

Every year.

He should be executed for wasting everyone's time like that. Since his intent was mass murder, and since he's killing the equivalent of 1000 people a year, he should be punished appropriately.
 
Scarecrow Akhbar said:
Take, for example, the Shoe Bomber. Moussaoui's attempted murder has led to the requirement that every air traveler in the United States, if not the world, has to spend five minutes parading through the airport in bare feet. With ten billion or so passengers flying annually, that man has caused the destruction, annually, of fifty billion minutes. Since a single 80 year lifetime is merely forty two million minutes, the Shoe Bomber has caused the annual loss of over 1000 lives.

Every year.

He should be executed for wasting everyone's time like that. Since his intent was mass murder, and since he's killing the equivalent of 1000 people a year, he should be punished appropriately.
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I've been wondering about this, actually.

If a method of thoroughly scanning shoes while still on a person's feet was developed, could they modify the procedures to no longer require the removal of shoes? Or are there other reasons for shoe removal?
 
Depends on the illness and the crime. Example if it is just a petty crime? I would have a heart but if someone kills their own child? I could care less if they are mentally ill. Kill em.
 
jamesrage said:
Should a criminal's mental illness have an impact on how he or she is punished?

I say no. It doesn't change the fact that person committed the crime. Justice and the victims should not be ignored just because some quack deems the criminal insane.
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probably but if someone kills my kid I am going to try my best to waste him no matter if he is sick or not:mrgreen:
 
Kali said:
Depends on the illness and the crime. Example if it is just a petty crime? I would have a heart but if someone kills their own child? I could care less if they are mentally ill. Kill em.
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You better hope you never get a severe mental illness.
 
I certainly don't think anyone should get off for committing a crime because of a mental illness, especially an uncurable one. Let's be honest, does it really matter to the victim what caused their killer to kill them? They're still dead. We can tailor treatment for the criminal to help them, assuming they will ever get out of prison, but even cured, they still need to serve their sentence for the crime they committed.
 
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