Term Paper on "Ethical Views When Punishing the Mentally Ill"

Term Paper 7 pages (2231 words) Sources: 1+

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Punishing the Mentally Ill

Criminal law regulates behavior in society by punishing those who violate the penal code by committing a crime or offense (Anonymous 2006). A crime is defined as a voluntary act, consciously performed and with a guilty mind by those who are morally blameworthy, The Supreme Court determined the current test of the needed competency to stand trial in U.S. Vs. Dusky as sufficient present ability to consult with a lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational understanding and a rational and factual understanding of the proceedings against him or them. A psychiatrist determines the trial competency of an accused according to his or their ability to evaluate and use available legal defenses, level of unmanageable behavior, the quality of relationship with an attorney, planned legal strategy, appraisal of roles in legal proceedings, understanding of court procedure, an appreciation of the charges and of the range and nature of possible penalties, the ability to appraise the likely outcomes, the capacity to disclose pertinent facts about the offense, to challenge prosecution witnesses and to testify relevantly; self-serving or self-defeating motivation; and the effects of medication. The legal test of insanity has changed through the past hundred years from social influences rather than scientific advances and insanity pleas have rarely succeeded. This indicates the general community standpoint that mental disease may motivate, but does not excuse, a crime, that the offender may simply fake being mad and that the mentally ill are a threat to the community. These pleas are based on diminished capacity, unconsciousness and drug or alcohol intoxication. Unconscious attacks negate the existence of a crime but proof requires behavior, which is unpremeditated and sudden, out of character, environmentally-caused, veiled behavior in amnesia, a lack of current motivation, and a fortuitous or accidental choice of victim (Anonymous).

Of the more than 1,000 men and women put to death in the U.S. By the end of December 2005, dozens had histories of serious mental illness before they were sentenced or by the time of their execution (Amnesty International 2006). Some were mentally retarded or suffered from mental illness or both. Their mental illness was mainly due to extreme childhood abuse, violence in prison, inherited or developed or made worse by their stay on death row. In many cases, a defendant's competence to stand trial has been seriously doubted as to whether he or she genuinely understands the nature and severity of the proceedings set against him or her or the capability to assist and cooperate in his or her defense. He or she may not possess the required competence to plead guilty or waive trial counsel. Some defendants are also said to have committed the crime in order to get a death sentence. Inadequate representation may evade the existence or the extent of mental impairment in the defendant. In other cases, defense lawyers do not have sufficient resources against the prosecution, the defendant's failure to cooperate may appear to the jury as a lack of remorse, or the defendant may refuse to reveal vital information on account of a suspicion of conspiracy against him or her. Otherwise, the prosecution may look down on evidence of mental disability or treat it as a sign that the defendant is a serious threat to the community, often with the cooperation of medical professionals. There too is the society's own decision to kill after its failure to heed warnings about particular acts of violence. A hundred men and women executed from 1977 when judicial killing was resumed were reported to have suffered from some form of serious mental illness other than mental retardation. This indicates that one out of 10 in the U.S. judicial death row suffers from mental impairment. Defense lawyers are not always able to detect mental conditions in their client. Inmates likewise do not undergo effective or sufficient mental health examination because of a lack of funds for such assessments. With the resumption of the death penalty in 1977, the Supreme Court has provided some protections for mentally impaired death convicts, but these protections have come only recently or have been limited. In Ford v Wainwright in 1986, the Supreme Court ruled that the execution of the insane violates the Eighth Amendment, which bans cruel and unusual punishment. The prohibitions include practices under the common law of 1789 and those, which violate contemporary values on fundamental human dignity, which the Amendment protects. But the ruling does not define competence for execution nor set specific procedures to determine whether an inmate is legally insane or not. As a consequence, different states set up different standards, further resulting in judicial uncertainty and diminished protection for the seriously mentally impaired inmates. In failing to exempt the mentally ill from execution, the Supreme Court decision also failed to come up with a narrow legal definition of insanity (Amnesty International).

Human Watch (2006) reported that at many as 200,000 or 300,000 men and women in U.S. jails suffer from mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression and that the proportion continued to increase. The growing incidence was viewed as the consequence of inadequate community mental health services and inappropriate punitive criminal justice policies. Studies reflected a rise in the volume of mentally ill prisoners. The Bureau of Jail Statistics said that 16% of adult inmates in state prisons and jails are mentally ill, at times thrice more than patients in mental hospitals. Statistics also revealed that mental illness in prisons and jails was two or three times more than in the general public. The Bureau considered a mentally ill inmate as one who reported a current mental or emotional condition or had an overnight stay in a mental hospital or treatment program. A survey conducted in 1998 found that 19 out of the 31 respondent states had a disproportionate increase in their mentally ill population in the previous years. The reported increase could mean an improvement in the mental health screening and diagnosis of mental health problems in their inmates but it also pointed to the rate at which the mentally ill are being sent to prison. The crisis in the mental health system in the U.S. is seen as contributing to the increase in the number of mentally ill in prisons and jails. The system has been fragmented, chronically under-funded, and largely inaccessible, especially by the minorities. Large numbers who need publicly financed mental health services cannot tap them until they reach an acute psychotic state and have become a danger to themselves and the community. When these individuals are also poor, homeless and suffering from untreated alcoholism or drug addition, they also become more inclined to break the law and get imprisoned. This failure of the mental health system thus contributes largely to the criminalizing of the mentally ill (Human Watch).

Many believe that the mental health system should be made to function more effectively in order to prevent the mentally ill from getting imprisoned (Human Watch 2006). Society's aggressiveness and punitive anti-crime policies, such as those on the war against drugs, have been viewed as largely contributory to the increase in the incidence of mental illness in prison. Such hard-line approaches have not only bloated U.S. jail and prison populations in the last three decades, but also increased the number of mentally ill persons behind bars. Their sheer number has changed prisons into mental facilities, yet prison facilities cannot provide services needed by the mentally ill in both quality and quantity. These prisons do not have sufficient qualified staff to evaluate inmates' mental health and illness, develop and implement appropriate treatment plans and monitor the conditions of these particular inmates. Prison staff members can do only a little more than administer medications, which may also be poorly done or supervised. These inmates live behind bars without the needed diversity of mental health interventions and the long-term, supportive and therapeutic environment required by the condition. Without The necessary care, the inmates undergo painful symptoms and can deteriorate further. State prisons generally or typically treat them in the same way as other inmates, keep them all in the same facilities and subject them to the same routines alike and require identical compliance to the same rules without distinction (Human Rights Watch).

Offenders, whose behavior or act stems from a brain disorder, need and deserve treatment and not punishment (National Alliance of Mental Illness 2006). A prison or jail has never been an appropriate therapeutic setting. Mental health systems must develop and implement programs to persons with untreated brain disorders, which can incline them to engage in criminal acts or behaviors. When these individuals get behind bars, their states and communities confront the legal and ethical obligations to provide them with sufficient and effective treatment while in correctional settings (NAMI).

There should be sufficient education about brain disorders at all levels of judicial and legal systems so as to insure the appropriate disposition of their cases (National Alliance of Mental Illness 2006). These include judges, lawyers, police officers, correctional officers, parole… READ MORE

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