Should Mental Illness Be A Catch-All Excuse To Avoid Punishment For Crime?

[Virote_Considon]

I think it should.

Discuss.

 

[Elrohir]

What kind of mental illness? Are we talking "I'm clinically depressed," or "I think I'm Napoleon and I'm surrounded by demonic bananas"? And for that matter, what kind of punishment? I think most people would view being locked up in a mental institution as a sort of punishment, but I'm not sure what else we could do with truly crazy people.

Define your terms, please.

 

[Camikaze]

Of course not.

Should it always be taken into account when determining responsibility or setting a sentence? Of course!

 

[GenMarshall]

Sounds like a cop out if you try to use mental illness solely as an excuse.

 

[Dachs]

I blame Daniel E. Sickles for this. As if there were any more things of which he could be culpable.

 

[Whiskey_Lord]

Just remember that society creates its own monsters. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

 

[Virote_Considon]

Hence everyone commits serious crimes, eh?!

 

[Tee Kay]

Edit: never mind.

 

[Whiskey_Lord]

I'm of the belief that anyone can become a so-called monster. Most people are just fortunate enough to a) have a stronger grip on their sanity or b) never get pushed far enough to discover the darkness in themselves.

 

[civver_764]

We shouldn't be treating crime with "punishment" in the first place. We should act to fix the problem.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Depends. People who hear voices in their heads, do what these voices tell them and then try to claim mental illness defence, should certainly receive no favourable treatment. If I heard a voice telling me to do some bad stuff, I'd tell that voice to go screw itself.

 

[Skwink]

At school a Mental kid, if he does something bad, gets punished the same as others. Why not in life.

 

[wolfigor]

if with " Punishment" you mean jail time, the answer depend on what is the purpose of jail in your country.
If the target of jail is re-education, then it's right that mentally ills should be cured and not do jail time.
If, instead, the target of jail is punishment, then mentally ill or not, they have to pay for their crime.

In general, I am for punishment

 

[Perfection]

I think it should.

Why?

I think that if one had a realistic understanding of the consequences of ones actions, and the ability to carry out decisions then one deserves to be punished regardless if mental illnesses were contributory (I'm thinking personality disorders specifically).

 

[Cutlass]

Instead of 'innocent by reason of insanity' it should be 'guilty but insane'. We simply do not have sufficiently reliable mental health treatments to release into the public someone who is a danger to others.

 

[bhsup]

Only if the person in question just really cannot tell the difference between right and wrong and is incapable of functioning in society and just doesn't know they did anything wrong. But then, they'll need to be locked up in the psychiatric hospital anyway.

 

[Mathilda]

Moderator Action: Good topic, poor OP. Please when you start threads put a bit more effort into them. If someone wants to restart this thread with some thought put into it, be my guest.
Closed.