Mental illness and punishment.

[Dylab]

What consideration do you think mental illnesses or any kind of psychological disorders when deciding appropriate punishment for a crime.

[c4ts]

I'm not sure this thread belongs in R&P.

[TragicMonkey]

Depends on the crime, and the mental illness.

If someone is seriously retarded, or has lost part of their brain due to illness, or is prey to wildly fluctuating emotions due to a chemical imbalance, then I think it's only right to let things like public disturbances, flashing, littering, and attempting to lick all the windows in the Kmart slide a bit.

If, however, it's a case of someone shooting up an ice rink full of senior citizens because they were upset that Mommy yelled at Daddy one Christmas morning thirty years ago, perhaps it needn't be considered the best defense strategy.

[RamblingOnwards]

Originally posted by Dylab
What consideration do you think mental illnesses or any kind of psychological disorders when deciding appropriate punishment for a crime.

I believe that mental illness can't be meaningfully punished. Criminal behaviour should either be rehabilitated or isolated, whatever the cause, but punishment is a deterrent, not a rehabilitation. We usually assume that appreciation for consequences is an indication of sanity.

[Rob Lister]

In terms of the law, the only consideration is whether or not the accused had the mental capacity to know his act was wrong at the time.

[SwissSkeptic]

From a legal POV it's important to consider the penal sanctions for each case separately in regard to the personal circumstances. The ability of the particular person to act in accord to the legal expectations at the moment of perpetration has to be considered.

From a moral POV (and I guess that's what you're interested in since you posted this in R&P) I don't think it's the judicarys purpose to punish deviant behavior but to correct it or - in the worst case - to prevent it. So I think the question is: What can we do to help mentally ill people to avoid delinquency? IMO the answer should be rehabilitation and integration whenever it's possible (I'm not talking about homicidal maniacs here).

edited for clarification

[Jas]

Ouch. Tough question.

I think it would have to be decided on a case by case basis.

[IIRichard]

Originally posted by Dylab
What consideration do you think mental illnesses or any kind of psychological disorders when deciding appropriate punishment for a crime.

I believe that at least one reputable and published psychiatrist has argued that mentally ill people should be punished for their crimes. I'll have to wait until my source shows up to get the name.

If I remember correctly, the basis for the assertion was that they had to be shown that their behavior had consequences.
This would , of course, preclude the death penalty.

[Bikewer]

Particularly disturbing to me are instances where obviously delusional individuals commit crimes, and are incarcerated in a mental hospital to undergo treatment until they are rational enough to put on trial.
This seems to me to be a very strange use of "justice" indeed.
We seem to be overly concerned with the possibility of criminals using the "insanity defense" to escape the consequences of their acts.
The fact that someone was having a psychotic episode at the time of whatever they did would certainly be mitigating circumstances.

It also seems to be the case that psychotics who are convicted recieve either little or no treatment while incarcerated.