Criminals often get rid of punishment due to mental illness. Can it be an excuse? What do you think?
Dear Sanjoy Datta, your question is important in mental health. In the Netherlands patients in the last century committed a lot of violent, aggressive and sexual crimes against nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists and other personnel on the workplace. The excuse was always, they did this because of their mental disorder, in particular because of psychosis. The Dutch national nurse movement NU91 objected against this violence against them on the workplace. Many actions and national measures were implemented. As a result the number of violent and sexual incidents against personnel dropped over several decades. I know that this is only a part of the total answer. But it shows that violence, aggression and sexual incidents can be controlled and that appealing to mental illness is also a matter of cultural habits. Keep your hand off personnel was the slogan. I hope that you like my answer, All the best Carl
If someone suffers from a mental condition which causes him to act ways that endangers others, he should not be punished for his actions.
However, if a person lacks self-control to a degree which endangers others, that person must receive treatment, and should be kept where he can cause no harm.
In other words: mental illness should prevent punishing the perpetrator, but should also lead to the his seclusion from society.
Dear Sanjoy Datta, your question is important in mental health. In the Netherlands patients in the last century committed a lot of violent, aggressive and sexual crimes against nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists and other personnel on the workplace. The excuse was always, they did this because of their mental disorder, in particular because of psychosis. The Dutch national nurse movement NU91 objected against this violence against them on the workplace. Many actions and national measures were implemented. As a result the number of violent and sexual incidents against personnel dropped over several decades. I know that this is only a part of the total answer. But it shows that violence, aggression and sexual incidents can be controlled and that appealing to mental illness is also a matter of cultural habits. Keep your hand off personnel was the slogan. I hope that you like my answer, All the best Carl
Oh dear Pritam, I agree that they should be punished. They should not be beaten to death I hope? A site note is that we found in the Netherlands that the Mental Heath institutions are also making mistakes. They did isolate patient in this period very often. And isolation often resulted in violence etc. An important set of measure been taken, was eliminating isolation of patients by different more humane measures. I hope that you are willing to agree with my point of view Pritam? All the best Carl
'Mental Age' or 'Mental illness' can be measured via IQ test. 'Punishment' for 'Offence' not only strengthen 'Rule of Law' of 'Nation' but also 'Alien' offenders on appropriate plateform
When a person perform any violent crime, s/he is definitely in some sort of abnormal mental state at least temporarily.
But many criminals are not given tough punishment after performing crimes like brutal murder just on the ground that they are mental patients.
Personally I think many of them are relieved for the efficiency of the costly lawyers.
Please have look at this useful RG link.
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Can_someone_commit_a_crime_because_of_their_schizophrenia
This goes back to the McNuaghton rule: if the person does not know right from wrong as a result of a mental deficiency, the rule has held that the person is not repsonsible for the commission of the crime.
Criminals should be put in jails or get the maximum penalty for their crimes. But those who are mad should be examined by specialized doctors. Their punishment should depend on the confirmed reports of doctors with no interference or pressures by politicians or any other parties.
Mental deficiency is not mental illness. Although circumstances, mental state, trauma can always alleviate degrees of punishment, so-called mentally ill people can be fully aware of their actions. I'm afraid it cannot be used as an excuse.
There can be no excuse for random acts of violence, whether it has to do with mental lilnesses or not. If a person is likely to be violent due to a mental disorder, measures have to be taken beforehand to prevent innocents from being harmed. Especially when it comes to people at their workplace. You don’t excuse work accidents on builders, for intance, because of poor safety measures taken on a construction site.
I do not believe mental illness necessarily is an etiology for violence. If you are inclined that way mentally ill or not you will be violent. Most mentally ill people (whatever that means) are not remotely violent.
Personally, I believe a person has to have some kind deviation to commit acts of violence. 'Normal' people don't do these things, so it should not be every criminal's scapegoat. Lately it seems that every case is being excused, regardless of the severity, due to being 'mentally disabled'. *commits murder* "It's okay, they have ADHD and schizophrenia." (literally just saw this on the news)
Note: Not saying people who are mentally ill are violent criminals, it just seems that all these kind of criminals do have an illness lately, so should all acts of violence be forgiven because of this?? Nope.
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