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Burden of proof criminal cases
The role of the criminal justice system
The role of the criminal justice system
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The justification of mental capacity; insanity is descried as a person should not be found guilty of the criminal crime because the person does not have mental capacity to know right from wrong within the crime (GA Code § 16-3-2, 2015). For this justification to exculpate the criminal suspect of lawbreaking, the suspect must show hard evidence that they have some type of mental issue during the crime. Mental disorder demonstrates the formation of an illegitimate act should not be a disagreement (Thompson, 2001). If the suspect is can show that he or she has mental illness, which can hinder him or her from going to penitentiary. However, the suspect will be sentences to a mental medical center for insane individuals for a while. Just by being sentences to a mental medical center is the same being sent to penitentiary. …show more content…
For example, In Georgia, a three-year-old shot and killed his 18-month-old baby brother in the head on a Saturday afternoon at 3:00pm (Time, 2016). The key question in this case is where were the parents when the gun went off. How did the three-year-old found the gun? Why did the three-year-old shot his baby brother in the head with the gun? Why was not the gun put up in a safe place away from the three-year-old? The three-year-old cannot be charge with the wrongly crime that have been committed. However, the three-year-old must get a mental examination done, and protective services (Argosy University Online, 2016). In this case, there was no charges that have been filed
Within the last five years, violent offenses by children have increased 68 percent, crimes such as: murder, rape, assault, and robbery. Honestly, with these figures, it is not surprising at all that the Juveniles Courts focus less on the children in danger, and focus more on dangerous children. This in fact is most likely the underlying reasoning behind juveniles being tried as adults by imposing harsher and stiffer sentences. However, these policies fail to recognize the developmental differences between young people and
“Not guilty by reason of insanity” (NGRI) has often perplexed even the most stringent of legal and psychiatric professionals for centuries. Moreover, it has transcended into the pop culture, as a “loophole”for the criminal society. However, the insanity defense is only used in less than 1% of criminal cases, and used successfully in only 10-25% of those cases (Torry and Billick, 2010). In order to successfully be acquitted by reason of insanity, the legal team, paired with psychiatric professionals, must prove that the defendant is not legally responsible for the crime, despite the evidence that they executed the crime. They must also prove that the defendant, was or is currently suffering from a mental disorder, and that the defendant have/had a impaired logical control of their actions (Smith, 2011). According to Torry and Billick (2010), “A criminal act must have two components: evil intent (mens rea, literally “guilt mind”) and action (actus reus, literally “guilty act”)” (p.225), thus the defendant must prove that he/she did not have “mens rea” or “actus reus.” Equally important to note, the act itself must be voluntary and conscious. The the majority of the psychological and judicial court system have a reluctance to hold defendants who lack the capability needed to understand “right from wrong” (Torry and Billick, 2010). It has been proven that over the course of many years, the NGRI have been difficult to apply. During the early 1980’s, many states modernized their NGRI defense and even abolished the defense altogether. Instead of allowing the the “not guilty by reason of insanity” defense, many states have established a verdict of “guilty but mentally ill” (GBMI) (Smith, 2011). In order to make sure that individuals w...
Mental illness affects one in four adults every year ("NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness | Mental Illnesses"). Mental illness effects thousands who may not even be aware of it. Many who are aware do not receive treatment until something bad happens in result of not receiving treatment. These illnesses affect all aspects of the person’s life. They often do things without the knowledge of what they are doing. Many people who do have these illness commit crimes without the knowledge of the fact that they are doing wrong. People often do not believe that having a mental illness gives people the right to commit a crime, and it doesn’t. It merely suggests that the person who committed said crime was not aware of their actions therefore cannot be held accountable for the wrongdoing. Families of the victims usually are oblivious to what mental illness is and own they do end up educating themselves wondering why these people never got help so their loved one may have been spared. Mentally ill persons should be exempt from the death penalty because they are in a questionable state of mind, they will become low risk if they receive treatment, and the families of the victims do not want them to receive the death penalty.
Mental Illness has been prevalent all throughout our history from Isaac Newton to Abraham Lincoln to Sylvia Plath and so on. These illnesses can be as minor as a slight bipolar disorder or as severe as schizophrenia. In recent years, mental illnesses are becoming more prevalent in our criminal justice systems than anywhere else. Mental illness is becoming an association with crime and based on the information that has been found, this paper will attempt to further define the problem of mental illness within our criminal justice system and offer alternatives or insights as to how to possibly help with this problem.
Thirteen-year-old boy, Cristian Fernandez of Jacksonville, Florida was born on January 14 of 1999 to a mother who was as old as he is today. On March 15 2011, he was arrested relating to the alleged beating of his 2-year-old brother, David. At the time of his arrest, David was under care of St. Luke’s Hospital, receiving treatment for injuries he sustained the day before. It states that Cristian shoved his 2-year-old brother against a bookshelf, causing the young child to have severe head damage. Cristian’s mom, who was only 24 at the time, arrived at the apartment to reveal what happened just moments before. However, it states that his mom did not even call the police or take her son to the hospital until 6 hours after the accident happened. Both Cristian and his mom were charged with murder and Cristian went to court facing life in an adult prison. However, the court found out that Cristian had once been physically, emotionally, and sexually abused by his once stepfather. That been said, Cristian more than likely needed some sort of counseling. However, they still believed that this 12 year-old boy should be tried as an adult. Cristian has been detained for over a year and has not yet had a trial. He faces two trials on three separate indictments brought by State Attorney (“Reverse”). There is no logical reason to deny a child their right to the programs and treatment provided through the juvenile court system.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and of that over sixty percent of jail inmates reported having a mental health issue and 316,000 of them are severely mentally ill (Raphael & Stoll, 2013). Correctional facilities in the United States have become the primary mental health institutions today (Adams & Ferrandino, 2008). This imprisonment of the mentally ill in the United States has increased the incarceration rate and has left those individuals medically untreated and emotionally unstable while in jail and after being released. Better housing facilities, medical treatment and psychiatric counseling can be helpful in alleviating their illness as well as upon their release. This paper will explore the increasing incarceration rate of the mentally ill in the jails and prisons of the United States, the lack of medical services available to the mentally ill, the roles of the police, the correctional officers and the community and the revolving door phenomenon (Soderstrom, 2007). It will also review some of the existing and present policies that have been ineffective and present new policies that can be effective with the proper resources and training. The main objective of this paper is to illustrate that the criminalization of the mentally ill has become a public health problem and that our policy should focus more on rehabilitation rather than punishment.
Wouldn’t it be completely irrational to sentence every mentally ill individual to jail purely because they suffered from a mental illness? Often, mentally ill people behave in an eccentric manner and allure the attention of police officers who do not differentiate the mentally ill from mentally stable people and immediately charge them with misdemeanors. There are approximately 300,000 inmates, with the number increasing every year, which suffer from a mental illness and do not receive proper treatment. Jails are not adequately equipped to care for mentally ill inmates, which can lead to an escalation of an inmate’s illness. Society has failed to provide enough social resources for citizens suffering from psychiatric illnesses in its community, transferring mentally unstable individuals between mental institutions and jails, when in fact adequate aid such as providing proper medication, rehabilitation opportunities, and more psychiatric hospitals in communities is a necessity to reconstitute these individuals.
Lamb, H. Richard., Weinberger, Linda E., & Gross, Bruce H. (2004). Mentally ill persons in the criminal justice system: Some Perspectives. Psychiatric Quarterly 75(2): 107-126.
Prior to taking this course, I generally believed that people were rightly in prison due to their actions. Now, I have become aware of the discrepancies and flaws within the Criminal Justice system. One of the biggest discrepancies aside from the imprisonment rate between black and white men, is mental illness. Something I wished we covered more in class. The conversation about mental illness is one that we are just recently beginning to have. For quite a while, mental illness was not something people talked about publicly. This conversation has a shorter history in American prisons. Throughout the semester I have read articles regarding the Criminal Justice system and mental illness in the United States. Below I will attempt to describe how the Criminal Justice system fails when they are encountered by people with mental illnesses.
Much of my skepticism over the insanity defense is how this act of crime has been shifted from a medical condition to coming under legal governance. The word "insane" is now a legal term. A nuerological illness described by doctors and psychiatrists to a jury may explain a person's reason and behavior. It however seldom excuses it. The most widely known rule in...
However, many states recognize that minors, especially children, are at a confusing impressionable, chaotic age of transition. If a teen commits a murder, that youth should be given the opportunity to set his or her life straight. Juveniles still have a lot of growing up to do. It may mean many years in prison and loss of their freedom, but it would also mean that there is at least a chance for a young life to reform.
When someone commits a crime, he or she may use mental illness as a defense. This is called an insanity plea or insanity defense. What the insanity defense does is try to give the alleged perpetrator a fair trial. At least in extreme cases, society agrees with this principle. The problem is where do we draw the line. Under what circumstances is a person considered insane, and when are they not? The trouble with the insanity defense in recent years is the assumption that virtually all criminals have some sort of mental problem. One important point is that the crime itself, no matter how appalling, does not demonstrate insanity. Today, the insanity defense has become a major issue within the legal system. If the defendant is clearly out of touch with reality, the police and district attorney ordinarily agree to bypass the trial and let the defendant enter a mental hospital.
The insanity defense pertains that the issue of the concept of insanity which defines the extent to which a person accused of crimes may be alleviated of criminal responsibility by reason of mental disease. “The term insanity routinely attracts widespread public attention that is far out of proportion to the defense’s impact on criminal justice” (Butler,133). The decision of this defense is solely determined by the trial judge and the jury. They determine if a criminal suffers from a mental illness. The final determination of a mental disease is solely on the jury who uses evidence and information drawn from an expert witness. The result of such a determination places the individual accused, either in a mental facility, incarcerated or released from all charges. Due to the aforementioned factors, there are many problems raised by the insanity defense. Some problems would be the actual possibility of determining mental illness, justify the placement of the judged “mentally ill” offenders and the total usefulness of such a defense. In all it is believed that the insanity defense should be an invalid defense and that it is useless and should potentially be completely abolished.
Mental health and the criminal justice system have long been intertwined. Analyzing and understanding the links between these two subjects demands for a person to go in to depth in the fields of criminology, sociology, psychology, and psychiatry, because there are many points of view on whether or not a person’s criminal behavior is due to their mental health. Some believe that an unstable mental state of mind can highly influence a person’s decision of committing criminal actions. Others believe that mental health and crime are not related and that linking them together is a form of discrimination because it insinuates that those in our society that suffer from poor mental health are most likely to become a criminal due to their misunderstood behavior not being considered a normality in society. In this report I will go into detail of what mental health and mental illness is, what the differentiates a normal and a mentally unstable criminal, give examples of criminal cases where the defendant’s state of mind was brought up, introduce theories surrounding why one would commit crimes due to their mental health, and lastly I will discuss how the criminal justice system has been modified to accommodate mental health issues.
With social media as it is today, more often than not, the offender is guilty until proven innocent by the courts. Alternative sentencing is also a part of the neoclassical theory. Community service, psychological treatments and ankle monitoring bracelets are some forms of sentencing just to name a few. If someone is mentally ill, they punishment may not necessarily fit the crime, because the offender may not realize what they did was wrong. There would need to be an alternative form of sentencing for these individuals. Sticking them in a prison cell, is not going to help them in any way shape or form. Mentally ill individuals are not prominent in prison and some do receive the exact help they are needing. Alternative methods may not be the best way to deter crime and stricter punishment possibly should be enforced. Once offenders know the sentence is going to be detrimental, then they may rethink about committing more crimes. Not to the extreme of like some foreign countries, that if you steal, they cut your hands off, but just more severe punishment or harsher punishment the first time they appear in court, instead of waiting until the third or fourth