“Between 400,000 and 500,000 get murdered per year!” said the website Quora. People are committing terrible crimes that are killing themselves and or other people, and it is getting worse than it was before. People who are committing crimes need to be stopped.
To start with, people, are committing terrible crimes which are hurting themselves and or other people. This is absolutely horrible, it is not right that people are hurting other people and or themselves for no reason. An example of a crime is murder. “Chicago’s murder rate in 2015 was 509 murders”, “in 2016 there were 762 murders” and in 2017 so far is 203 murders in 5 months. This is a lot of murders per year and a lot of innocent lives that have been taken. Said John Gramlich author
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Mentally ill people are usually the people who are committing the crimes, because of their insecurities and problems that they are facing. It is very disappointing that people need help but won't get help and resort to crime instead of a hospital. Based on what I read from washingtonpost. People usually commit crimes after something has happened, such as a divorce a death in their family or a loss of a job. Some crimes that they will do is stealing items from people or from stores, murder, drug dealing and or buying drugs, kidnapping and much more. It is frustrating for them and for the others, they are hurting because most of the time they can’t control what they do, and will be doing these terrible things just because they can't control themselves. Sometimes after mentally ill people commit the crimes and they get caught, instead of going to jail for many years they will go to a mental hospital for a few months and will come out a completely different person said David Kopel author of Facts About Mental Illness. This helps the get away from
In the book Crazy in America by Mary Beth Pfeiffer, she illustrated examples of what people with mental illness endure every day in their encounters with the criminal justice system. Shayne Eggen, Peter Nadir, Alan Houseman and Joseph Maldonado are amongst those thousands or more people who are view as suspected when in reality they are psychotic who should be receiving medical assistance instead, of been thrown into prison. Their stories also show how our society has failed to provide some of its most vulnerable citizens and has allowed them to be treated as a criminals. All of these people shared a common similarity which is their experience they went through due to their illness.
The statement “ the psychopaths is not mentally ill” made me realize that I didn’t truly understand what it meant to be mentally ill was, however I thought that a good starting place would be to firstly understand what it meant to be “healthy”. The first place I looked at was what it meant to be ‘mentally healthy’. according to the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, being mentally ‘healthy’ is a “state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully” producing an interesting idea that being ‘healthy’ implying a deep connection with firstly acting sociable and secondly rationally. Mental illness on the other hand was as expected, the complete opposite to being ‘healthy’. It is described to be “health conditions that are characterized by alterations in thinking, mood, or behaviour (or some combination thereof) associated with distress and/or impaired functioning” inferring that to be mentally unwell is to gain an issue with you mind that causes changes to you personality relative to how you were perceived while ‘healthy’, therefore causing changes in your rational and also you sociability, the information also dictated that mental illness are a developing factor, that derive from social or environmental stressor at any time and to anyone.
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.
In recent years, more and more people have become aware of crime and murder. It is something that has affected them, their families and neighborhoods. Just about everyone in the world knows someone who has become a victim of murder, rape, and or robbery. In most cases the suspects are heartless and have no remorse in regards to the crime they committed. Some individuals are repeat offenders who have received a slap on the wrist from the justice system or only faced small jail time. A recent report by the Senate judiciary Committee, called America the "most violent and self-destructive nation on earth", and it was noted that violent crime in America had increased by 516% since 1960 (Economist, 1992). Many individuals have tried to come up with solutions and scare tactics attempting to deter those who commit crime. It appears that solutions are failing.
The type of crimes that these offenders commit can either be minor or violent crimes. It has been an issue on how people think that having a mental illness leads to violent crimes, when in reality not all of them commit violent crimes. An example of an offender committing these type of crimes would be Johnnie Baxstrom. Johnnie Baxstrom was a mentally ill offender who had committed numerous crimes throughout his life like drinking and property offenses. It wasn’t until October 21, 1958 where he committed a violent act by attacking and stabbing a police officer with a knife. In essence, according to studies people with severe psychological illnesses are more than 10 times more likely to be victims of violent crimes than the general
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.
Although there are people, who understand that victims are not mentally ill, some of the services do not. You should examine fully people’s experience during the crime and provide them help, because some victims avoid mental help mostly because they do not want to experience the same thing all over again. You must show understanding to them. On the other hand you have the group of mentally ill people. You should be even more careful with them, because of their state of mental health. The bad thi...
To start, they are more expensive to house, due to the added medical and therapy needs. Plus, they often remain incarcerated longer than regular prisoners. In addition to the monetary aspects, these offenders face other obstacles and cause other difficulties while incarcerated. A large majority of inmates with mental illness are there for committing a violent crime. This means that they require a high-security-placement and are housed with non-mentally ill offenders with violent proclivities. As a result, mentally ill inmates are more likely to be abused, beaten, and raped. Due to the circumstances, coupled with their mental instability, these inmates also have a greater risk of committing suicide. They also cause more disciplinary problems that regular inmates, undoubtedly caused by their mental problems. Mentally ill inmates are more inclined to break the rules and are involved in more fights and physical assaults than most inmates, resulting in more time in solitary confinement. (Seiter,
Crime can be described combination between both behavior and mental factors. This will prove incredibly crucial in the definition of crime in relation to mental illness. Many of those that commit crimes are not convicted due to their illness so it is important to note, for the purpose of this analysis, that all illegal activity is considered crime, regardless of conviction (Monahan and Steadman 1983). It is evident that those with mental illnesses have an increased likelihood of committing crimes. It is important to note, however, that not all people with mental illnesses commit crimes or violent behavior so a cause is not evident.
The stereotype that goes hand in hand with mental illness that though seems to have improved over the years is still pervasive. Teplin, Abram & McClelland (1994) state that people in general, believe that people with mental illness are more likely to commit violent crime with those without mental illness. In their study they seek to find evidence to that statement – to learn if having a mental illness increases the likeliness of violent crime and recidivism after release from prison. This author seeks to discover the same using similar data to learn if there is a connection between violent crime and mental illness.
We hear on the news about how a person has committed a homicide, or even a treacherous crime. The first thing that pops into one's head is something has to be wrong with that person, but really there isn't anything wrong with them at all. So, are mentally ill people also criminals? Studies suggest that there is no correlation between mental illness and crime.
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.
“I don’t think you should support the death penalty to seek revenge. I don’t think that’s right. I think the reason to support the death penalty is because it saves other people’s lives.” -- President George Bush
Most Mentally ill people are not violent and repeated studies have shown that there is only a small significant association with mental illness. Many people presume that crimes that are committed are committed by people with mental illness due to not knowing the facts because most people shy away from educating their selves about mental illness and what it is.
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