The Pros And Cons Of Mentally Ill Offenders

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Pages: 4

The United States of America is showing no sympathy to mentally ill citizens and are

putting them behind bars, in homeless shelters and in coffins instead of a safe place where they

can recover. Many Americans think that all of us humans are not able to define “insanity”

unequivocally. However, mentally ill people who are unlucky are often committing crimes.

Mentally ill offenders shouldn’t be held responsible for their actions. They shouldn’t be held

responsible because if the state kills one mental ill person they are only safe from that one

person; there are many mentally ill people out there that can do the same injustice, if mentally ill

offenders don’t have the skills to stand trials they should be sent to a mental hospital
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According to Vaknin, “the legal system’s tests to determine whether a person can be

considered mentally ill under the law are often viewed by mental health professionals as

subjective, biases, and flawed” (1). Statements from many articles has come to conclude that if

they passed these test they should be held criminally responsible. However, “the Eighth

Amendment forbids the execution only of those who are unaware of the punishment they are

about to suffer” (4). On the contrary due to having a different mindset the mentally ill offenders

would take these tests and wouldn’t know what they are doing until they receive the punishment.

Mental Illness is becoming a major issue in society and it is because people to do vicious

acts that can lead to death. The mentally ill should be in a safe place recovering so that they can

adapt to the real world and wouldn’t receive problems. Mental disorder is not an illness of

developing. It commonly established during adolescence, generally stealing humans of

generations of health. Mentally ill offenders shouldn’t be held responsible for their actions.