The Mad, the Bad and the Innocent

"The Mad, the Bad and the Innocent: The criminal mind on trial," by Barbara Kirwin. This was a very interesting book, from the point of view of a forensic psychologist who has, with some high profile exceptions, testified mostly for the prosecution. It was an interesting look at the insanity defense, and I think it a good starting point for anyone interested in taking a serious look at one facet of how society deals with mental illness.

We ignore the issue of mental illness so often. We bring all of our fears, prejudices and ignorance to bear when mentally ill individuals commit crimes. The mentally ill are relatively easy to punish since few truly mentally ill people are capable of effectively participating in their own defense. We don't have coherent standards for determining who is suffering from a mental illness that genuinely impairs their decision making process and/or their ability to determine right from wrong and who is merely manipulating the system to escape responsibility for their criminal actions. We lump psychotics and psychopaths together and presume that they are all, quite literally, trying to get away with murder. We are suspicious that everyone claiming insanity as a defense is malingering and all too often the public perception is that a verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity means that a defendant is released back into the community and not punished at all. So we tighten up the criteria for using an insanity defense and then use the prison system to warehouse increasing numbers of mentally ill individuals, when most prisons lack the resources to serve the mentally ill. One of the first areas we cut when budgets get tight is funding for mental health. Consequently, existing mental health facilities often can't provide appropriate security and treatment for the criminally insane.

I think it a measure of a society how it treats those least able to speak up for and defend themselves. The mentally ill are a very vulnerable group, and are often stigmatized and misunderstood, even by otherwise rational and intelligent people, including legal and medical professionals.

Anyhow, this book is really very thought provoking, even if you don't agree with the author's perspective (she's pretty skeptical of the so-called "designer defenses", such as the infamous "Twinkie defense" and defenses used by the Menendez brothers; she feels, and I agree, that such defense strategies play into public ignorance about mental illness and ultimately harm those individuals who genuinely suffer from mental illnesses).