Foundations of the Defense
The intersection between criminal responsibility and mental capacity has incurred debate amongst policymakers, mental health experts, and communities for centuries. As a society, we hold that those with mental illnesses require accommodations under the law. However, criminal law assumes that individuals with free will should be held responsible for their behavior. The insanity defense represents a legal standard invoked to reconcile these two fundamental standards. In effect, the insanity defense absolves defendant’s of legal accountability on the basis of their mental illness. Over its 150 years of application in the United States legal system, the persistent evolution and progression of the insanity defense reflects both the highly controversial and elusive nature of the definition of “not guilty by reason of insanity.”
The insanity defense is essential to the moral integrity of the law. By making accommodations for the inherent differences between individuals who suffer from sever mental illness and sane individuals, the insanity plea attempts to ensure that all individuals receive equal treatment. However, The prevalence of incarcerated mentally ill attests to the inability of the defense to effectively determine mental illness and provide treatment under the current organization of the policy. In effect, this “robs the mentally ill their right to treatment” (Gracheck 2006). The failures of insanity policy in the United States demand reconsideration.
Two keys reforms are essential to ensure that the integrity of criminal law and the dignity of defendant’s are upheld. First, we must unify around an insanity policy that ensures that mental illness is accurately and equitably determined across the nation. Furthermore, we must reject traditional forms of incarceration in favor of rehabilitative treatment opportunities.
As a nation, we have an obligation to demand reforms and denounce the failings of the criminal justice system “and to assert our autonomy and integrity” as a society committed to the “healing of the mentally and emotionally damaged individuals, rather than contributing toward damaging them further” (Gilligan 2015).