Claim: Acquitting mentally ill individuals represents a threat to public safety.
The primary goal of the criminal justice system is to ensure the retention of criminal offenders in order to preserve the well being of society. Individuals frequently voice concerns that focusing on rehabilitation for the mentally ill jeopardizes this role.
Response: Acquitting mentally ill individuals and providing them with adequate treatment is in the best interest of society as a whole.
However, at the end of the prison sentences that this argument proposes, evidence indicates that “mentally ill offenders are often still dangerous when they return to society because they have not received psychiatric treatment in prison” (Gracheck 2006). When insane offenders return to society, the threat was attempted to be corrected by punishment and deterrence. As previously mentioned, the danger posed by mentally ill offenders remains because they did not receive the medical treatment required during their sentences. Meanwhile, psychologists attest that “the best way to ensure this policy rationale is the restraint of the mentally ill offenders in rehabilitation facilities, in which the offender is released, and subsequently monitored, only upon a satisfactory mental health examination” (Gracheck 2006). Individuals held in prisons without treatment are released when they satisfy the length of their sentencing. Meanwhile, controlled treatment facilities require offenders to meet mental health thresholds before release. Contrary to popular belief, rehabilitation practices hold greater promise for public safety. It is in the best interest of society to have mentally stable individuals that underwent treatment rather than mentally unstable individuals that underwent punishment roaming the streets. Mental health facilities aim to remedy mental illness, while tradition prison institutions simply attempt to restrain it. Thus, it is not only in the best interest of individual, but society as a whole to ensure effective treatment for the mentally ill.