[dropcap]T[/dropcap][dropcap][/dropcap]imothy Crook, a fifty-one year old man, murdered both of his parents and then drove them 150 miles away and buried them. An article from Mirror says, “Crook kicked, punched and stamped on the couple, hit them with a hammer and strangled them with a belt.” Crook suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, and when he was caught soon after killing both of his parents he was “found guilty of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility” stated from Mirror.

The Diminished Responsibility definition “is a defense which states that someone is not mentally well enough to be totally responsible for their crime.”

Giving Crook a charge with diminished responsibility seems wrong right? Many people believe that mentally ill people should not be any less responsible for a serious and sometimes heinous crime, because despite what is going on in their head they still carried out the act. People also believe that saying a person is mentally ill is just an excuse to get a lesser sentence or to get out of going to jail. Lastly, people believe that when a mentally ill person commits a crime they know everything that they are doing, and who they are doing it to. In many cases all of these assumptions are false. These people may do inhumane things, but the average person cannot experience what happens in a schizophrenic’s head. 

Why They aren’t Fully Responsible-

Now I do agree, some mental illnesses should never be an excuse for a crime. Illnesses like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or drug/alcohol addiction are in no way a reason for someone to be held less responsible, they know what they are doing and to whom they are doing it to.

Schizophrenia is a drastically different story from those other illnesses.

People with schizophrenia have frequent delusions and hallucinations. A source on Schizophrenia describes hallucinations as “false perceptions” and “inaccuracies that affect our senses & cause us to hear, see, taste, touch or smell what others do not. In the acute phases of schizophrenia, patients are likely to insist they are hearing voices that no one else can hear. Sometimes they hear noises, clicks or non-word sounds. On occasion they are disturbed by seeing, smelling or feeling things that others do not.”

Therefore when all these things come together the person essentially creates another world, drastically different from what people without schizophrenia see. When these factors add up it can become very frightening and overwhelming for a person with this illness.

The following video by The Doctors youtube page gives people an idea of what is truly going on in schizophrenics heads.

The Medical Daily gives an account of a person with Schizophrenia: “The voices are still awful when they are really loud. They [disgust] me, put me down, shout obscenities, comment on what is happening to me and tell me to do things that put me in danger,” wrote the patient. “I often end up seeing the world in a very different and frightening way and at the time I’m having these delusions I really believe them. I can still get very distressed by it all but these days living with schizophrenia is easier than it was when I was first ill.”

People with Schizophrenia also have delusions with their illness. The same source as above also says that “Delusions are false beliefs or misinterpretations of events & their significance. For instance, a person may get accidentally bumped in the subway & may conclude that this is a Government plot to harass him. He may be awakened by noise from his neighbors apartment & may decide this is a deliberate attempt to interrupt his sleep. Everyone tends to personalize & misinterpret events, especially during times of stress or fatigue. What is characteristic of the schizophrenic however, especially during an acute period, is that the conviction is fixed & alternate explanations for the events experienced are not even considered. Usually attempts at reasoning or discussion about possible other meanings of the bumping or the noise in the night can only lead to the further conviction that the reasoner must be in on the plot, too. Arguing with a delusion only leads to further mistrust or anger. The beliefs are tenaciously held, against all reason, & they are characteristically not shared beliefs. They are held only by the person himself & by no one else.”

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]These delusions make it difficult for the person to comprehend what is real and what is not.[/perfectpullquote]

As a result, when something scary is happening around them, all they want to do is defend themselves from the danger they see.

For example, NAMI tells a story of a woman when she was younger saying, “I didn’t understand why I was hearing and seeing the things I did. They would tell me that the world would benefit if I was no longer around or that I should harm someone just to protect myself.”

This can give people an idea that what schizophrenics go through is truly frightening and shows that they do not fully understand what is happening to them and that they just want to be protected.

Therefore, if they get in trouble for a crime, they are left scared and confused because most of the time they do not know what they did wrong, and they did not mean to do what they did.

They are not Getting Out of Their Crime Easily-

Many people believe that if a person is able to get diminished responsibility for a crime they are “getting it easy.” Which is not the case, according to NAMI “the insanity defense often results in long term institutional placements that can be longer than prison sentences resulting from guilty verdicts.” For this reason, the people that think they are just getting out of their crime easily are completely wrong. They might not be physically going to jail, but they are going to a medical institute where they could possibly spend a much longer time there than their actual jail sentence.

Other people oppose the idea of diminished responsibility because they are scared for their own safety. These people think that the people will be released earlier without learning anything that they did was wrong, which is false. When a mentally ill person gets diminished responsibility they will go to a mental institute where they will get the help and medicine they need. Rather than going to jail where their mental state could worsen.

Why sending People with Schizophrenia to Jail is a Horrible Idea-

These people have a very serious mental condition which needs to be treated with proper medication and medical assistance. NAMI continues to say, “Once in jail, many individuals don’t receive the treatment they need and end up getting worse, not better. They stay longer than their counterparts without mental illness. They are at risk of victimization and often their mental health conditions get worse.”

Image from Max Pixel

This contradicts the idea that mentally ill people who get sent to mental institutes rather than jail are still harmful to society once released. If a person with Schizophrenia gets sent to jail rather than a mental institute they will come out worse than when they went in. NAMI says, “After leaving jail, many no longer have access to needed healthcare and benefits. A criminal record often makes it hard for individuals to get a job or housing. Many individuals, especially without access to mental health services and supports, wind up homeless, in emergency rooms and often re-arrested. At least 83% of jail inmates with a mental illness did not have access to needed treatment.”

If you think about it, a person with Schizophrenia is struggling to get what they need, and sending them to jail makes everything worse for their mental health. Even though they did something wrong in our eyes to get to where they are at, they don’t know what they did was wrong. They cannot stop their hallucinations and delusions, therefore in some ways sending them to jail is a cruel act by hindering their mental health treatment and making them more mentally unstable.

The easy solution to this is to send these people to mental institutes and get them the help they desperately need. Nothing will get better if we do not help them, and people’s fears of not being safe will only increase.

“It’s just an Excuse”-

This is a very common thought from people, but this usually is not the case. There is so much stigma surrounding not only Schizophrenia but any mental illness. This is horrible because the people around them should be supporting them and helping them become better, they should not be saying that their illness is wrong and making them feel like an outcast.

For example, Sarah from a source about ending mental health discrimination says, “Their love and confidence in me gave me a reason and the strength to try and endure the emotional pain and social stigma of having schizophrenia.” Here she is referring to her supportive friends and family.

When confronted with the idea that the person may have this illness they do not want to talk about it because of what others may think of them. Due to their fear, the topic does not come up often. Accordingly, in court most of the time the people around them suggest that they check for a mental illness not the actual person with the illness.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]A big factor in this is that most people with schizophrenia do not know they are mentally ill.[/perfectpullquote]

A source on schizophrenia says that schizophrenics, “think that what they are experiencing is normal rather than a sign of illness.” The same source also gives the definition of Anosognosia which “is an impaired awareness of illness, and it is present in about half of all schizophrenics and around 40% of people with bipolar disorder.” Showing that many people with Schizophrenia do not know they are ill, causing them to not mention their illness often.

“Isn’t Anybody who Commits a Crime not Thinking Straight? Why Should people with Schizophrenia be any different?”-

This is a valid way to look at a case like this, most people who commit a serious crime are not thinking right. But other people are much more aware of what is happening around them than a person with Schizophrenia.

A person with depression who kills someone is drastically different from a person with Schizophrenia who kills someone. The depressed person knows exactly what they are doing and to whom they are doing it to, a person with Schizophrenia does not. This does not make it any less bad, but they see the world differently from the average person.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]Schizophrenics essentially create another world, drastically different from what the average person sees.[/perfectpullquote]

People with Schizophrenia truly believe their hallucinations and delusions are real. One source says, “Violence against others is often a result of misinterpretation of their intent & a resultant feeling of being cornered. A person in the acute stage of schizophrenia may exaggerate other’s irritation & misread it as fury. He may see ridicule in what is meant as jest. He senses himself in danger when he is not & may strike out under those circumstances.” More often than not these people are just scared and trying to protect themselves from what harm that they think others may cause to them.

Featured image by Donald Tong from Pexels