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Not Guilty by Reason of Insanity: Ticket to freedom?

© Michael Decaire

In popular fiction, whether it be literature or movies, you will often come across stories in which an offender is trying to get off scott-free for their crimes by pleading not guilty by reason of insanity (or mental defect). Usually it is considered a 'temporary' insanity in which they claim they are no longer aflicted by. Usually the court finds them not guilty and they are free to go.

Reality, however, is not quite like fiction. First of all, the sure number of attempts at the insanity defense in fiction may cause the layman to believe that this is a common occurance. This is clearly not the case. An attempt to be found not guilty on this grounds is so rare that members of the criminal justice system could easily go their entire careers with out coming across a single case of this type.

A second non-reality factor is the 'temporary' insanity defense. Sure temporary break downs of ones mental health occure. However, a situation in which a person is driven by a completely unstopable rage is so unlikely that its occurance is nearly impossible. Even the most traumatized individuals tend to clearly know the difference between right and wrong.

When the not guilty / insanity defense is used it is typically with an individual with a profound mental illness (e.g., extremely acute schizophrenia). In this case you have an individual who has so departed from reality that they either do not know that what they are doing is wrong or they are not even aware of their actions.

So where does this leave us? If temporary insanity is so unlikely do we have a bunch of people such as you just described using this defense to get away with their crimes??

The answer to this is clearly no. For the most part the insanity defense does not provide the 'free ticket' to freedom that everyone things it does. When an individual is placed into a forensic psychiatric setting as opposed to a prison setting a few comonalities and differences occur.

The individual is still institutionalized. Their freedom has been removed and they are required to stay within the hospital as if they were in prison. A few more rights and privlages may exist. However, this is more a product of the fact that a psychiatric population tends to be smaller then a prison one, and is thereby more managable in terms of non-corrective services.