Using the insanity defense to cheat the system

/in /by

CJUS 400 how criminals plead the insanity defense to avoid the harshness of prison, how they cheat the system

Thesis: The policies under the federal insanity defense towards legitimate mentally ill individuals who genuinely need professional help not only liberates non- mentally ill criminals to avoid serving their full sentence in feral prison but also them disrespecting the system and what it stands for.

  • Be 6 pages (Please include reference page)
  • Use Times New Roman in 12 pt. font, be double spaced, and have 1 inch margins.
  • Use current APA formatting including page numbers with running heads in the upper right hand corner;
  • Utilize academic writing (i.e. neutral gender, no personal pronouns (I, we, our), no rhetorical questions, etc).
  • Cite any idea that is not your own (In a good research paper there should be many citations, and remember the in text citations must be in current APA format).
  • Use at a minimum of 10 scholarly sources including journals from the field (online or hardcopy) and books (the ILRC-Integrated Learning Resource Center- has numerous sources available). Bible verses, case law, and statutes will not count as part of the 10 sources.
Answer preview
The insanity defense has, for a long time, been part of the United States Criminal Justice System (White, 2011). It is one of the contentious defense tactics used by offenders who seek to escape liability or punishments for their illegal actions. For some criminals, the idea that they will spend a substantial portion of their life in prison is too much to take (White, 2011). They see the insanity defense as a way out of such an encumbrance. The actions of such elements have, for quite some time, been the subject of debate for legal scholars and lawyers alike (Adjorlo & Abdul-Nasiru, 2016). The contentious issue is whether the defense accords criminals without genuine mental illness issues with a loophole to escape justice. Some commentators are steadfast in their calls for reforms to get instituted in this area to prevent the miscarriage of justice (Adjorlo et al., 2019). The policies under the federal insanity defense towards legitimate mentally ill individuals who genuinely need professional help not only liberates non-mentally ill criminals to avoid serving their full sentences in federal prison but also them disrespecting the system and what it stands for.(2392 words)