Criminals with Mental Illnesses

1022 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Criminal behaviour biological and psychological

Many criminals in the United States suffer from mental illnesses, most commonly is Schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia has many symptoms, some of them are, delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking or speech, and abnormal behavior. Symptoms of Schizophrenia in teenagers can be withdrawn from friends or family, a drop in performance in school, trouble sleeping, depressed or an irritable mood, and a lack of motivation.
In 1981 Steven Steinberg was charged with killing his wife, Elena by stabbing her with a kitchen knife 26 times. Steinberg called the police that night and reported an attempted burglary gone wrong. The police found no forced entry. Steinberg committed a murder in his sleep, people call it sleepwalking murder. Sleepwalking murder is a Parasomnia manifested by automatism, it can cause harmful or dangerous actions when committed in this state, although, any harmful actions done in this state of mind cannot be blamed on the perpetrator. Steinberg states that he does not remember the crime, but he does not deny it. He was found not guilty because he was temporally insane. Steinberg was set free because he was not held criminally responsible for the death of his wife.
Jeffrey Dahmer is a notorious sex offender, serial killer, cannibalism, necrophilia, and dismemberment. His first murder was in 1978, Dahmer beat to death a hitchhiker, Steven
Hicks while in the woods because ‘the guy wanted to leave and I didn’t want him too’. In September 1987, Dahmer picked up Steven Tuomi at a gay bar and killed him out of impulse. Dahmer claimed no memory later on. In 1988, Dahmer was arrested for giving drugs and sexually fondling a thirteen year old boy. Jeffrey Dahmer proceeded to commit 15 murders, storing the corpses in a vat...

... middle of paper ...

...y for her part in acting as the star witness. Atkins was sentenced to death, but was later commuted life in prison. She was in prison from 1969 until her death in 2009

Works Cited
“ADHD, Asperger’s Syndrome, and Autism can get you arrested.” BrowardBar. 2014. Web. April 2014.
“Bipolar Disorder” mayoclinic. 1998-2014. Web. 8 May 2014.
Jones, Caitlin. “Genetic and Enviromental Influences on Criminal Behavior.” Personalityresearch.2005. Web. 30 April 2014.
Jones, Caitlin. “Personality Disorders and Traits.” Personalityresearch. 2005. Web. 30 April 2014.
“Schizophrenia” mayoclinic. 1998-2014. Web. 8 May 2014.
Tatar, Jeffrey. “Criminal Behavior and Personality Disorder.” Personalityresearch. 2005. Web. 30 April 2014.
Yoong, Gideon. “Top 10 Notorious Insanity Defense Cases.” Listverse. 11 April 2012. Web. 8 May 2014.
“Charles Manson.” Biography. 2014. Web. 22 May 2014.

Show More
Related

  • Parental Filicide Case Study

    1537 Words  | 4 Pages

    The reasons or categories for committing filicide include: altruistic filicide, acutely psychotic filicide, unwanted child filicide, accidental filicide, and spousal revenge filicide. The cases that will be discussed in this paper will fall under the altruistic filicide, acute psychotic filicide, and unwanted child. One case that was highly publicized and brought filicide to the forefront of America’s minds was Andrea Yates. Andrea murdered all five of her children by drowning them in the bathtub in her home. Prior to this incident, Andrea had been in and out of hospitals and mental health institutions for depression and psychosis (West).

    Read More

  • Development Dynamics And Forensics By Lawrence Miller

    1712 Words  | 4 Pages

    Serial murderers are an atypical occurrence in the criminal justice system. The uncommon and horrific nature of these crimes are

    Read More

  • Serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer

    2515 Words  | 6 Pages

    Lionel and Joyce Dahmer gave birth to their first born, Jeffrey Dahmer, on May 21, 1960 in Milwaukee. Despite Joyce experiencing a difficult pregnancy, Dahmer was a healthy child who was wanted and adored by both his parents. However, his mother did start to become distant to him as she refused to breast feed him and started demonstrating unstable behavior along with substance abuse. Meanwhile, his father was pursuing his doctoral for chemistry in Iowa which limited the time Lionel had with his family. At age five, Dahmer’s little brother was born and that was when the feeling of neglect set in him. For the first time, the little attention provided from his parents had to be shared with his brother David. Dahmer began displaying extreme shyness but also severe tantrums. During the ages of six and seven, Dahmer “was regarded by other children as odd and bizarre (Martens, 2005).” Even though he did not show any interest in developing genuine social relations, Dahmer did demonstrate a fascination with bug and animal dissections. When Dahmer was six he had “undergone hernia surgery, when he woke up from the anesthesia he was worried someone could have cut his genitals, the pain lasted for one week and after a long recovery period his parents remember he turned to be very loner (Giannetakis, n.d.).” It is believed that at age eight Dahmer had been sexually abused by a boy in his neighborhood (Hickey, 2013). If this event did occur, it could explain why he developed destructive sexual fantasies at the young age of twelve. Despite him being aloof, it has been reported that he would seek attention by faking epileptic seizures at school and local shops. By his adolescent years, he developed compulsive masturbation which would eventually lead to legal trouble (Silva, 2002). At the age of fourteen, Dahmer turned to alcohol abuse in order to overcome his feeling of despair and compulsive thoughts of sexual violent acts.

    Read More

  • Soulless Monsters: A Closer Look at Antisocial Personality Disorder.

    1841 Words  | 4 Pages

    -Bardsley, M., Bell, R., and Lohr, D. 2009. The BTK Story. Retrieved December 9, 2009 from http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/unsolved/btk/index_1.html : This was a reliable source since it collected it’s information from police records, first hand accounts and testimony from the trial. This resource was very helpful because it presented a high-profile case of a person suffering from this disorder.

    Read More

  • Perry Smith: A Passion to Kill

    1346 Words  | 3 Pages

    Print. The. “Dahmer, Jeffrey Lionel.” The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Life. Ed.

    Read More

  • The Insanity Pleas: How Insane Is The Insanity Plea

    648 Words  | 2 Pages

    In 1941, two brothers sat in court smashing their heads on the desks until they bled, barking like dogs, and crying sporadically. They weren’t insane, but that was exactly what the men wanted the jury to think. Anthony and William Esposito were being charged for robbing a payroll truck and shooting someone in the process. The jury was still skeptical until, ten months before the sentence, the Esposito brothers began to refuse any and all food they were offered. Almost a year later, the men were taken, in their almost dead state, to the electric chair and were executed. This is only one of the many examples of the insanity defense being abused. In this case, the criminals did not succeed in getting out of punishment, but there have been many successful cases that are being questioned too late. Although the insanity plea is important to those who have medical record of a psychological disorder, our “perfect” law needs to fine-tune the defense to prevent people from using it to escape going to jail or being executed.

    Read More

  • FILICIDE

    782 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are other causes that are independent of the above; a good example is probably the famous case of Susan Smith who was accused in 1994 of drowning all her two children in the lake . In her hearing, she pleaded insanity but she was sentenced to life imprisonment when the court found out that she had murdered her children because her boyfriend did not want children and she wanted to be with him.

    Read More

  • Psychological Disorders

    1870 Words  | 4 Pages

    Yoong, Gideon. "Top 10 Most Notorious Insanity Defense Cases." Listverse. (2012): n. page. Web. 30 Mar. 2014. .

    Read More

  • The Insanity Defense

    1267 Words  | 3 Pages

    Much of my skepticism over the insanity defense is how this act of crime has been shifted from a medical condition to coming under legal governance. The word "insane" is now a legal term. A nuerological illness described by doctors and psychiatrists to a jury may explain a person's reason and behavior. It however seldom excuses it. The most widely known rule in...

    Read More

  • Mentally ill Criminals

    1250 Words  | 3 Pages

    The issue of executing mentally ill criminals has been widely debated among the public. They debate on whether it is right or wrong to execute a person who does not possess the capacity to think correctly. The mental illness is a disease that destroys a person’s memory, emotion, and prevent one or more function of the mind running properly. The disease affects the way a person thinks, feels, behaves and relates to others.When a person is severely mentally ill, his/ her ability to appreciate reality lack so they aspire to do stuff that is meaningless. The sickness is triggered by an amalgamation of genetic, and environmental factors not a personal imperfection. On the death penalty website, Scott Panetti who killed his mother in-law and father-in-law reports that since 1983, over 60 people with mental illness or retardation have been executed in the United States (Panetti). The American Civil Liberties Union says that it is unconstitutional to execute someone who suffered from an earnest mental illness (ACLU).Some people apply the term crazy or mad to describe a person who suffers from astringent psychological disorders because a mad person look different than a mundane human being. The time has come for us to accept the fact that executing mentally ill offenders is not beneficial to society for many reasons. Although some mentally ill criminals have violated the law, we need to sustain a federal law that mentally ill criminals should not be put to death.

    Read More

  • Essay On Jeffrey Dahmer

    1690 Words  | 4 Pages

    Within those nine years, Dahmer went to Ohio State University for a semester, enlisted and got kicked out of the military, and finally. was convicted and released for touching himself in front of children. A wild seven years ago. His second murder victim was Steven Tuomi. Although, the process of the murder was almost exactly like the murdering of Hicks, Dahmer was not charged for the murder of Tuomi due to the lack of evidence.

    Read More

  • Lt. Manion's Trial Analysis

    773 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the 1959 film Anatomy of a Murder Lieutenant Frederick Manion is accused and tried for the murder of Barney Quill; the accused rapist of Mrs. Manion, the wife of the defendant. Citing temporary insanity due to an “irresistible impulse” to seek justice for his wife’s rape, a jury finds Lt. Manion not guilty in the death of Barney Quill by reason of insanity Although the Hollywood interpretation of the insanity defense in Anatomy of a Murder results in a verdict favorable to the defense, this is not typically the case in real life criminal trials due to the specificity of circumstances that are required to support that defense. Specifically, if Lt. Manion’s trial were a real case and tried in the state of Maryland in the year 2014, his defense strategy

    Read More

  • Jeffrey Dahmer's Use Of Control Theory

    1080 Words  | 3 Pages

    Dahmer was a pretty normal, but very lonely kid. His loneliness followed him throughout the course of his life. Never having an intimate friendship or relationship, along with being consumed with confusion over his own sexuality eventually led him to become the household name he is today. From 1978 to 1991, Dahmer murdered 17 boys and men. Not only is he considered a murderer, but he committed (on several occasions) rape and dismemberment. After his later murders, he was found guilty of necrophilia, cannibalism, and permanent preservation of body parts. He is arguably the most well known, gruesome, and intriguing criminal in American history.

    Read More

  • Jeffrey Dahmer's Three Criminological Theories

    1016 Words  | 3 Pages

    During Dahmer’s psychiatric evaluation, Dr. Wahlstrom concluded, “Jeffrey was suffering from a mental illness never cured for” (FBI 1992). This leads me to perceive that Dahmer must have been displaying psychotic traits that went unnoticed and undocumented during his early lifetime. I can only speculate that this uncured mental illness lead Dahmer to develop and refine his inability to empathize with society; which in turn, lead him to engage in cruelty without mentally comprehending the victim’s suffering. Although the causes for psychopathy are unclear, some suggest that psychogenic aspects can outline abnormalities which may be present in psychopaths (Schmalleger 2014). When looking at Dahmer’s distant relationship with his parents early on in his childhood, I became conscious of the fact the lack of affection from his parents which may have lead him to develop twisted views on how one should display affection to others, thus prompting him to show psychotic behavior later on in life (The profile of Jeffrey Dahmer 1996). Even though the letter of the law fails to describe Dahmer and even if he was not fit to stand trial, I believe the court would have declared him fit for trial due to the brutality of the

    Read More

  • Jeffrey Dahmer

    1157 Words  | 3 Pages

    Trying to help his son, Lionel assisted Jeffrey get into the University of Ohio. But it was already too lateJeff Dahmer made his first killing at age 17, when he picked up a hitchhiker , brought him home, murdered him, and scattered the bone fragments in the woods behind the Dahmer home.

    Read More

More about Criminals with Mental Illnesses

Open Document