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A short summary on the 8th amendment
A short summary on the 8th amendment
A short summary on the 8th amendment
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Throughout the course of time issues have arose in lawsuits regarding the mentally ill. How one should be handled in a situation has become controversial. With the growing number of ill inmates entering long sentencings or execution, finding a way to accommodate such a matter is difficult. As an effort to serve these persons, officials typically consider a guilty state of mind resulting in placement to mental health facilities in exchange for execution or sentences. Protected under the 8th amendment "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted". If such a notation is present the debate of weather the unbalanced should receive such penalties is contradicting. Persons may be found
How do the issues facing those doing strategic planning differ from those doing tactical planning? Can the two really be
...from completely liking the impact their condition has on their behavior. Mentally handicapped respondents, particularly the individuals who are not fiscally well-to-do, are regularly spoken to by inadequate direction. They say courts frequently choose trial lawyers who are "excessively unpracticed, exhausted, or uninterested" to legitimately shield their customersand left their defendant to make their own particular shutting contentions. At last, mentally retarded respondents face members in the criminal equity framework including barrier lawyers, prosecutors, judges, and juries—who are inconceivably uninformed of the nature and importance of mental handicap, are regularly more concerned with the political and expert results of acquiring a "triumphant" death penalty sentence than genuinely acknowledging the impact this condition has on the indivudual's perception.
The view of the American culture is that executing those who are mental retarded is against our morale's and values. Instead the Amicus Brief provided by the APA helps to give assistance in using a set of procedures to follow when dealing with capital crimes of the mentally retarded (APA, 2013).
Vaknin, Sam. "Many People with Mental Illness Should Not Be Exempt from the Death Penalty." The Death Penalty. Ed. Jenny Cromie and Lynn M. Zott. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2013. Opposing Viewpoints. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Web. 12 Dec. 2013.
"Mentally Ill Offenders in the Criminal Justice System: An Analysis and Prescription." Sentencingproject. The Sentencing Project, Jan. 2002. Web. 07 May 2014.
Is the death penalty consistent with the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against the imposition of cruel and unusual punishments? This essay will address this question and present a short history of the death penalty in America.
Wouldn’t it be completely irrational to sentence every mentally ill individual to jail purely because they suffered from a mental illness? Often, mentally ill people behave in an eccentric manner and allure the attention of police officers who do not differentiate the mentally ill from mentally stable people and immediately charge them with misdemeanors. There are approximately 300,000 inmates, with the number increasing every year, which suffer from a mental illness and do not receive proper treatment. Jails are not adequately equipped to care for mentally ill inmates, which can lead to an escalation of an inmate’s illness. Society has failed to provide enough social resources for citizens suffering from psychiatric illnesses in its community, transferring mentally unstable individuals between mental institutions and jails, when in fact adequate aid such as providing proper medication, rehabilitation opportunities, and more psychiatric hospitals in communities is a necessity to reconstitute these individuals.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world and of that over sixty percent of jail inmates reported having a mental health issue and 316,000 of them are severely mentally ill (Raphael & Stoll, 2013). Correctional facilities in the United States have become the primary mental health institutions today (Adams & Ferrandino, 2008). This imprisonment of the mentally ill in the United States has increased the incarceration rate and has left those individuals medically untreated and emotionally unstable while in jail and after being released. Better housing facilities, medical treatment and psychiatric counseling can be helpful in alleviating their illness as well as upon their release. This paper will explore the increasing incarceration rate of the mentally ill in the jails and prisons of the United States, the lack of medical services available to the mentally ill, the roles of the police, the correctional officers and the community and the revolving door phenomenon (Soderstrom, 2007). It will also review some of the existing and present policies that have been ineffective and present new policies that can be effective with the proper resources and training. The main objective of this paper is to illustrate that the criminalization of the mentally ill has become a public health problem and that our policy should focus more on rehabilitation rather than punishment.
According to a study done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2005, roughly half of all jail and prison inmates in America suffer mental health problems. (James, et al. 2006) The prevalence of mental illness in the corrections system stems in part from the introduction of antipsychotic drugs in the 1960s. These medications helped treat the symptoms of mental illness and allowed many individuals suffering from mental illness to remain in the community. These medications were a great alternative for patients who would have otherwise been committed to mental institutions where they would not have been able to live normal, productive lives and would have received minimal treatment for their illnesses. Subsequent to this decrease of patients,
Courts, are usually established to either declare a defendant innocent or announce him guilty with a particular sentence depending strictly on the crime. However, the Yuma Mental Health Court is like no other court in the U.S Criminal Justice System. This unique court has specifically been established for two main reasons. The first reason, is to maintain mental ill defendants out of any jails or prisons, in order for them to receive proper treatments. The next reason, is that this court tries to help special defendants by sending them to treatment agencies so they can either be provided with medications or get some form of therapy. Yuma County is very fortunate to have this type of court in their area. In this writing, this author will analyze
The Eighth Amendment was ratified on December 15, 1791 and it states “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” (Rossum & Tarr, 2009). However, since the latter part of the 1970’s the United States has proceeded with the execution of 1277 convicted felons (Death Penalty Information Center, 2011). To many people these executions represent a violation of the felon’s constitutional rights and should not have been allowed. On the other hand, if we take an in-depth look, we can see that death caused by electrocution or lethal injection recognizably would not be considered immoral or unjustified provided that the felon was granted a fair trial in a court of law (Bedau, Cassell, 2004).
The insanity defense pertains that the issue of the concept of insanity which defines the extent to which a person accused of crimes may be alleviated of criminal responsibility by reason of mental disease. “The term insanity routinely attracts widespread public attention that is far out of proportion to the defense’s impact on criminal justice” (Butler,133). The decision of this defense is solely determined by the trial judge and the jury. They determine if a criminal suffers from a mental illness. The final determination of a mental disease is solely on the jury who uses evidence and information drawn from an expert witness. The result of such a determination places the individual accused, either in a mental facility, incarcerated or released from all charges. Due to the aforementioned factors, there are many problems raised by the insanity defense. Some problems would be the actual possibility of determining mental illness, justify the placement of the judged “mentally ill” offenders and the total usefulness of such a defense. In all it is believed that the insanity defense should be an invalid defense and that it is useless and should potentially be completely abolished.
Several states authorize police officers to arrest mentally ill people who have not broken any law. It is argued that this process is a way to promote public order. Hospitals also transfer mentally ill patients to jail in order to deal with the overflow. It is not uncommon for children to be confined to criminal detention centers because there is a lack of facilities for severely mentally ill children. Relying on the criminal justice systems to be surrogate mental health systems conflicts with the basic notions of justice. (Aufderheide,
In this assignment, I will address and identify the role of social workers and their practice while working with offenders. Depths that will explore the many outcomes and gains that this role can perceive, along with outlining the strengths and weakness, including the acts and policies that play a vital role in the processes when working with
Mental health and the criminal justice system have long been intertwined. Analyzing and understanding the links between these two subjects demands for a person to go in to depth in the fields of criminology, sociology, psychology, and psychiatry, because there are many points of view on whether or not a person’s criminal behavior is due to their mental health. Some believe that an unstable mental state of mind can highly influence a person’s decision of committing criminal actions. Others believe that mental health and crime are not related and that linking them together is a form of discrimination because it insinuates that those in our society that suffer from poor mental health are most likely to become a criminal due to their misunderstood behavior not being considered a normality in society. In this report I will go into detail of what mental health and mental illness is, what the differentiates a normal and a mentally unstable criminal, give examples of criminal cases where the defendant’s state of mind was brought up, introduce theories surrounding why one would commit crimes due to their mental health, and lastly I will discuss how the criminal justice system has been modified to accommodate mental health issues.