Criminal Insanity example essay topic

Some traits or dispositions are inherited, but the continuity of behavior, including antisocial activity, is maintained by social contexts and other aspects of the environment, -Av shalom Caspi. Insanity is described as a mental defect or disorder sufficient to prevent a person from knowing the difference between right and wrong and his own actions. Insanity applies to criminals in an interesting way. If a criminal does not know the difference how can they be held accountable for the crimes they commit?

This problem has plagued lawyers, jury members and defendants for a long time. A common belief as to why people become criminally insane is because of the way they were treated when they were children. Many examples can be found to support this theory. One example would be Charles Manson, he was the son of a teenage, bisexual, alcoholic prostitute. Also Pedro Alonso Lopez who was believed to be linked to over 300 murders, was kicked out of his house when he was 8 years old. These cases as well as many others seem to indicate a correlation between abuse as a child and violent tenancies as an adult.

Sher vert Frazier, a psychologist, concluded that many killers have been subject to brutalizing treatment the generated murderous emotions in them. For example Jeffery Dahmer as a child liked to torture and kill animals. As an adult he did the same to humans. Many scientists believe that there are ways to predict who will eventually become criminally insane or commit horrendous crimes. They think that children who spend most of their childhood's with behavioral and social problems and enter puberty earlier that their peers seem most likely to turn into violent criminals. A persons environment is what makes them into what they are, and since society controls the environment people live in it is logical to assume society has a greater impact on people.

Often if a person feels segregated or excluded they will become very self-dependant and uncaring toward others. Ed, Kemper, a serial killer had a near genius I.Q. and because of this was excluded by his peers as a child. It is possible that this exclusion is what eventually caused him to do the things he did. The insanity defense almost never works for criminals when on trial for murder. Many times a jury will look for signs of premeditation, which may be one, sign that the killer is not insane but just enjoys killing. A large number of people believe that the insanity plea should be completely abolished because it gives criminals a break.

There is one problem to be found in the argument against the insanity plea. That problem is if insanity is truly a disorder that is not controllable, can we punish people just because they suffer from a disease that happens to make them kill? The only definite way we may ever have an answer to whether we should punish them is to figure out if insanity is actually a disorder or is controllable to a certain extent. The fact is so many people have admitted to having strongly violent urges or come close to killing another person it ensures that there will be professionals working hard to try to find to hidden answers that relate insanity for a long time. No matter what opinion you believe is correct there is one fact that exists: there are people in the world that commit murder, rape, and other horrible crimes for reasons that they don't even understand. Although some people kill because they enjoy killing or are just plain sadistic, many others kill because it's an urge within themselves that they cannot suppress.

These are the people that when they kill the feel no remorse for what they " ve done. That is why it is so imperative that if criminal insanity is found to be a disorder, that we find a cure and / or early detection method to help prevent these people from killing..