Plea For Insanity In Jails

How would you feel knowing a man stabbed his wife twenty-six times and killed her, but walks the streets as a free man just because he was “sleepwalking,” not too safe right? The previous question presents one of the many flaws in the United States' legal system: the misuse of the plea for insanity.
First, we need to understand that the plea for insanity does not give a criminal a “get out of jail free” card. Many of the cases where the plea for insanity is used the criminal is forced to serve their time that would have been spent in jail in a mental institution instead. But a mental institution is not jail. In the movies mental hospitals include straitjackets, rooms with cushioned walls and patients being held there against their will. In reality, mental institutions give more freedom. Patients can bring personal belongings, meet with visitors, receive food from them and the list goes on (Evans). However, in jail prisoners are on strict schedules and they have to work and earn everything. Most are not allowed to receive food from the outside and eat their meals in the jail’s cafeteria and any phone call they need to make is paid for through the work they perform (“A Day in the Life of a Prisoner”). Bottom line, a mental institution is fundamentally better than jail for most individuals. …show more content…
From social media to the news a case where an accused criminal makes a plea for insanity intoxicates the minds of many Americans. A case that follows a murderer as they plead for insanity will be much more prevalently pushed down Americans’ throats than a case of a robbery in a big city where someone was shot. Because of this individual’s minds are more likely to turn away from the plea for insanity and consider every use as a