Mentally Ill Criminals Should Be Executed Essay

Recent studies show that 1 in 5 Americans live with a mental illness, this includes depression. Last year, almost 44 million adults experienced a mental illness. Mental illness is a medical condition which disrupts the individual’s thinking, feeling, mood, ability to relate to other people and their daily functioning. People with mental illnesses, most of the time, cannot understand what is right and what is wrong. Therefore, I feel that mentally ill offenders should not be held responsible for their actions. Instead, they should be getting the help they need to get better.
According to Crime and Criminals, “evidence supports that many people, including judges and jurors, misunderstand mental illness.” The American Civil Liberties Union is arguing that mentally ill criminals should not be executed. Misunderstanding an illness can possibly lead to an individual being put to death simply because they do not have a clear …show more content…
prisons is five times greater than in regular population, and people with serious mental illness are three to four times more likely to be violent than others.” Billions of dollars have been cut from mental health budgets by states. This results in many mentally ill people going in out of jails. Mentally ill people should not be “locked up in facilities that are ill-equipped to help them.” In Cook County, Illinois, one man told the sheriff that he thinks he’s already dead so he’s going to kill himself. Another man told her that he was hearing voices in his head that told him to hurt people. Most of them are in the jail for just minor offences such as sleeping in abandoned buildings. These are people who have nowhere to go and they do not have the ability to get the medication they need. They end up staying in jail for a few days or weeks, but then statistically, they end up right back there. Mentally ill people should be getting the help they need. Locking them up in jail cells is not going to help