INTRODUCTION
The criminal justice system frequently fails to meet the needs of people with mental health conditions, there are many obstacles at the confluence of mental health and the system. While mentally ill people are part of society, this sector of the population never receives the help from the justice system that it needs so it discriminates against people with mental disorders and criminalizes their actions resulting from untreated mental disorders. Thus, jails and prisons emerged as one of the largest mental health services, but they are very ill-suited for this role. Still, there are certain legal rights, for instance, rights to receive psychiatric treatment or capacity assessment, which remain formally guaranteed but are rarely applied in real life.
Some innovations, for example, diversion programs and mental health courts are indications that people are beginning to embrace the notion of a reformative justice system. These programs provide options for prosecution thereby providing treatment or rehabilitation and supervision in the community under legal supervision. Such programmes have a positive socio-economic impact for two main reasons: Such initiatives will take people suffering from mental health disorders and link them with suitable services that will not only ease the burden on the criminal justice system but will also enhance the. It might be noted that all of these reforms are indeed in the right direction in making for a more humane and efficient justice delivery system.
CRIMINALIZATION OF MENTAL ILLNESS
“In the opinion of Lamb and Weinberger (1998), criminalization of mental illness refers to PMI who are arrested and prosecuted for minor offences instead of being placed in the mental health system. Accordingly, criminalization is used to describe the tendency to involve individuals with mental illnesses in the criminal justice system, under circumstances in which other non-mentally ill individuals would not be involved.”[1]
Those who suffer from mental illnesses get themselves embroiled in the criminal justice system rather than receiving the necessary care, which is a hallmark of the criminalization of the mental illness process. This change means that the mentally ill end up being arrested for activities such as causing disturbances or vagrancy, which are, in fact, signs of their unattended illnesses. Criminals are not treated differently from those with mental issues for one is jailed and made to serve time behind bars instead of the issue that made them act in such a manner being attended to. To aggravate the situation there is a severe shortage of adequate mental health services, making individuals end up in the criminal justice system instead of receiving therapy. Having mental-testing grounded courts, defendants with mental disorders can be enabled to get a fair trial while diversion programs enable the use of multiple approaches than punishment in treating such offenders. These efforts are intended to address the Bias and to guarantee that everybody who is complaining of a mental disorder is well attended to.
MENTAL ILLNESS’S IMPACT ON THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
At least 60% of inmates suffer from mental health issues, which is an alarmingly high prevalence in jails. It has been established that a large proportion of the detainees in jails and prisons have been informed to have conditions like clinical depression, anxiety, and paranoid schizophrenia. This high prevalence is attributed to late presentation to mental health facilities hence mental health problems are not managed and as they worsen, individuals may be led to a life of crime. Thus, the criminal justice system ends up as the provider of mental health services of a sort even though it is ill-suited for that function. This misalignment contributes to the revolving door effect, pervasive especially among persons with mental health problems who end up cycling through prison instead of being given the help they need. This is an issue that will need systemic changes in justice to properly include mental health care.
TREATMENT OF MENTALLY ILL OFFENDERS WITHIN THE JUSTICE SYSTEM
The management of mentally ill offenders in the criminal justice system depends on a crucial contest between the provision of conservative treatment and compliance with the law. Historically, the justice system has had the least capacity to address mental health issues and the result is that mentally ill persons are punished instead of being treated for their condition. This is made worse by the realization that most corrections facilities offer suboptimal mental health treatment because they are not specially built to offer mental health care leading to deterioration of mental conditions and lack of adequate care for affected persons.
By integrating mental health care into the legal system, current reforms aim to address these problems. The goal of mental health courts and diversion programs is to transfer mentally ill criminals from jail facilities to mental health facilities. These programs are as opposed to punitive and consist of a teamwork approach with lawyers, mental health workers and other support services. Much work has been done in these regards, but lack of constant, thorough treatment remains an issue. Such programmes can only be sustained by a continuous reform agenda and a determination to deliver appropriate and comprehensive NHS Mental Health care to offenders and others.
LEGAL RIGHTS AND PROTECTIONS FOR OFFENDERS WITH MENTAL HEALTH CONDITIONS
For mentally ill offenders’ legal consideration is given so that they are not exploited within the legal system. The latter is the right to a competency assessment to establish whether the accused can comprehend the charges against him or her and contribute to his or her defence. If found incompetent to stand trial, the trial is postponed and the person is sent to a mental hospital for treatment. The insanity defence entertains arguments that at the time of committing the crime, one was mentally ill and hence did not understand the consequences of the lack of criminal intent which often results in the accused being detained in a mental facility rather than a penitentiary. Moreover, any prisoner with a mental illness also has some rights to receive psychotropic medication and psychiatric services and therapy during imprisonment. The United States Supreme Court has opined that deliberate withholding of essential psychiatric care to a prisoner amounts to cruel punishment prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution. However, as stated above, some of the measures for mentally ill offenders have some loopholes that hinder an effective implementation of the rights of the mentally ill offenders.
CASE STUDIES INVOLVING MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES IN CRIMINAL TRIALS
The State of Rajasthan v. Shera Ram (2011)[2] case involved a murder conviction for the accused, who had a history of schizophrenia. When rendering its decision, the court took into account the defendant’s mental state at the time of the crime and stressed the importance of conducting a thorough evaluation of his mental state before imposing the death penalty or life in prison.
Another notorious case is Accused ‘X’ v. State of Maharashtra (2019)[3] in which the Supreme Court drew attention to the mental abnormality of the accused as a reason to transform the death penalty. The Court was of the view that the defence counsel and the trial judge failed to adequately consider the accused’s diminished mental state when determining an appropriate sentence; thus, the Court emphasized the need for mental evaluations in the justice system.
Such cases give credence to what has now become the forefront of legal advocacy in India: the mental health aspect in criminal cases especially and the importance of clients receiving fair trials while being sensitive to their state of mental health.
CONCLUSION
Finally, it can be concluded that the connection between mental illness and the criminal justice system poses both, deeper problems and the potential for change. Currently, the system tends to punish such behaviours that originate from untreated psychological disorders meaning that those who act out due to schizophrenia or bipolar disorder do not get proper treatment. Measures, whereby criminals suffering from such disorders as mental illness are protected by legal provisions such as competency evaluation or the insanity defence, are often inadequate in practice. Newer developments like the mental health courts, and diversion programs are a better approach towards the justice system, which instead of punishing offers treatment to disturbed individuals. However, there is still systematic discrimination, for example, not enough mental health care and poor treatment in prisons. Such prevalence and such state of affairs in treating them indicate the necessity of changing the existing state of prisoners’ situation. It is therefore important that all aspects of justice involve consideration of mental health in the process to address the problem and enhance fairness and well-being of mentally ill people in the system. Further activism and change initiatives are required to tackle these issues as well as to improve the organizational conditions of the justice system depending on mental health considerations.
Author(s) Name: Mahee Parikh (Svkm’sPravin Gandhi College of Law, Mumbai)
References-
[1] J Butler, Mental Illness and the Criminal Justice System (International Centre for Criminal Law Reform and Criminal Justice Policy, June 2019) https://icclr.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Mental-Illness-and-the-Criminal-Justice-System_Butler_ICCLR_0.pdf?x73624 accessed 18 August 2024.
[2] State of Rajasthan v Shera Ram [2011] MANU SC 1428 (SC)
[3] Accused ‘X’ v State of Maharashtra [2019] MANU SC 0536 (SC)
