Insanity Defense

I think the insanity defense is a good law, but should have more boudaries and guidelines. I believe every person shouldn't have the right to plead insanity, you should have to meet certain "requirements". If you have a large record of mental illness then you should have the right, it should only be considered in a case if the defendent has a history of insanity. In the Andrea Yates case, I believe she should have been able to plead insanity because she had a large history of mental illness. However, she was a nurse and she decided not to take her medication and this should have been taken into great consideration when determining the outcome of this case. I do not think going to a prison would have benifitted her, or the other inmates. She needs constant observation, she should have been placed in a maximum security psychiatric hospital where she could be treated and watched 24/7. That way she couldn't roam free in society and cause harm, or get the "opinion" that she could kill and because she was seen as mentally insane, get away with it.

Causes of Crime

It seems that law enforcement and elected government is the main source of solutions to crime. Increasing the quantity of jobs available to citizens, would lessen the amount of poverty in the country. As, we learned last class, poverty definitely has an effect on crime so if we begin to eliminate poverty then crime rates would decrease as well. Also, the borders of our country aren't protected and millions of illegal immigrants are coming in everyday. These people should be found and "investigated" to see if they are making an honest living, or just taking up space in our country. This could be difficult however, because these people came in illegally they are not documented citizens, and therefore extremely hard to locate. Another source of crime could be drugs, selling and/ or using drugs is a crime in itself that usually leads to more crime. The importation of these drugs is another way that our borders are not protected, and this once again must be solved. This would require some type of protection service at the borders of the United States to prevent incoming problems that ultimately cause crime. While solving crime cannot happen overnight, steps need to be taken to atleast decrease the amount of crime found in this country.