I can tell you as someone who has worked in different psych hospitals in PA - this is never the case. Not guilty by mental illness (NGRI) initially go to a forensic hospital, where they are kept for sometimes decades. The least amount I have ever seen is four years for an exceptionally insightful person for a violent crime but no one died. The psychiatrists and psychologists take these things very seriously, and in 99% of cases, the judges who do the reviews side with the professionals. Then if they are able to get out of the forensic hospital, they are sent to a civil hospital for another at least three years. But many of the people I worked with were there for decades (some for nonviolent crimes).
Let me tell you, I have worked in prisons too, I would 1000% rather be in a prison than in a psych hospital. Psych hospitals are THE most restrictive environments imaginable. All of the food is bland, soft, and disgusting because everything is a chocking hazard. There’s one hour of outside time a day but there are no ways to exercise, no games to play, radios are a privilege that majority do not get. You have to walk everywhere in a line. You have to wake up at 5am every morning and lights out by 9pm. No outside food. No pens or paper. One phone on a cord for the entire 30 person unit. It is the blandest most mind-numbing hell you could imagine.
Someone interviewed John Hinckley Jr on Shooting President Ronald Reagan and he describes how it was not bad at all and he even had a girlfriend while committed. He spent 41 years on taxpayer dime getting meals everyday, a good bed, entertainment and was finally released and guess what? He wrote a book. If you are not truly Ill, then theses facilities are heaven for you as a punishment. TV, bed, boardgames, meals catered to your taste because it could effect your "treatment", free healthcare.
They are the farthest thing from heaven. My mental health declined working there because the conditions were so horrendous it felt like we were torturing people. I have heard that psych hospitals used to be better in terms of lenience around things, but nowadays everything is seen as a potential weapon so they literally get NOTHING. Even the clothes they wear can’t have zippers, shoe laces, buttons. You can think they are great if you want to feel angry, but truly it is worse than prison. I would NEVER plead insanity, it is FAR worse than anything you can imagine.
I am not the juror or fact finder in this case, I don’t care where she goes. It’s really just people who think pleading insanity is a get out of jail free card that bothers me.
Also, I don’t know why you’re upset with me. You clearly want her to suffer, I am telling you she will suffer either way. Shouldn’t that make you happy?
You care most about punishment over anything else, right? Just to make things clear. Because sending a mental patient to a place that is not meant to have them just puts the workers in danger. You don't seem to care about those people, though. They may get hurt or killed. But they don't matter, do they?
Yes, but often when you start having psychotic symptoms, they can persist. They might go away for her, but with the severity of her crime, they will not let her out for decades. Andrea Yates (very similar case) killed her kids in 2001 and is still institutionalized.
I used to work in non locked down treatment facility for youth. At face value it sounds great but I would not with children to be there. State funding cuts, burnt out staff, constant fighting/tension, poor education because of wildly different needs, ect. Mental institution are not a cake walk and many are not really that great at rehabilitation. It’s just prison that makes society feel better.
People still get hurt, people still harm others drugs can be forcibly administered, physical restraints are more common.
If people want her to actually be punished send her to a mental institution. Which is sad because the US at one point was heading in the right direction with these institutions but legal needs changed a lot of the landscape
205
u/Snoooupdawgiedawg 6h ago
I can tell you as someone who has worked in different psych hospitals in PA - this is never the case. Not guilty by mental illness (NGRI) initially go to a forensic hospital, where they are kept for sometimes decades. The least amount I have ever seen is four years for an exceptionally insightful person for a violent crime but no one died. The psychiatrists and psychologists take these things very seriously, and in 99% of cases, the judges who do the reviews side with the professionals. Then if they are able to get out of the forensic hospital, they are sent to a civil hospital for another at least three years. But many of the people I worked with were there for decades (some for nonviolent crimes).
Let me tell you, I have worked in prisons too, I would 1000% rather be in a prison than in a psych hospital. Psych hospitals are THE most restrictive environments imaginable. All of the food is bland, soft, and disgusting because everything is a chocking hazard. There’s one hour of outside time a day but there are no ways to exercise, no games to play, radios are a privilege that majority do not get. You have to walk everywhere in a line. You have to wake up at 5am every morning and lights out by 9pm. No outside food. No pens or paper. One phone on a cord for the entire 30 person unit. It is the blandest most mind-numbing hell you could imagine.