Knowing right from wrong

Knowing right from wrong makes all the difference when dealing with mental illness and the court system. Of course, those filling up jails and prisons are mentally ill, to a degree, and many of them are smart enough to crawl under the umbrella of mental illness to escape their sentence. Likewise a great many, while in prison have seen the error of their ways and have used the sentence as a way to heal themselves.

This topic of knowing right from wrong surfaced today while reading mental illness headlines. It seems that many are shouting that dollars need be spent to to treat mental illness in jails and in prisons. This is good and is something that should be considered, but there is that caution that says, those likely to repeat their offenses should not be so easily turned loose.

In a way it seems this is just another item that can be turned into a reason to generate hostility and a cause that many will want to take up arms against. That method of dealing with mental illness is a sick idea. The courts must keep to their distinction between insanity -- knowing right from wrong -- and mental illness in general. An ill mind is not a safe mind, that is true, but not all ill minds are criminal minds.

A person using a free will to plot a crime of murder, is not a well mind, but most often they know it is something they should not do. Neither should they be allowed to spend their sentence in a hospital with others who may not know right from wrong.

This is one small attempt to set the thinking straight about any attempts to use the mental illness labeling to avoid incarceration. When a crime has been committed, justice must be served. A more hopeful setting is one where the prisoner has the time, and the safety, of learning about themselves, why they did what they did, not the time to plot how to undo the system that put them in prison.

Yes, treat the mentally ill, but be sure everyone involved knows the difference between right and wrong. That is a lesson society, as a whole, has been reluctant to learn.

After writing the above article, I also uploaded it to a website where I usually post article. Check it out at Helium.com. I added several sources of information readers can look to for more information. These I looked over briefly, but have not have actually read.

PS: The piece of art is something I found among my papers and I don't remember exactly when it was done. I most often keep my art dabbling, although I am never sure why.