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Jason Pierce
Wendy L. Eddy
English 1213-308
24 Mar 2010
Sane or Insane Albert Fish was so demented that he stuck alcohol soaked cotton balls into his anus after setting them on fire. He was also found with twenty nine needles stuck in his body between his anus and his scrotum. Fish was also found guilty of the killings of fifteen little boys and mutilating one hundred others. He said that God told him to do it. The doctors said that he suffered from a religious psychosis (Rawlins). Some people seem to get away with these kinds of heinous crimes because of insanity and others, who really have mental problems, get locked away in prison and forgotten about. The definition of insanity is “the mental illness of such a severe nature that a person cannot distinguish fantasy from reality, cannot conduct his/her affairs due to psychosis, or is subject to uncontrollable impulsive behavior” (Insanity). In other words, a person may live in a fantasy world and believe that things are going on around them that really are not. Also, a person may not be able to control their urges. For instance, a person may get the urge to flip someone the middle finger that cuts them off in traffic. This would be an uncontrollable impulsive behavior. Many serial killers use this line of defense as a strategy to get put into a mental hospital rather than prison. Mental hospitals give prisoners less rules and more freedoms than do
Pierce 2 prisons. Some killers though, are truly insane. There is a fine line, as well as a good defense attorney, as to which side you fall on, sane or insane.
Jeffrey Dahmer committed at least seventeen murders and entered a not guilty by reason of insanity plea but was found guilty of fifteen murders and found to be sane. One might ask how Dahmer can be sane after butchering so many young men and even keeping parts of their bodies in his apartment. The courts figured that if he can manipulate and coerce people the way he did, for as long as he did, then he had to be of sound mind and therefore should be held responsible for his actions. Five studies from 1983 to 1991 among the prison population of the United States have shown high rates of mental disorders, especially the major ones such as schizophrenia, within the general population (Hodgins 101). This goes to show that the courts are not always right as to whether someone is criminally insane or not. Forensic psychologist Dr Keith Ashcroft said in an interview by BBC News, “psychopaths are extremely good at manipulating prison staff, as well as mental health professionals, and over time they can eventually be perceived as being cured and ready for reintroduction into society” (BBCNews). Just because a court system says that you are sane does not necessarily mean that you are. Psychopaths are considered to be highly intelligent people that are good at manipulation so it is a hard job for a forensic psychologist to be the one to determine whether or not someone is insane. John Wayne Gacy was a very prominent construction company owner in a middle class area of Chicago. He was very involved in his community and even dressed up as a clown for a neighborhood block party. Gacy was also very involved in the Democratic party of Chicago.
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Gacy fooled people for years with his intelligence and ability to get away with murdering thirty-three people over a six year period. In Washington there is thought to be between twenty-five and thirty-five people a year found not guilty by reason of insanity according to Dr. Paul S Applebaum of Columbia University and past president of the American Psychologist Association. This is also the state that took a serial killer by the name of Phillip A Paul to a county fair in 1987 and he escaped. Paul had been declared criminally insane and sent to the state’s mental institution for killing an elderly woman because the voices in his head told him that she was a witch. This field trip was allowed because he was considered a patient and not a criminal.
Sane or insane is something that in today’s society in the court systems is still up for great debate. When it comes to this kind of science, it isn’t exact. The case is tried in front of a judge and jury, which is the constitutional right of all people in America. And because it is tried by humans, it is susceptible to human error.

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Works Cited
“Can Serial Killers Be Rehabilitated?”. BBCNews.com. 20 Feb 2009. Web. 9 Mar 2010.
“Deemed Criminally Insane, but out on the Street”. MSNBC.com. 18 Oct 2009. Web. 9 Mar 2010.
Hodgins, Sheilagh, Carl-Gunnar Janson. Criminality and Violence Among the Mentally Disordered: The Stockholm Metropolitan Project. New York: Cambridge, 2002. Print.
“Insanity”. Thefreedictionary.com. 2005. Web. 9 Mar 2010.