I wanted to know exactly how often such cases are successful, since in class I discovered that they are usually not. As it turns out less than one percent of cases nationwide raise the insanity defense. And success rate is somewhat steady at .26 percent. Furthermore I want to defend the insanity defense's validity to a certain extent. Many people become outraged when people are successfully defended by an insanity defense. I believe that if the accused is genuinely insane, then they need therapy and help but also should be always monitored and if their problem is hopeless, they should still go to prison or the equivalent for insane people. This is because if the accused is not sentenced to death which is pretty unlikely, then they would just go to prison. An insane person with other sane prisoners could lead to violent encounters or just a miserable existence for the insane.
http://occupytheory.org/insanity-plea-statistics/
I believe in the insanity defense completely. People's perception of it is often bad because they believe they're "phonies" because they think it is common or an "easy way out". Although, your facts prove how rare it is when people are successful with the insanity case. The people who are successful I believe that there is a reason why they have had success. They need assistance and support to get out of this mindset. I believe that their actions have been influenced by their instability and it isn't fair to hold them accountable for something they're not in control of.
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