Crime and Mental Illness

"Those who remain in detention will be subject to these new provisions when they're passed into law.
"Obviously we could not apply them to people who have already been released and have completed the process. That would clearly be unconstitutional."
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper

The introduction of Bill C-54, the Not Criminally Responsible Reform Act, will have the effect of mounting a new designation for those who have committed dreadful crimes, but in their defence have been able to convince the criminal justice system that they were not in full command of their mental faculties, impaired by mental illness or the sudden, psychotic onset of a brief period of delusion impacting on their mental processes.

The new law will have the effect of barring those who are now labelled "high risk", from obtaining a conditional or absolute discharge. The "high-risk" label is a designation that identifies those considered not criminally responsible for the commission of a brutal offence due to mental impairment, when it has also been found that there is a likelihood that their criminal actions could be repeated in the commission of further violence.

Anyone holding the designation of "high-risk" will be unable to obtain a conditional or absolute discharge, allowing them to move about freely in the community. That designation can be revoked by the courts on the recommendation of a provincial or territorial mental health review board, so it is not irrevocable, and it does, clearly, represent an additional and needed safeguard for society.

"We are giving the courts the powers they need to keep those deemed too dangerous to be released where they should be -- in custody", explained Prime Minister Harper at a news conference. The conferring of "high-risk" will result in those institutionalized individuals who have committed a brutal crime being ineligible for unescorted passes. Escorted trips to be permitted under very specific circumstances.

Those involved in this change to the manner in which such parties are held responsible for their crimes, complicated by mental distress, may wait up to three years for a case review rather than the present one-year. The Criminal Code criteria in exempting someone of criminal responsibility as a result of mental disorder will not change, nor will access to treatment be affected.

Three percent of people suffering mental illness conflict with the law. A minuscule proportion of those are found not criminally responsible for their actions. And the greater majority of those by far do not reofffend, having made use of treatment to counteract their proclivities.

"High risk must not be defined or determined by the severity of atrociousness of the crime, but by how well the person responds or does not respond to treatment", objected the chief executive of the Schizophrenia Society of Canada.

It seems that the legislation seeks to do just that.