The US is no stranger to mass shootings and children killing their own parents. Just recently, a 20-year-old man named Arcan Cetin killed 5 people in a cold-blooded mass shooting. He is now facing charges. This is not surprising since it happens in the US very frequently, at an alarming pace. The question is: should people like Cetin go to jail for first-degree murder? Wouldn’t it be better if he could receive adequate medical treatment for the alleged mental illness that led him to commit this crime?

In another particular case that happened in Lima, Perú in 2013, Marco Arenas, the actor of the crime, killed his mother because she would not lend him more money. What is remarkable about both of these cases is that there were several signs which indicated that both of them were not mentally stable; they had problems in school, had a history of obsessive compulsive disorders, but yet were never taken to see a psychologist.

So, is a person with a history of psychological issues since they were young and naïve, who were never taken to a psychologist to address these problems, guilty of committing this crime, when they, themselves did not know what they were doing?

The biggest error that people make when asked the question “mentally ill criminals: jail or treatment?” is not knowing what a mental illness really is, and not being able to put themselves in the shoes of a patient with this type of disease. As defined by the WHO, a mental illness is a psychological pattern that is associated with a disability. Therefore, if people with mental illness practically lose the ability of common sense, they are not really conscious when they perform the crime first-hand and possibly only do it out of self-defense because for one reason or the other they, in their mind, feel threatened.

It is very important to take into account that in neither of these cases are the actors aware that they possess a mental disability. The probability of mentally stable people killing their own mother is very low, since we, as luckily healthy individuals, have what is called a sense of guilt. When a person lives with a mental illness such as multiple personality disorder, they do not feel guilty nor feel remorse for their action.

So, why should we, as society, sentence and give jail-time to people who have no control in their actions and have a disease they did not choose to have? Is this even ethical? Juries and society are locking people who are already trapped inside themselves, those who for one second plead to regain reality and are also tired of living a lie that their own brain creates. Sometimes we are locking inside a prison people who have a mental age of a little kid, low IQs (ex. Brendan Dassey AKA in “Making a Murderer”) or people who have a long history of suffering from schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder.

As we all know, jail is not the right place to treat mental illnesses. They do not possess the time to take care of several inmates with mental issues, it is not their job nor it should be. When they do take the time to give the inmates the correct medicine to treat it, they do it violently since mental ill people are not the easiest to treat, adding this plus the violence that takes place inside the jail and between the inmates, is not an appropriate environment for someone who lives these emotions so vividly. And being inside a prison everyday, takes a toll on the mental state of every single healthy person, even us. Now, imagine if you were are also trapped inside a mental illness. Would the violence affect you? Of course it would.

Now, you would ask: doesn’t the victims’ family deserve justice? Of course they do, but giving the patient treatment in a psychiatric center would bring more justice since they would be sure that this person does not commit the same crime again with another victim, since he would recover the mental equilibrium. Justice is not to feel better with the suffering of another person, justice is supposed to bring peace.

But, if mentally ill criminals start going into treatment centers instead of prison, wouldn’t all the lawyers state that their client committed the crime because he has a serious mental illness? This would be a valid point if criminals weren’t closely observed by a number of psychiatrists who perform several mental exams on them.

Mentally ill criminals are entrapped inside their own body and mind, and this does not let them think appropriately during a crime. Giving this criminals jail-time would not be beneficial to them or to the society, since they do not receive adequate treatment and we, as society, cannot be certain that the inmate will not commit another crime when he gets out.

Why is our society so closed-minded and believes that this type of people should go to jail and not receive appropriate treatment in a well-equipped facility? Why do we want to end our suffering with the suffering of another person? Should Arenas or Cetin go to jail for a mental illness that does not let them see reality? Or perhaps, are we a society that is blinded by our own pride, and cannot feel compassion for others who did not choose to have this threatening disease?

So, are these people really the principal actors of the crime or are they really the victims of their own illness?