A new report issued by Amnesty International found that at least 10% of the first 1,000 peo­ple exe­cut­ed in the United States since 1977 were severe­ly men­tall ill. The report not­ed that the National Association of Mental Health esti­mates that between five and 10% of the 3,400 peo­ple on death row around the coun­try are men­tal­ly ill. Amnesty said that states are fail­ing to address seri­ous men­tal health issues before crimes occur.

In a review of avail­able psy­chi­atric exam­i­na­tions, med­ical records, and doc­u­ment­ed cas­es of extreme behav­ior, Amnesty dis­cov­ered at least 100 cas­es of exe­cut­ed pris­on­ers dur­ing the past three decades with evi­dence of severe men­tal ill­ness. In many oth­er cas­es, psy­chi­atric eval­u­a­tions had not been con­duct­ed, mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to deter­mine the men­tal state. Amnesty stat­ed that the pro­ce­dures in place to iden­ti­fy and assist those with men­tal ill­ness before a crime occurs are inad­e­quate and should be improved. As an exam­ple, the group not­ed that Texas spends an aver­age of $2.3 mil­lion try­ing each death penal­ty case, but the state’s per capi­ta spend­ing on men­tal health ranks 49th out of the 50 states.

​“The argu­ments in favor of the ​‘deter­rent’ val­ue of the death penal­ty ring espe­cial­ly hol­low with regard to seri­ous­ly men­tall ill offend­ers. Instead of wait­ing until anoth­er per­son dies, gov­ern­ments must fix the men­tal health sys­tem now and strength­en the safe­ty net so that those who need treat­ment the most receive it before the involve­ment of the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem,” said Dr. William F. Shultz, Amnesty International’s Executive Director. Susan Lee, Amnesty International’s American pro­grams direc­tor, added, ​“Prejudice and igno­rance give rise to fear and for many peo­ple it is eas­i­er to sen­tence a men­tal­ly ill per­son to death than to find gen­uine treat­ment solu­tions.”

(The Execution of Mentally Ill Offenders, Amnesty International, January 31, 2006, and Reuters News Service, January 31, 2006). Read the report. See Mental Illness and Resources.

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