Shall We Convict, Sentence and Punish, or Commit, Care for and Cure
the Insane Delinquent? [excerpt]

     Just how large a per cent. of the crimes against person are committed by the insane it is not possible to say. The opinion of competent observers is at one that it is very large; and from time to time, at least from decade to decade, the estimate of those observers gradually rises. Crimes against property are of a considerably different nature. They vary much according to the location of the bread line and the magnitude of other economic and social factors. But even here a growing portion of the delinquents are found to be insane.
     This is not the place to criticise the administration of justice in our criminal courts; it is, however, the place to demand that the insane man whose disease is first discovered by a delinquency—a crime against person or a crime against property—be promptly, safely and decently put in the proper surroundings for diagnosis or cure. We understand that an insane man may be as responsible for a criminal act as a sane man, [9][10] but even when that is the case his punishment should not take precedence over his cure. His apprehension, his examination, his trial and his conviction should be guided and even stayed by the indications for the treatment of his disease. The public mind may be momentarily outraged by a terrible crime, but public remorse at the deliberate revenge of courts, that should be courts of justice if not of mercy, is not soon forgotten. Note, for example, the vengeance meted out to the insane murderers of Lincoln, Garfield and McKinley and the apologies with which those dark pages of our national history are now written, read and taught to our children.