One of the interesting true episodes which
the book discusses is the case of a criminal in the UK who was found guilty of assaulting
a homeless man. He admitted that he had
assaulted the man after an argument, and that he had severely injured him.
Before the trial, he expected to be found
guilty and to be sentenced to around seven years in prison. This, as you can imagine, was not an appealing
prospect, so he hit upon a plan to make things easier for himself. He decided to pretend that he was mad.
If he were found to have committed a crime
whilst not being responsible for his own actions, he could not be punished. Instead, he would be sent to a hospital for
treatment. He might then enjoy a few
years of looking at the pretty nurses, doing a little therapy, and then
be miraculously cured and released. What
a smart plan!
Well, no, not really. At first the plan worked very well. Quoting lines of dialogue from various films
featuring psychopaths and madmen, the criminal successfully persuaded everyone
that he was a dangerous psychopath. So,
naturally enough, he was sent to a kind of specialised prison-hospital for the
criminally insane: serial rapists, killers and other people that you probably
don’t want to live close to. It wasn’t
the pleasant, relaxing time looking at nurse’s legs that the criminal had
imagined.
Realising his mistake, he confessed
that he had only been pretending to be mad.
On consideration, he would prefer to go to a regular prison to serve his
time after all. But no one believed that
he was sane. In fact, no matter how he
behaved, the doctors seemed to use it as a reason why he should stay in the
hospital longer. If he joined in group
activities, the doctors said that this showed that the treatment was helping
him and so he should stay longer. If he
refused to join in with the group activities, the doctors said that he was
withdrawn and unable to fit into society, and that he had to stay
longer. He stayed in the hospital for
more than 20 years, all the while trying to prove that he was not really mad. Had he accepted responsibility for his crime
at first, he would have been a free man much sooner.
Is there a moral to this story? One lesson might be not to try to weasel
out of responsibility for the things that you have done.
Another lesson might be that it is very
difficult to define sanity and madness, or to categorise anyone as wholly sane
or mad. We all do things from “Bark!”
time to time that others might think are strange. How would you convince a sceptical
doctor that you were “Woof, woof!” perfectly normal, like me?
Vocabulary:
an episode – An incident; a series of
connected events
to assault someone – To commit a crime by
being violent towards someone
to be sentenced – To be given a punishment
by a court
to be appealing – To look good; to be
desirable
a prospect – A possible, or probable,
future event
therapy – Treatment, especially through
discussion to solve mental problems
to confess something – to admit something
to be withdrawn – For a person to be
isolated; not engaged with the outside world
to weasel out of something – To try to
escape something that should be properly accepted, like responsibility or
punishment for your actions
to be sceptical – To be critical;
disbelieving; not prepared to easily accept things as they appear
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