The Gray Area Between Mental Illness and Criminal Conduct

From the bus hijacking case last year, the sulfuric acid splashing incident at Taipei First Girls' High School, the armored car robbery, to another bus hijacking case that occurred just two days ago, the "criminal conduct" of persons with mental illnesses has drawn high societal attention and panic. The problem, however, is that looking at the current state of legal practice, what are the behavioral regulation standards for persons with mental illnesses? How is punishment versus non-punishment defined? Where is the exact boundary of legal capacity? None of these have clear definitions or standard operating procedures for judgment. Consequently, regardless of whether the verdict is heavy punishment or acquittal, it sparks dissatisfaction from various stances. Therefore, this Foundation, co-hosting with the Driftwood Salvation Association and chaired by Legislators Ch'en Ch'i-mai and Lin Chung-mo, has invited experts, scholars, defense lawyers, and case parties to jointly initiate an open discussion targeting the standards and procedures in legal proceedings for the "criminal conduct" of persons with mental illnesses.

We believe that in the face of an increasingly compressed and rapidly changing society, mental illness will no longer be an issue affecting only a sparse minority; it is bound to become a new domain within criminal conduct. Therefore, assessment standards for mental illness should be formulated as soon as possible, especially post-offense treatment methods for mental illness-related crimes, in order to address future new forms of crime and maintain public security in a manner respectful of human rights and humanitarianism.

We make the following appeals regarding current practical issues concerning criminal conduct involving mental illness:

1. Demand that the Forensic Science Research Center under the Ministry of Justice independently establish a division of forensic psychiatry and place importance on the research of forensic psychiatry to conduct psychiatric evaluations in practice.
2. Talent cultivation for psychiatric evaluation should be initiated as soon as possible. In addition to establishing specialized research institutions, psychiatry professionals in general schools should be encouraged to undergo legal professional training to become professional forensic psychiatric evaluators.
3. Standardize the current levels and standards of psychiatric evaluations, or establish independent professional evaluation institutions (not limited to a single entity) to unify the results of psychiatric evaluations.
4. Establish consistent standards for the legal effect of evaluation results, so as to prevent the confusing situation where identical mental states yield different judgment outcomes from affecting public trust in the judiciary.
5. Evaluations for persons with mental illnesses should follow a fixed procedure from the police receiving a report, to prosecution investigation, and court trial, and the request for evaluation by the party concerned must not be denied.
6. Establish specialized medical institutions so that when a person with mental illness is sentenced to "commitment to medical treatment," they can genuinely receive treatment rather than leaving it to individual families to handle, thereby alleviating social problems.

The issue of criminal conduct by persons with mental illnesses remains an undeveloped field in our country, relying solely on psychiatrists from several major medical centers to conduct evaluations, while the standards and legal effects of these evaluations have yet to reach a consensus. Therefore, how to soundly regulate the conduct of persons with mental illnesses in the future, move beyond the abstract determination of legal capacity, and concretely address the criminal conduct of persons with mental illnesses is a brand-new and difficult task, as well as a challenge on the path toward becoming a nation of human rights.