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People adapt behaviorally in different ways. Depending on their mode of adaptation, people are called “normal,” “neurotic,” “psychotic” or “criminal.” The normal person is boring; the neurotic is interesting; the psychotic and the criminal are nuisances.
The psychotic and the criminal are troubled or troublesome in (different ways. What effect, if any, should this make on legal procedures?
The psychotic nowadays is given tranquilizing drugs or he is committed to a mental institution until he is no longer psychotic (or until his family will have him back). The criminal, on the other hand, is made to pay a fine, sent to jail for a term of years, or he is executed. Historically, though, the operational distinction between the labels “psychotic” (insane) and “criminal” was more theoretical than practical.*
Until the nineteenth century, when the so-called moral treatment of the insane began, there made little difference, except in some cases, whether a person was called crazed or criminal. It was widely assumed that mental illness caused criminal behavior. The Talmud said: “No man commits a crime except when a spirit of madness has entered into him.”