herefore potentially provided with an opportunity for rehabilitation) or punished via incarceration remains.
Numerous efforts to identify effective modes of assessing and evaluating the rehabilitative status of acquitted offenders have been undertaken; other studies have focused on the outcomes of rehabilitation (in and out of the penal system and/or with respect to post-hospitalization civil commitment) versus punitive treatment (Finn, 1992; Fox, 1999; Lilleheht, 1997; Lucca, 1999; Robinson, 1993). Findings from these studies, as will be demonstrated herein, are often conflicting and generally inconsistent. Nevertheless, as Robinson (1993) and others (Linhorst & Dinks-Linhorst, 1999) have suggested, the question of further rehabilitation via civil commitment versus punishment via incarceration for the mentally ill offender is a problem that demands a resolution.
The purpose of this research paper is to examine the literature on the relative efficacy of rehabilitation versus punishment for the mentally ill offender, and to consider the advantages and disadvantages of rehabilitative civil commitment as an alternative to incarceration. The extensive literature review that serves as the core of this paper will identify current law and trends in both rehabilitation and civil commitment versus incarceration and the types of rehabilitation for the mentally ill offender that appear most likely to hold out hope of success in reducing their level of dangerousness to society.
Mentally ill offenders are defined herein with respect to the legal as opposed to the psychological or psychiatric definition. As Linhorst and Dinks-Linhorst (1999) have noted, in this approach to defining who is or is not mentally at the time a crime is committed, the emphasis is placed upon the capacity of the individual to form a criminal intent; similarly, the emphasis includes a recognition of the existence of a mental condition that (though possibly tempora...