PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Perlin, Michael L.
TI  - Myths, Realities, and the Political World: The Anthropology of Insanity Defense Attitudes
DP  - 1996 Mar 01
TA  - Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online
PG  - 5--26
VI  - 24
IP  - 1
4099  - http://jaapl.org/content/24/1/5.short
4100  - http://jaapl.org/content/24/1/5.full
SO  - J Am Acad Psychiatry Law1996 Mar 01; 24
AB  - The author presents the case that society's efforts to understand the insanity defense and insanity-pleading defendants are doomed to intellectual, moral, and political gridlock unless we are willing to take a fresh look at the doctrine through a series of filters—empirical research, scientific discovery, moral philosophy, cognitive and moral psychology, and sociology—in an effort to confront the single most important (but rarely asked) question: why do we feel the way we do about “these people” (insanity pleaders)? He examines this question finally through a model of structural anthropology and concludes that until we come to grips with the extent to which ours is a “culture of punishment,” we can make no headway in solving the insanity defense dilemma.