Balancing mental illness and crime a job for judges not politicians

In 1843 on a cold winter’s day in London, Daniel McNaughten, suffering intense paranoid delusions, went out to shoot the British prime minister, Sir Robert Peel.

• Duncan Fine
• The Age

He missed and killed Peel’s private secretary.

So, half a century before Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis, the courts were dealing with issues of crime and mental illness.

The court found McNaughten not guilty by reason of insanity.

There was a massive public outcry.

Today in Melbourne, we’re still uneasily grappling with the…

• Balancing mental…