John Hinkley Jr. and the Meaning of Crime

Should John Hinkley Jr. be released from the hospital for unsupervised visits?

I have to admit, I was a little conflicted. On the one hand, he tried to kill the president.
In some states, he'd get the chair. Twice.

On the other hand, he was deemed "mentally unstable", meaning that he really did not fully understand the consequences of his actions and was promptly sent to the funny farm.

So, is he "rehabilitated"? Is he now mentally stable? Let's assume that he is. Does that mean that he can:
1. Leave the hospital unsupervised because he's no longer entirely ill?
2. That he is still not accountable for his actions because he was a psychologically different person at the time of the crime?

If John Hinkley Jr. is in remission from his mental illness, then he should go to JAIL - not on walks in the country. Once a criminal (mentally unstable or otherwise) is medically deemed "in remission", then that person should pay the penalty for their crime just like anybody else.

Now, I know what you're thinking...
"Hey, this guy didn't KNOW what the consequences of his actions were" (or did he?)
"Hey, he actually, mentally, a different person. An innocent man trapped in the mind of the legally insane. Should we punish him for the rest of his life because he should have been medicated?" (Victim of society, or did he have a good lawyer?)

Is this man LESS guilty than another "sane" man that might have committed the same crime?
No. Absolutely not. I don't care what he was thinking about, he pulled the trigger.

Secondly, it is my opinion that EVERYONE who commits a crime is pychologically unstable. Read me out...

People are taught how to function in society from the time they are very young.
They are taught the value of civilization. How the economy works, how work works, the things you need to do in life to get along, and get what you need to live - peacefully. People who commit crimes (stealing, murder, even insurance fraud) go against this system in the following ways:

They create death, or dismemberment, or other permanent physical disfunction.
This in turn creates a family system that no longer operates normally (loss of emotional and financial support,
or larger healthcare expenditures on the family's part). This is the ripple effect, touching the family lives,
the lives of families married into that family, friends, co-workers, and companies. On a larger scale, it effects
any children of the deceased, or harmed, their relationships (not to mention trust, love, etc.) and therefore, the
way they raise their children.

They create an imbalance in the economic system.
Everytime someone steals something, you pay more. More for jeans,more car insurance, more taxes to pay
more cops to investigate more thefts. You lose your feeling of safety. If I get mugged, think of the bills
I can't pay, the money I need to borrow off of others, my new unwillingness to walk anywhere alone.
Then there's the cost of replacing all of the paperwork that says I exist and that I have consumer power
that was in my purse. I'm pissed, paranoid, and broke.
That ripple effect touches everyone that I ask for money, and all the companies that aren't getting their money because I can't pay them. And there's not a thing I can do about it.

Then there are the "victimless" crimes.
Drugs (victimless? Tell that to a crack baby.)
Prositution. (Tell that to an 8 year old girl whose father was going to spend some time with her this Saturday night, and buy her dessert - both out the window. Tell her where he was. Is this the kind of girl daddy wants her to be to spend time and money on her? Tell it to the 16 year old who got kicked out of her house and has had every bone in her face broken because of a violent john or pimp.)
Gambling. (Tell that to the husband with 3 kids and a house being foreclosed on because his wife gambled the house away.)

All of these things go against the very core principles that our society is supposed to be based upon. If no one cared about their action's effects on society, then we'd be living in a Mad Max movie. Everyone who commits a crime mentally denies that the crime's impact has an effect on society, or doesn't care. Either way, it's "mentally unstable" behavior in varying degrees. A disregard for the very society that provides you the means to live with food, shelter, clothing, and all the goods that capitalism gets you.

Leave Hinkley in the hospital, or if the doctors are going to go so far as to say "he's better now" then put him in jail. This man tried to voilently change the pillars of the American Culture - the Presidency. The product of democracy.
And there are consequences. There has to be.