Untying The Strait Jacket – DVD

Some of the most horrific killers of all are found not guilty. They are the criminally insane, driven to commit crimes by psychoses and obsessions beyond their control. Instead of prison, they are committed to mental hospitals for treatment and some are eventually released. Go inside the wards of the highest-security mental institutions in America for a firsthand look at this twilight territory of the justice system. Never-before-seen footage reveals what life is like in the wards, from seclusion rooms and straitjackets to advanced treatment with anti-psychotic drugs. Meet the patients who claim to be cured and dream of their release, and learn the details of their horrifying crimes. One murdered his parents with a shotgun because a device in the attic controlled his thoughts. One, after 26 years of treatment, still believes he is a secret agent with a license to kill. And trace the saga of Hugh Kelly, released into society twenty years after committing murder and married to a woman also acquitted of murder by reason of insanity. With comments from leading security experts and criminal psychologists, this is a penetrating examination of a little-understood aspect of the justice system.

• documentary