"the International Mental Disability Law Reform Project, shows NGRI acquittees across the country generally remain confined in state hospitals longer than they would have been imprisoned had they pleaded guilty and entered the traditional carceral system. “The less serious the crime, the greater the disparity is,” he says.
"Patients like Hoffschneider, who spent a year and a half in a high-security unit and was shackled at his wrists and legs whenever he traveled around campus, are left in a sort of purgatory—committed to a hospital with no clue as to when they’ll be able to leave. “There was no plan for me to progress,” Hoffschneider says. “It’s just until they feel like it, or until someone makes them.”
what kind of reform is needed for institutions like this? Is this common for most institutions to behave like this?
Laypeople have a tendency to see the insanity plea as a "get out of jail" free card, when in reality it is what you laid out here and can definitely keep people confined longer than jail. I think the idea is that they're getting necessary help but it definitely is a due process issue that needs reform