Louis Theroux: By Reasons of Insanity

New US-based documentaries from Louis Theroux emerge this week on BBC Knowledge, beginning with a two-part look at those convicted as criminally insane.

Louis immerses himself in the world of Ohio’s State Psychiatric Hospitals, meeting patients who have committed crimes – at times horrifically violent – while in the grip of severe mental illness. They have been found Not Guilty by Reason Of Insanity and ordered by the courts to secure psychiatric facilities to receive the treatment that it is hoped will, one day, lead to their reintegration back into society. Over the course of these two films Louis explores the nature of mental illness as he spends time with the small subsection of sufferers who have found themselves on the wrong side of the law. He bears witness to the extremes of the human condition and experience in an attempt to understand how society cares for some of its most vulnerable and most dangerous members.

Louis Theroux: By Reasons of Insanity airs 8:30pm Wednesday July 15 and 22 on BBC Knowledge.