Legal systems around the world have created the possibility of an insanity defense for those suffering from a mental illness or disorder. On the other hand, the community seems to believe that the insanity defense is being abused by criminals as a way to escape prison. Through this literature review I will attempt to demonstrate whether these common beliefs are true and how easily criminals can use such a defense. I will first show what kind of misperceptions the public has by analyzing Borum and Fulero (1999) and Eric Silver et al. (1994). I will then explain the factors that have been found to influence attitudes toward the insanity defense and the evaluation of those factors. Furthermore, I will analyze expert assessments of insanity defendants and will also include Dutch legal trials as a European example. To compose this article, I first performed a search in the world catalog. There I tried to capture a general picture of the research being conducted regarding the insanity defense. The next step was to do another search in the psychological information catalog where I selected the final articles that I will analyze here. One limitation to my research has been that most of the research done concerns the United States. This is the main reason why I will begin to present the false beliefs and negative attitudes towards the insanity defense found in the United States, without stating that it is an international issue. The main question of this article is whether the common beliefs against the insanity defense are true or simply the result of misinformation. Since I am about to analyze eight research articles that have been conducted to date on this topic, it would be appropriate to clarify some terms at the outset. There are two...... half of the document ......en when the Dutch legal system was perceived as balanced there was discrimination among minorities (Barendregt et al., 2008) or in the Hawaiian legal system the experts testimonies found mostly contradicted (Gowensmith et al., 2013). Comprehensive research is needed to reveal an up-to-date picture of attitudes towards insanity advocacy internationally. This way we will gain general knowledge on the issue of insanity defense and can then make reforms where necessary. However, reforms are not always the solution, sometimes education is. If the community was more informed about the mentally ill, it would be less likely to discriminate against them and be afraid of them. In the end it seems that the fear of a public outburst makes judges' decisions more severe and suspicious towards the mentally ill.