Dealing with the Criminally Insane

[Kyuuketsuki]

Criminal is a juridical term (tortious interference); and insane is a pseudo-medical term.  'Criminally insane' is just non-sequitur.
Any 'sane' society will always condone retaliation against property agressors, and only property agressors.  I'm not interested in the military supercriminals and those who support them, nor their preferences, as regards acceptable institutions.

If what you are basically saying is that criminality and insanity are pretty much mutually exclusive then I agree with you.

Kyu

[LARA]

Why would a society continue to allow a confessed and brutal killer to exist?  Are we fascinated with the news stories he creates?  Are we this bored?  And I must say this story is badly reported and not exactly clearly written if a person wants to really make any judgements about the nature of this said event.  I hate shitty journalism.

I really don't care what happens to this man quite honestly.  I do know if the mental health system gets a hold of him, he will experience the fascinating and horrific new hells they have come up with to destroy the mind and replace it with what they want.  Which is most likely a drooling vegetable who will eat, excrete waste and greenhouse gases and use tax payers money, considering the knowledge level and ability of the current mental health system.  The process will be awful and if there is anything left of his free will afterwards and any realization of his crimes and a sense of humanity's right and wrong, he will exist in a metaphorical hell on earth until he finally dies.  I suppose it just comes down to how much you want to torture the person for their crimes.  Or a person's body since this guys mind seems to be completely gone.

I am confused by the human attachment to the physical body.  Whatever this man was, he has made choices that are inconceivable by most.  He confessed his crimes.  There isn't even a question here anymore of innocence.  The mind of this man is most likely gone, replaced by something faulty and animalistic, something deep in the reptile brain of humans that has little empathy or caring for anything but the self, if even that any more.

Now as far as whether or not this man is capable of standing trial, there simply isn't enough information here to decide that.  A news article isn't the same as being able to sit in on a court trail and determine whether or not this person is acting in a fashion that has any presence of foresight and is harming himself in order to get what he personally feels is a lesser plea.  Which is amusing to me considering what mental health rehabilitation and medication consists of.  I would have to have as much information as the judge to determine whether or not this man is capable of understanding the charges against him and participating in his own defense.  I think the judge is doing him a compassionate favor by allowing him a criminal trial with the chance of a death penalty rather than being determined insane and giving him "medical" treatment.  That is if there is anything human left in this man, aside from just his physical body's will to exist.

As far as what is to be done with the criminally insane?  There is no insanity, only human opinion.  Legally, a person just has to be shown to be mentally able to participate in his or her own defense.  

When a human makes the personal choice to kill another living, breathing human, they have become essentially a very dangerous animal.  The most efficient thing and merciful thing to be done with a very dangerous animal is to kill it as quickly and painlessly as possible.  

And mount it's head on your wall.

[karadan]

When a human makes the personal choice to kill another living, breathing human, they have become essentially a very dangerous animal.  The most efficient thing and merciful thing to be done with a very dangerous animal is to kill it as quickly and painlessly as possible.  

And mount it's head on your wall.

[LARA]

So, what do we then do to the executioner? Also, what would we do with soldiers? How do we draw that line? You can spin murder as much as you want, but at the end of the day it is still murder

karadan, you're creating the spin yourself by grouping soldiers and executioners in with people who in their daily lives just go haywire and rip their spouse and child's heart out.  
As far as how to draw a line, you draw one by making a distinction based on actions and facts.  There is a difference between a person who signs up for military duties to protect their country and a murderer.  A soldier is under the direction of higher officers and they are the ones who are morally responsible for the actions of war.  It is a different case entirely.  There are cases in which a person can take another person's life and military duty is one of them.  And here's another question.  Would you tell me that I have to sit back and let soldiers invade my country and I can't even defend myself with lethal force if necessary?  You say murder is murder.  So what about self-defense?  If someone attacks me and tries to kill me should I sit back and allow it or would your higher moral principles let me fight back to save my own life?  There are cases in which lethal force is acceptable.  And as far a grey areas are concerned, there are always grey areas.  Always.

This man is very dangerous.  Fine, then, if the legal proceeding are too costly and the appeals unending, let him live out his life.   And if he's determined to be in need of mental health care, psychiatry will use him as a guinea pig in the name of rehabilitation.  But that's a punishment I wouldn't force on any creature.

[karadan]

I was only playing devils advocate but it is a debate worth debating. In a perfect world we wouldn't have to defend ourselves from invaders because people wouldn't need to invade. In a perfect world, people wouldn't get so messed up that they cut out the hearts of children.

No matter the motive or method used, a soldier killing someone in principle is exactly the same as the psycho killing his family. The only difference is the reasons why it was done. One was following orders and one lost the ability to be rational. Mechanically, it is still one life snuffing out another. To use your quote "morally responsible for the actions of war" i feel is a misnomer. There is no such thing. Otherwise the people behind the Iraq war would be in prison right now.

I still believe there are NO cases where lethal force is acceptable. Unfortunately we live in a world where people invade other countries, burglars steal property, rapists rape people and and serial killers run amok. To kill these people is a solution, yes, but just because what they do is bad, doesn't make killing them acceptable or good. As soon as humanity gets over the reasons which give the above the impetus to kill/steal/rape/invade then we will not feel we have to kill 'for the better good' and when that day arrives, humanity will look upon its past with great scorn and venom.

I see it all from a simplistic point of view. Anyone with the drive or ability to murder is broken (including most soldiers). The synaptic pathways in their head have been wired or re-wired incorrectly. The myriad reasons why this can happen are the things we need to concentrate on developing skills to counteract. For instance, if we developed the medical ability to read a brain to a point where we could root out these anomalies and fix them, wouldn't that be useful to society?

I still stand by my original point though. The death penalty is flawed because of the mistakes which can, and have been made.

Lock them up forever. The alternative isn't worth thinking about.

[LARA]

I was only playing devils advocate but it is a debate worth debating.

I see it all from a simplistic point of view. Anyone with the drive or ability to murder is broken (including most soldiers). The synaptic pathways in their head have been wired or re-wired incorrectly. The myriad reasons why this can happen are the things we need to concentrate on developing skills to counteract. For instance, if we developed the medical ability to read a brain to a point where we could root out these anomalies and fix them, wouldn't that be useful to society? I think i just invented a new scientific field - psychosurgery.

I still stand by my original point though. The death penalty is flawed because of the mistakes which can, and have been made.

Is any part of the second statement is devil's advocacy?   I'm going to treat it as such and go with the debate.  No hard feelings from here on out, okay?  

The gloves are off.  If I goo to far, I apologize in advance.

That you see things from a simplistic point of view goes without saying, karadan.  You are talking of perfect worlds.  I agree with you that in a perfect world there would be no killing.  I sometimes tell myself I live for the day where the is no murder on earth.  Just one day.

But we do not live in a world like that.  We live in a world where everything dies, there are limits and we can't just wish the bad things to go away.  We have to change it ourselves if it is to be changed.

You are speaking of killing as if it is the most horrible thing to befall a person.  And you act as if your viewpoint, removing people's freedom entirely and rewiring their brains for the benefit of society is somehow more moral and just and compassionate than the capital punishment of murderers.

And then you claim to have invented psychosurgery.  What are you going to lay claim to next karadan, the internet?

Psychosurgery is nothing new.  Scrambling people's brains to make them more docile and complaint has been with us since Walter Freeman invented his so called icepick lobotomy to help get difficult people under control.  And then of course there is ECT.  A lovely procedure that involves running electric currents through the brain to induce a seizure that will supposedly cure depression.  Most of what it cures is a person's ability to recall short term events.  Now granted this procedure hasn't been extensively used on criminals.  Criminals have too many rights under the law to have such things done to them.  They have the protections of the law, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment and an appeals system and courts in place for their benefit.  They are innocent until proven guilty.  They can't be tested on without consent or given potentially damaging medications against their will.  It would be unkind and unfair and cruel.  It would hurt their civil rights.  You aren't going to get very far with the psychological treatment of murderers, I'm afraid.  There are too many protections in place for them, unless of course they are determined to be incompetent and in need of psychiatric care. Sorry about the oxymoron there, folks.

Pretty much most of your psychosurgery and rewiring is going to be done to people who are suicidal, at the extreme end, to people who just make lives difficult for their families and are disobedient and think they actually have these silly things called rights and freedom.  People who are social misfits, who are never given a chance to be called innocent.  People who are considered of lesser value to society than murderers.

But I digress.  My point here is that you are not going to successfully use psychosurgery to rewire murderers because of the legal protections they have.  And any more advancement by psychiatry in this area will simply continue to allow more and more people who don't fall into the psychological norm of society to be harmed and have their rights abused since society still sees them as non-humans.

Now you say that anyone with the ability or drive to kill is broken.  You must have not evolved karadan.  Killing is deeply ingrained within the reptile brain of humans.  It is a natural ability we have.  We are very good at it.  We are the top predators on this planet.  We can not only kill any animal on this planet, but we have the ability to exterminate entire species.  We are so good at killing, in fact that we as a species can't even stop killing the very types of creature we love or even ourselves at times.

But beyond the reptile brain we also have things like empathy, love and compassion that allow us to determine self from non-self, save our own children and animals of many species, to regret our killing natures, to turn away from our very accomplished ability to kill and destroy and create new and beautiful ideas and things and even if we so choose, preserve much of this place for future generations.

We are complex animals.  We are both good and evil, to use simplistic black and white terms.  And part of us is, by nature, a killer.  It will take many, many generations of human evolution to eliminate this function, if it ever can be eliminated at all.  A killer is not a broken human.  A person who cannot fight to save their own life is a broken human.  The killing instinct is naturally ingrained.  It is part of our self-defense mechanism, part of our will to survive.  We as a species have to kill living things to eat and to live.  All of us without exception.

I already conceded to your point that the confessed murderer could be freed from the possibility of capital punishment.  It really doesn't matter that much to me as long as the psychiatric treatment of prisoners doesn't advance to where it becomes more powerful and dangerous to those in this world who are simply holding dissenting opinions.  

But you never answered my questions about self-defense.

So I'm asking you again, in your world view, do I have the right to defend myself with lethal force against a lethal attack?  I am not talking about pre-emptive war, or a Bush-type neocon political machine.  I am talking about a point in time when a country or people is under attack and they must make a decision to take up arms and defend themselves and their country from an invading force.  I am talking about a person being attacked in the dark by a criminal, or an individual waking to find their house broken into and a burgular with a weapon in ther home.  What do you allow them to do?  What actions would you allow them to take?

This is the question now.

karadan, does your worldview allow a person to fight back with lethal force if necessary, or do they have to submit to death without fighting?

[karadan]

Why would I have hard feelings? Just because we have a difference of opinion, doesn't mean I think any less of you!

[AnnaM]

If what you are basically saying is that criminality and insanity are pretty much mutually exclusive then I agree with you.

More like 'insane' is made up, and 'criminal' is not something open to diverse interpretations unless we abandon jurisprudence altogether (as, at times, people seem to want to do).

[LARA]

I appreciate your reply, karadan.  Well thought out.

I don't think the idea of good or bad came into my head when dealing with this kind of subject. It's more along the idea of what's most efficient.  I have pacifistic dreams too, but I tend to take a rather cynical view of human nature.  I don't think that a person that is truly to the point that this article describes is capable of ever being rehabilitated. I also don't see how we can counteract millions of years of evolution with survival based on the need to kill and eat living things and still be considered the same species we are today.  We would have to evolve or be genetically designed into a completely different species.

In this case a judge has already ruled the man in question competent to stand trial.  He can understand the charges, understand that what he did was wrong and will face a trial.  

But no matter what I have to wonder what will happen to him.  What if he receives treatment at some point and regains an understanding of what he's done?  How could he live out the rest of his life, even in a jail cell, with that kind of guilt?  Maybe it's guilt that's causing him to try to destroy himself right now, who knows?  

It seems to me from one perspective that death would be a mercy for this individual, a chance to put an end to the suffering he has created, to forget and just lay the whole thing to rest.  Whatever broke inside him was most likely something he couldn't control or understand.  He called the cops after he did it.  He didn't want to lie or run or hide from what he'd done.  I think that jailing him would just extend a terrible and disgusting event.  Of course considering the appeals process, he's going to be living for quite awhile no matter what, so...

To you death is a matter of right and wrong, but to me what's wrong is extending severe and terrible suffering with no realistic hope of it's end.  But it doesn't matter, because this decision really isn't mine to make anyway.

[Wechtlein Uns]

Well, maybe it's as simple as eliminating all threats to a society. Of course, society is not a natural thing, we created it. But that doesn't make it any less desirable or undesirable. Keep in mind that all those who want order and society are going to eliminate threats to that order. It's not even supposed to be seen from a moral perspective. If you wanted to be benevolent and be kind to that crazy man, you would let him have what he wants. And he want's to dig the hearts out of people and eat them. Should we lock him up? Only if our morality says that killing is wrong. But as has been allready shown, blank check moral statements such as "Do not kill" hardly work in all instances. In fact, the situations in which that old abrahamic adage are truly applicable are severly limited.

Instead, do what is appropriate. That differs from case to case. Some types of mental illnesses have different affects on their victims. If someone goes insane and murders a child, but afterwards regains his sanity, I would have no problem allowing that person to go free. Killing the person now that they are sane isn't going to bring that child back, and killing him just for revenge would simply add to the death toll of perfectly good people dying.

In the case of a completely bat-shit-fucked up insane man going around thinking he's god and passing judgement on people, thus killing them in strange ritual-like ways... Well, again, situations vary. One should do what's appropriate for that situation. In the situation of the article, I see no problem with eliminating the threat quickly and painlessly. No, we don't need lethal injections or painful punishments. Put them on anaesthesia, make them calmly go under and that's the end of it. Quite possibly the best way to die.  

[Loffler]

I have zero sympathy for people like that.

So if you woke up from a psychotic trance with a knife in your hand and a dead stranger at your feet, you would have zero sympathy for yourself?

[Ihateyoumike]

I have zero sympathy for people like that.

So if you woke up from a psychotic trance with a knife in your hand and a dead stranger at your feet, you would have zero sympathy for yourself?

Frankly, if I "woke up" from a trance in that situation, I'd hope to have enough sense to kill myself.

Then again, I'm pretty sure you don't just "wake up from psychotic trances" and find that you've killed someone. I think even if you admit to it afterwards, you're still screwed up in the head and capable of doing it again. And, no, I don't think they should continue living on the taxpayer's dime.

[Loffler]

I have zero sympathy for people like that.

So if you woke up from a psychotic trance with a knife in your hand and a dead stranger at your feet, you would have zero sympathy for yourself?

Frankly, if I "woke up" from a trance in that situation, I'd hope to have enough sense to kill myself.

I highly doubt it.

Then again, I'm pretty sure you don't just "wake up from psychotic trances" and find that you've killed someone.

People like you typically have trouble imagining that they could go crazy, so I was trying to put it into terms you understand. But ok, I won't be so cautious: if you developed schizophrenia, which is always  a possibility, you would have no sympathy for yourself?

I think even if you admit to it afterwards, you're still screwed up in the head and capable of doing it again.

Of course you're capable of doing it again. That's the whole point.

[Wraitchel]

Criminal is a juridical term (tortious interference); and insane is a pseudo-medical term.  'Criminally insane' is just non-sequitur.
Any 'sane' society will always condone retaliation against property agressors, and only property agressors.  I'm not interested in the military supercriminals and those who support them, nor their preferences, as regards acceptable institutions.

  Huh?

[VanReal]

Unfortunately with the removal of the state mental institutions, and instead instituting the requirement of "self" check-ins for adults, our people with genuine mental illness roam free unable to make rational decisions and what we have are people with severe and dangerous mental illnesses commiting crimes that could have been avoided.  Once again we went knee-jerked into an "all or nothing" system regarding our mentally ill.  Of course, back in the day when people could be indefinitely committed for mental illness it was harsh and much like being convicted without due process.  It's a no win.  But this is regarding people with actual mental illness, not all criminals (killers, rapists, etc) are genuinely mentally ill.  Some are just bad people and are well aware of what they are doing and simply do not care, do not feel remorse, don't care that it's wrong, and get off on it.  Because our brains aren't wired that way makes us think they are insane (crazy) but they may not be.  There's a huge difference between someone that rapes and kills over time and covers that up while leading a relatively normal life otherwise and someone struggling with schizophrenia that snaps and kills and can't remember what triggered it and doesn't know what happened.  We do away with the first and can try to work with the second.  

Someone said we should just keep the criminally insane in prison forever.  I am wondering if you realize how many of these people are being warehoused and how much it costs per day to keep them in prison.  It's not cost effective.  Not to mention, we warehouse "lifers" with no chance of ever getting out with people that have five and ten year sentences...what do you think that environment does to those prisoners that haven't committed henious or violent crimes...makes them a better person for when they are released?  Hmmmm, this is probably why working in prisons is one of the most stable jobs in the US, we certainly aren't lacking in prison population.