He did it again-Interpol is looking for him
- Thread starter broberfett
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Defining someone of being of "sound mind' means they are competent to go to trial i.e they don't meet the very narrow definition of being insane. Doesn't mean that their mental illness should not be taken into account at all. When Martin Bryant was sentenced his mental illness history was taken into account. Because of that mental illness history he was placed into the psychiatric ward instead of being placed elsewhere.
No, he is very much mentally ill. It is believed he suffers from several different disorders.
The worst psychopaths are extremely intelligent. Psychological studies have shown that although psychopaths overall have the same intelligence levels as the general population, their intelligence relates directly to the severity of their actions, with the smarter ones being worse, which is opposite to what is found in the non-psychopathic criminals.
For two years I lived with a genius level psychopath. He finally straightened himself out (as many do upon realizing that their behavior isn't actually all that profitable) and got a PhD in chemistry. He has since apologized to me for being an absolutely evil person, trying to frame me for kidnapping and attempted murder, framing another of our friends for breaking and entering and possibly attempted murder, etc. (and this was while I was his best friend!)
For two years I lived with a genius level psychopath. He finally straightened himself out (as many do upon realizing that their behavior isn't actually all that profitable) and got a PhD in chemistry. He has since apologized to me for being an absolutely evil person, trying to frame me for kidnapping and attempted murder, framing another of our friends for breaking and entering and possibly attempted murder, etc. (and this was while I was his best friend!)
Martin Bryant would have diminished capacity, based on his stunted IQ and EQ. Not an example that approaches my argument, nor does it provide a comparative example to the person discussed in the OP, an obviously intelligent, capable person whom some in this thread are content to declare mentally ill and diminished because they cannot understand his actions or motivations.
J
Jetfire
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Or, as I proposed, tightening the standard of evidence required to put the death penalty on the table. I think that without DNA evidence it should not be done. WITH DNA evidence, proven by two independent labs--then we can talk.
I have said that sociopaths are mentally ill not that that diminishes their actions in any way. In fact I have said that violent sociopaths should be locked away for the rest of their lives because they cannot be rehabilitated. However I see locking them as a way of protecting society not as punishment.
And yet there are people who have had truly severe illnesses and decided that they would not harm themselves, and others who, under less pressure, did it anyway.
Understanding that killing is wrong and doing it anyway is proof of one thing only: a bad decision. There may be illnesses, but if you are not delusional or otherwise so badly off that you cannot understand your surroundings or make a choice (and such people would not even recognize they were doing anything wrong), then to remove responsibility is absolutely ridiculous.
Now, the case Miss Chicken is describing sounds like a case where the killer may have had no ability to make adult decisions or understand the implications of his actions. So in that case I would go for lifelong psychiatric care. But if you CAN make decisions, if you DO know what you're doing and do it anyway, then you should bear the full penalty.
You aren't arguing the seriousness of the actions themselves. You are arguing the capacity to commit actions. Not that prison is an effective punitive, deterrent or rehabilitating experience anyway, but you and others are arguing that sociopaths deserve special treatment because you think the mere presence of their mental illness diminishes their capacity to decide their actions (its wrong to punish them in the traditional sense because they can't help themselves, so our 'humane' motivation for locking them up is social safety, not punitive like 'regular' criminals deserve) "They can't help themselves because they're sick" is exactly how one removes accountability from a person's actions and is used to great effect to disempower suffers of mental illness from exercising autonomy, and in the instance of sociopathy/psychopathy, opens additional doors to manipulation and harm. Again, 'mental illness' is not synonymous with 'crazy' or 'diminished' - sociopaths more than anyone know this, know the social stigmas, and will absolutely use it to their advantage to evade punishment. It's so convenient a misconception that even nonsociopathic individuals with a mental illness of some sort jump on this opportunity to absolve themselves of responsibility, and is a chief concern of professionals who treat mentally ill patients.
Special exemptions to the justice system shouldn't be made merely on the presence of a mental illness, it needs to be proven that the illness is the direct cause of the action and the person would have been incapable of causing that action without overwhelming influence from the illness. I argue that a sociopath's sickness does not necessarily diminish their decision-making capacity to commit murder or other serious crimes, nor does a lack of empathy automatically negate the sociopath's judgment of basic right and wrong. In fact, sociopaths know full well what they're doing when they commit crimes - their illness factors not from inability to recognize the wrongness of their acts or empathize with their victims, but inability to assess the consequences to themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopath
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociopathy
^ Actually sociopaths are more able to control their actions. Everything is cold, rational, and calculated. It is we, the "normal", who suffer irrational emotional reactions to pulling out people's intestines until they tell us where their safe is.
For example, most normal people tell little lies to avoid shame, punishment, or to make themselves seem more interesting or desirable as a partner. My psychopath roommate described his lies (actually his was describing a sweet girl I knew and trying to frame her as a psychopath by claiming she told him this in confidence in his role as a counsellor) as a vast database or spreadsheet. Each lie was tagged with a purpose, a target, who the target might reveal it to, and an expiration date when it would probably have been forgotten.
For example, most normal people tell little lies to avoid shame, punishment, or to make themselves seem more interesting or desirable as a partner. My psychopath roommate described his lies (actually his was describing a sweet girl I knew and trying to frame her as a psychopath by claiming she told him this in confidence in his role as a counsellor) as a vast database or spreadsheet. Each lie was tagged with a purpose, a target, who the target might reveal it to, and an expiration date when it would probably have been forgotten.
Exactly. Which is why arguing diminished capacity for sociopaths is so abhorrent to me.
Once again, I said
I have clearly stated that their actions are not diminished because of their illness.
The only reason that I have said that they should be treated differently from other prisoners is because they cannot be rehabilitated not because I think they should be treated more lightly than other prisoners. As I don't think that any prisoner should be treated cruelly or executed I am not singly the sociopath out for lighter treatment. In fact, as I believe they should be kept in custody for the rest of their lives I am saying the violent sociopaths should be receiving longer sentences than those violent prisoners who can be rehabilitated.
I don't think that any prisoner should be in custody for the purpose of vengeful punishment but that imprisonment should be used for deterrence, rehabilitation and/or containment. In the case of violent sociopaths only the last can be applied because the first two are not a consideration.
I think that prisoners who are mentally ill (including sociopaths) should be separated from other prisoners, partly for their own protection and the protection of other prisoners, but also so that they are looked after by specialists who understand their condition and their thinking.
^ Actually sociopaths can be rehabilitated and it happens almost automatically, given time. Most of them give up their criminal behavior sometime after age forty, especially if they have more lucrative, legal options available to them. Most of the worst ones can eventually make great lawyers, politicians, and scientists.
What doesn't work is giving them access to special treatment under the care of psychological professionals. All that does is turn them into even more brilliant psychopaths who can spout psychological theories all day long as they plot their next spree. Often they are smarter than the psychologists trying to treat them and they quickly figure out how to game the process. To them, counselling is just like playing with a Rubik's Cube. They'll eventually solve the puzzle, bamboozle the shrink, and get early release.
For them, trying to elicit true empathy is like trying to use group therapy, encounter therapy, regression therapy, and a raft of Freudian techniques to get a deaf person hear Mozart. The biological equipment isn't there, but the bright, cunning, logical mind is. The more therapy sessions you give them the more they can guess the answers and test results the therapists and parole board want to hear.
Yet after about age forty they figure they'd rather be in the jewelry business, or some other comfortable profession. Just never cross them or they'll kill you.
What doesn't work is giving them access to special treatment under the care of psychological professionals. All that does is turn them into even more brilliant psychopaths who can spout psychological theories all day long as they plot their next spree. Often they are smarter than the psychologists trying to treat them and they quickly figure out how to game the process. To them, counselling is just like playing with a Rubik's Cube. They'll eventually solve the puzzle, bamboozle the shrink, and get early release.
For them, trying to elicit true empathy is like trying to use group therapy, encounter therapy, regression therapy, and a raft of Freudian techniques to get a deaf person hear Mozart. The biological equipment isn't there, but the bright, cunning, logical mind is. The more therapy sessions you give them the more they can guess the answers and test results the therapists and parole board want to hear.
Yet after about age forty they figure they'd rather be in the jewelry business, or some other comfortable profession. Just never cross them or they'll kill you.
I am specifically talking about violent sociopaths i.e ones that are serial killers or serial rapists.
I also didn't say that they should get psychological therapy. I said
I also didn't say that they should get psychological therapy. I said
This could be giving special prison guards the training to deal with such prisoners so that those guards understand sociopathic behaviour and recognise when the prisoner is being manipulative etc.
They mostly give it up by age forty, too. Unless they have some demented political worldview (which isn't unknown amongst them), the urges abate and they've learned new coping mechanisms to get what they want. They still might kill you if there was profit in it, but they generally aren't going out of their way to seek such profits. Exceptions are those that keep rising in power and influence such as found in drug cartels.
Slightly more interesting are the theories that this behavior is genetically pre-programmed package that occurs in a small (1 to 3% or so) of males and about 1% of females. Larger numbers of them are socially unsupportable (they exact a high price on their surrounding society) and can generate a massive backlash.
I proposed another related theory about Bush Derangement Syndrom (which afflicted many a TrekBBSer), which held that the evolutionary response to the psychological profile of a psychopath would be to warn everyone around you, as hysterically and loudly as possible, that there was a wolf in your midst who can't be trusted. The symptoms of BDS correlate pretty closely with my theoretically optimal responses, based on my experience with the psychopath I lived with. It was so on target that the psycopath contacted me about it a decade or more later, having read it on the web.
Slightly more interesting are the theories that this behavior is genetically pre-programmed package that occurs in a small (1 to 3% or so) of males and about 1% of females. Larger numbers of them are socially unsupportable (they exact a high price on their surrounding society) and can generate a massive backlash.
I proposed another related theory about Bush Derangement Syndrom (which afflicted many a TrekBBSer), which held that the evolutionary response to the psychological profile of a psychopath would be to warn everyone around you, as hysterically and loudly as possible, that there was a wolf in your midst who can't be trusted. The symptoms of BDS correlate pretty closely with my theoretically optimal responses, based on my experience with the psychopath I lived with. It was so on target that the psycopath contacted me about it a decade or more later, having read it on the web.
And one could theoretically kill in self defense without remorse. But you know that's not the subject. We're talking about people who kill as a hobby with no remorse. People who do that are mentally ill by definition. It boggles my mind that people can consider a serial killer to be sane.
Why are you lumping all mentally ill people together? They're not all the same. People who are incapable of understanding right from wrong are mentally ill; all mentally ill people are not incapable of understanding right from wrong.
It's neither. Acknowledging someone's lack of control over their actions is no more insulting than acknowleging someone's lack of control over their blood sugars; and nobody is being absolved of anything.
That's because everybody is different and no condition exists in a vacuum. The difference between those two people is a near-infinitely complex combination of physical factors, life experience and specific circumstances.
No, repeatedly killing for the fun of it is far more than a bad decision. Sane people do not kill for fun.
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