Compassion For Killers

~ Laura

In The Nation, Lilliana Segura writes about a slow 14-year old girl with mental health issues who killed two boys in a fire that she set. That was in 1976. She is still in prison. Should she still be there? 

Of course, I devoured the New York Times's Magazine story about the 9-year old pyschopath. 

Are we reaching a new understanding of mental illnesses? Will this have an impact on law?

Published by Laura

6 thoughts on “Compassion For Killers”

  1. I really disliked the psychopath article. So often, I thought the experts were imputing motives on the kids without very good evidence. Kind of like facilitated communication, but instead of imputing communication, they were imputing evil. I don’t like the FC stuff,but at least their guessing good things. Really icky. The answer to the question is that there can’t be a 9 year old psychopath and I much preferred the father’s explanation, and hope the father is right, that he was kind of like his kid, and that as he matured, he learned to control those impulses and become a functioning member of society.

    Like

  2. Near here, an eleven year-old boy shot his pregnant stepmother* and just today got sentenced to detention until he’s 21. I’m not comfortable sending a kid to prison for life, but letting him go with no restrictions at 21 (which is what the law requires if you can’t try someone as an adult) seems really dangerous. Even if maturity is enough to restrain him and his murder was just an accident of youth, your brain isn’t finished developing at 21.
    * Kind of wonder if he didn’t put too much thought into the implications of Cinderella and Snow White. Maybe those stories are targeted to girls for safety reasons.

    Like

  5. 30 days and a recommendation against deportation for Dharun Ravi.
    Oddly, that strikes me as about right.

    Like

Comments are closed.