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A bit of interesting trivia. And of course, the disclaimer, statistics ...
A psych where I work (corrections) was showing me a study of criminals and sociopaths and their recidivism rates. The study showed sociopaths and the criminals who were given treatment programs while incarcerated differed in their recidivism.
Or words to that affect. The psych said he had heard that but never found the study. In the psych's words, the sociopaths became "better" criminals after having received treatment. Whereas common criminals tended to show a decrease in reoffending.
Interesting. No citation, but if anyone wants one, I can get it at a later date.
sociopaths may seem like they've become ''better " criminals after having recieved treatment, but are we SURE??Most sociopaths are highly intelligent people, unfortunately they use this intelligence to satisfy only THEIR immediate or long term needs. They might easily be able to fool the psychiatrist who's evaluating them.....NO EXCUSES...you do the crime, you do the time.
No, it`s not a disease. They know exactly what they are doing when they do it.
Then how come pretty much all serial murderers have completely messed up family lives? I've read about tons of serial killers, the vast majority either had one or more abusive parents, or a parent who died when they were young, or were orphans or foster kids. I think people become bad mostly due to lack of love. Just like a dog who is beaten becomes vicious.
Then how come pretty much all serial murderers have completely messed up family lives? I've read about tons of serial killers, the vast majority either had one or more abusive parents, or a parent who died when they were young, or were orphans or foster kids. I think people become bad mostly due to lack of love. Just like a dog who is beaten becomes vicious.
Thats faulty logic since most people from broken homes or with messed up families are just fine. I think we worry too much about why things are as they are. Theres always been psychos & there always will be.
The question is is it worth the risk to let them go. I dont think it is.
They know what they do, yes, they rarely fully understand the ramifications and results of their actions though (referring to criminals with heavily sociopathic traits).
Not understanding why something is wrong does not undo whats been done. I think its absurd to even care if they understand.
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Understanding and treating sociopaths is not an attempt at avoiding their responsibility, it's holding them accountable for it, and trying to make them understand.
Its to make us feel good while ignoreing the victims. How is treating them for an illness holding them responsible? Whether or not they understand really doesn't matter. Do we not kill rabid dogs because they dont understand?
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It's not an excuse, it's an explanation and for some, a way to possibly contribute again to a society they've done so much harm.
Theres the thing. In most cases they did not harm society. In most cases they harmed an individual & the crime was not commited against society but against that person. If someone rapes or kills a family member of mine then my family has been victimized, not society at large. On the other hand society at large is definately the victim when we release the people because some idiot with a doctorate says he thinks he fixed them.
Is it worth the risk? Hell no.
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I don't think you'll find many people in support of not sentencing sociopaths for their actions, as you say, they do know what they do is wrong, even if they don't know why (or if they do know why, lack the ability to care). The question that therefor arise is, what to do with them?
Thats a no brainer. Leave it up to the victim or their family, instead of dissinterested people who make money off of it.
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Keeping them in prison indefinitely is, exempting the worst irreparable cases, a waste of money. Executing them is, by the standards of a larger and larger part of the world, morally and ethically inexcusable and letting them back out in society after the end of an ordinary prison sentence will more often than not, see them back in there very shortly.
Excecuting them is the only truly moral thing to do. Its merciful even to the sociopath. How would you like to go thru life knowing that you could snap & kill at any moment? Putting them all together in some psycho commune is redivculous. Theres no way to say they wont kill each other and its no less a waste of money than keeping them in jail. I'm not into servitude but if we need to support them they should be working sun up to sun down.
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Knowing that sociopathy is not an incurable "condition" (or personality trait if you will), would it not be worth it to try and limit further damage (and of course bring more attention to hindering it happening in the first place) and allow someone to not only attempt to right their wrongs, but live an ordinary life after ending their incarceration, if possible? It would certainly save a lot of money.
Its not about money, its about justice. You go tell some people who's kid was killed or violated that justice is served because somebody got medicated. Want to save money? We can use bullets, a nickle a sociopath & theyre gone.
Not understanding why something is wrong does not undo whats been done. I think its absurd to even care if they understand.
I never said that it did. I don't think it's absurd to take it into account though. That is one reason why children generally aren't tried as adults, because adults and the court recognize that they, as children, do not fully comprehend the extent of their actions.
On the contrary, I think looking at the crime, without taking the alleged perpetrators background, state of mind and sanity into consideration is not only absurd, but simple minded and foolish.
Put simply, a murder does not always equal another, and as soon as one recognizes that, you have to take other factors than merely the result of a crime into consideration.
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Originally Posted by Tin Knocker
Its to make us feel good while ignoreing the victims. How is treating them for an illness holding them responsible? Whether or not they understand really doesn't matter. Do we not kill rabid dogs because they dont understand?
Again I disagree, how does treating and holding someone with ASPD (which Sociopathy, a generally vague label, falls under) accountable for their actions going to make "us" feel better about ourselves whilst disregarding those affected by the crime? From what I understand, most victims actually want more than anything for the perpetrator to understand the full extent of the pain they've caused, this is not only well documented (and readily available to search), but the reason why it's increasingly more common for the victims of a crime to meet the perpetrator, though a dangerous situation to be in for someone who's emotionally still unstable, it can provide a great deal of healing for victims who's had time to process the crime or those who are emotionally strong enough to face a perpetrator that might not regret their actions and at worst, find comfort in the victims pain.
Treating someone with ASPD, whilst keeping them detained for the duration of their sentence (which can be any variation of length) has nothing to do with trying to make the common man feel better, quite frankly, I think the common man will rarely actually think of this, it's also not something done to comfort the perpetrator, it's done primarily for the victims, and as an extension of that, for society. Because those who'll benefit most from this understanding are the victims, and secondly, a society who's hopefully alleviated of an "evil", to use a poor term, and gaining another useful member.
In short: Enabling them to understand is the only true way to hold them responsible for what they've done.
Comparing humans to rabid dogs though, is something that you'll have to account for, I don't see the correlation.
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Originally Posted by Tin Knocker
Theres the thing. In most cases they did not harm society. In most cases they harmed an individual & the crime was not commited against society but against that person. If someone rapes or kills a family member of mine then my family has been victimized, not society at large. On the other hand society at large is definately the victim when we release the people because some idiot with a doctorate says he thinks he fixed them.
Is it worth the risk? Hell no.
There are a lot of false presumptions in this statements, most prevalent in your idea that someone with a doctorate will be an "idiot", thus it's hard to answer this properly as the premise is so skewed, however, If someone rapes or kills a family member of yours, then yes, you and the rest of your family are obviously those it affect the most. You cannot disregard the effect this has on society though.
If we were talking about one single incident then yes, the ripple effect in the grander scheme of things would be minimal, but there are a large number of these incidents every single day and it affects everything from workplaces, communities, social groups, to greater economy, etc. etc.
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Originally Posted by Tin Knocker
Thats a no brainer. Leave it up to the victim or their family, instead of dissinterested people who make money off of it.
Leaving it up to the victim or those victimized by someone's actions not only puts an enormous burden on them, it also leaves sentencing up to chance, and by people who are, more than likely already emotionally unstable, allowing their emotions to too greatly control their actions and decisions, decisions they might later greatly regret.
It's because we recognized some time ago, that vengeance isn't a good measure of justice that we removed the decision making from those who did not think clearly. The current system is by no means perfect, but it's far better than vendettas and blood vengeance, we tried that, it didn't work.
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Originally Posted by Tin Knocker
Excecuting them is the only truly moral thing to do. Its merciful even to the sociopath. How would you like to go thru life knowing that you could snap & kill at any moment? Putting them all together in some psycho commune is redivculous. Theres no way to say they wont kill each other and its no less a waste of money than keeping them in jail. I'm not into servitude but if we need to support them they should be working sun up to sun down.
I'm not entirely sure how anyone could actually arrive at the conclusion that the only moral thing to do would be to execute another human, nor that their work burden should be significantly worse than that of the common man (I do agree that some sort of labor should be expected during incarceration, though that is as much for the perpetrator as it is for cost efficiency and "punishment").
I think we all go through life able to kill someone, whether we are aware of that or not. Killers are not inherently evil, they do not differ greatly from the rest of us, they're people, just like us, and we, just like them, can kill. In fact, I would think someone with an ASPD would deal with it better than the common man, considering that he might not have any emotional, ethical nor moral thoughts to struggle with.
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Originally Posted by Tin Knocker
Its not about money, its about justice. You go tell some people who's kid was killed or violated that justice is served because somebody got medicated. Want to save money? We can use bullets, a nickle a sociopath & theyre gone.
I never gestured that simply medicating them was any type of punishment. Treatment is a lot more than that, and hopefully that treatment, especially as it gets better, will at the very least, give the families an apology for the pain that's caused.
Someone who's kid was killed or violated will never have justice, the actions cannot be undone and killing another human being will not change that, accepting that might be the first step on the way to seeking alternative ways to sentence those who commit the crimes.
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