Mother Arrested for Murder

DeMartMan

DeMartMan

New member
As a people we have wrestled with the concept of justice. Some have a "Hang em all" attitude while others would just slap their hand and give them some therapy. The debate has raged for years over whether everyone could be rehabilitated to the point that we overlook the bigger question of should all criminals be rehabilitated? Perhaps there are those that can only make a meaningful contribution to society for behind bars. What we must ask ourselves is whether we want a Justice system that is about imprisonment and punishment or about rehabilitation so as to make that person once again a valuable member of society? Or even some mix there of. What would you say should happen to this Mother who murdered her child?

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F61pKc4d1uk"]YouTube - Mother Arrested for Murder[/ame]
 
I don't even want to watch it. When a mother murders her child, there is something terribly wrong with her. Mothering instincts being right up there with sexual instincts, they are usually pretty strong hormonal driven emotions.

She is wired wrong, I don't believe in the Enhanced Sleep Technique, I believe she should be hospitalized for a very long time!
 
froggie said:
I don't even want to watch it. When a mother murders her child, there is something terribly wrong with her. Mothering instincts being right up there with sexual instincts, they are usually pretty strong hormonal driven emotions.

She is wired wrong, I don't believe in the Enhanced Sleep Technique, I believe she should be hospitalized for a very long time!
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Here is the really hard question; should she ever be set free?
 
DeMartMan said:
Here is the really hard question; should she ever be set free?
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We know very few details of this case. From past experience and the few bits of information that were available in the clip, my first instinct is to say no, she should spend her life in lockdown in a psychiatric institution.
 
Thorn said:
We know very few details of this case. From past experience and the few bits of information that were available in the clip, my first instinct is to say no, she should spend her life in lockdown in a psychiatric institution.
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Lockdown is not meant as a place you should keep people permanently. It's not supposed to be a method of punishment. That's a violation of human rights. Also, the purpose of a psychiatric institution isn't to permanently house inmates. I wouldn't even see the purpose of doing so, if you had no intentions of curing their illness.
 
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It's generally my belief that only people who's murders are aggravated (like a rape/murder or a kidnapping/murder) should be given a full life sentence, while otherwise they should be given a long stay in prison with the opportunity of release at the end, depending on how they proved themselves in the prison stay. It really depends on the details of the case.

As for the question of reform, I don't believe that they even really knew what they were doing last time it was tried widely. Staying in prison a long time in itself has a strong "reforming" effect, although that isn't an ideal method.
 
Watermark said:
Lockdown is not meant as a place you should keep people permanently. It's not supposed to be a method of punishment. That's a violation of human rights. Also, the purpose of a psychiatric institution isn't to permanently house inmates. I wouldn't even see the purpose of doing so, if you had no intentions of curing their illness.
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I think that you may have read enough on the topic to know that there are conditions that simply cannot be "cured" and a very few that cannot even be managed except by incarceration. As you may know, the compliance rate of patients to take antipsychotic medication is disturbingly low. Those who have committed a serious crime, and who cannot function without those meds and who have shown a refractoriness in adhering to a necessary medication schedule should remain under close supervision. I used "lockdown" probably inappropriately -- what I meant was a locked ward.

A forensic psychiatric institution may indeed house inmates for their entire natural lives. There are strict rules governing when they must be reviewed in terms of the danger that they may present to society and/or themselves, but some individuals are never released, nor should they be. Remember, I had four years' professional first-hand experience with several of these people.
 
What gets me is that there are those who only think of the criminal and forget that there was a victim. A child is dead; the mother pushed him and his sister off the bridge and has admitted to committing the act. There is no way in my book that such a criminal should ever be set free, let her be a productive part of society from behind bars. Prison should involve some punishment for crimes committed against society. I am not advocating beatings or anything of that nature, but so long as the victim is suffering from the crime, the criminal should remain incarcerated. If that murdered child can be given his life back then and only then should the murder be set free.
 
DeMartMan said:
What gets me is that there are those who only think of the criminal and forget that there was a victim. A child is dead; the mother pushed him and his sister off the bridge and has admitted to committing the act. There is no way in my book that such a criminal should ever be set free, let her be a productive part of society from behind bars. Prison should involve some punishment for crimes committed against society. I am not advocating beatings or anything of that nature, but so long as the victim is suffering from the crime, the criminal should remain incarcerated. If that murdered child can be given his life back then and only then should the murder be set free.
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There's another issue here beside rehab vs punishment. It is that of protecting society from criminals such as this. Regardless of any mitigating circumstances for her crime society should be protected and she should never have the opportunity to commit such an act ever again.
 
Mottleydude said:
There's another issue here beside rehab vs punishment. It is that of protecting society from criminals such as this. Regardless of any mitigating circumstances for her crime society should be protected and she should never have the opportunity to commit such an act ever again.
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Right and I would add that is also protecting those criminals for without a real justice system everyone would be deciding for themselves and it would be all about revenge.
 
DeMartMan said:
What gets me is that there are those who only think of the criminal and forget that there was a victim. A child is dead; the mother pushed him and his sister off the bridge and has admitted to committing the act. There is no way in my book that such a criminal should ever be set free, let her be a productive part of society from behind bars. Prison should involve some punishment for crimes committed against society. I am not advocating beatings or anything of that nature, but so long as the victim is suffering from the crime, the criminal should remain incarcerated. If that murdered child can be given his life back then and only then should the murder be set free.
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That's not logical. You are trying to make her pay, but it's a payment no one will ever receive. The child won't come back to life because you're cruel to someone. Not all cases of murder should end in whole life imprisonment. I think it's disgusting for you to accuse me of not caring about victims. Cruelty and punishment without reason or compassion does nothing for the victim. It doesn't even respect their name.
 
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Mottleydude said:
There's another issue here beside rehab vs punishment. It is that of protecting society from criminals such as this.
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Well people convicted of murder aren't usually allowed to keep children anyway, and she'd probably be 60 or 70 before the question of review ever came up again. Again; she should be reviewed in retrospect, not by mottley here with his crystal ball.
 
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