Quote:
|
Originally Posted by brianna
ok, AGAIN, she is **NOT** going to go free. No one is proposing that she be let out of prison and allowed to have and kill more children. And if you believe that she is insane then you cannot expect anyone to provide an acceptable rational for her actions. Insane people do not act based on logical decisions.
The main moral question for our society is what is the fair and just wayto treat this woman? If we agree that she is mentally ill then is it really fair to commit her to a life in prison (keeping in mind that arguably ANYONE could at some point become mentally insane.), and how would society benefit from this action? I don't think any of us directly benefits from punishing individuals (esp mentally ill individuals) just for the sake of revenge. Ideally our penal system should work to improve society and minimize future crimes not just to deal out some arbitrary form of punishment.
|
true, insane people do not act based on logical decisions... i would even argue that they are completely irrational/illogical (trying to have a conversation with a psychotic person, if you're not trained, can be completely exhausting... and can still be if you're trained).
i am unsure of what the fair and just way to treat the woman is. as i said earlier, the way in which she killed her childern (seemingly in a systematic way, from youngest to oldest) seems a bit odd... as if she may have been insane, or she may have thought about the way to do it previously, and then did it just that way (but i guess you'd have to be "insane" to think like that and do it!). in any event, at the most basic level, we must balance her right as an individual with the right of the society at large to be safe. at a higher level, she needs to be safe as well. she stated that both her and her kids needed to be punished. the kids punishment apparently was death. i wonder what she believes her punishment to be?
in my eyes, at the very least, she needs a lot of hospitalization and probably a lot of antipsychotic medication.
for argument's sake, if she is now functioning well mentally, and understands what she did, what will she do now? will she still hold those religious beliefs (which of course she's free to believe) she held before? will she be able to be a functioning member of society? i don't know.
i think that regardless of what happens (whether it's prison, or a state psychiatric facility, or free in society) she has a hard life ahead of her. she killed her 5 kids, and has a husband (i wonder if they are still legally married) who literally had everything taken away from him.