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It may well be that he will try to fake mental illness to escape justice for his actions - or he could be an ill, innocent man. Time will tell - just don't prejudge him.
I suspect either way he will have a trial. IIRC, they need to put him on trial, even if he is going to be committed to a mental hospital for the rest of his life.
He's under constant observation by a team of highly qualified and eminent psychiatrists. Every move he makes is recorded and analysed. I find it highly unlikely that he is able to sustain the pretence of insanity under such scrutiny.
If he is never fit to stand trial then he will never be fit to leave hospital and thus will serve a life imprisonment anyway. Besides, his mental state now is probably far more of a punishment than any corporeal one the courts could hand down. A mental hospital has little resemblance to the hospitals you and I are aquainted with; he's not tucked up on a ward waiting for an appendectomy, rather in a potentially very harsh and frightening place.
He is free to roam around, free to talk to other like minded individuals as well.
In prison he would be locked up for 23 hours of the day with little or no distraction. His only options are to think about what he's done, read a book or hang himself.
Edi M, my defenition of lynched got slightly messed up there and I thought I explained what I meant. What I want to happen is, WHEN he is found guilty he is released to the crowd. I never suggested that it happen until he is found guilty.
Not quite the same case, but Pinochet did a pretty good job of convincing Jack Straw and his team of doctors that he was not fit to stand trial. You could almost hear him laughing as he boarded the plane bound for Chile, with his great pal Maggie Thatcher congratulating him on his great escape.
Youve obviously never done pyschology. A few years back, a prominent researcher by the name of Rosenhan wanted to find out wether pyschiatrists could actually determine insanity.
He directed 8 sane people to try and get access to 12 insitutions in the USA by faking insanity, and to see how long they could keep up the pretense.
None of them were EVER questioned. All of them were determined to be insane, even though they were perfectly healthy.
In a later experiment he notified a hospital that he would be sending one or more "pseudo patients" there, to test their ability. Out of 193 admissions, a total of 19 were suspected to be actually sane by 2 members of staff. None of those 19 were the fake patients.
He later said "it is clear we cannot distinguish the sane from the insane in our hospitals".
If you knew the things I knew vox about this sort of thing, you would have the same confidence in a pyschiatrist's abilities as you do in the ability of a toaster to perform complex mathmatical equations.
sorry, i saw that and i havent bothered to read the rest of these posts but...eurgh
how much compassion do you think that man who raped me, at the age of eight, was feeling?
unless you've been through it then...you're opinion is ... not irrelevant but...well maybe your eyes havent been opened.
if i wasnt this tired i would give you a nice long blow by blow account of what being raped feels like. how scared you are, how violated you feel. why are epople seemingly insistant that these people should walk free, try to be understood, and given an easy life on a silver platter?
they deserve to be lined up and shot. slowly. but as they arent we could give them life sentances. but they serve a third of one and then are let out because they areapparantly reformed. like someone said (sorry cant rememebr who it was) by the time another child is lying face down in a ditch ots a bit fucking late.
They just shouldnt be let back out into the community. In ordinary life we have to pay for mistakes for we make, and sometimes we get another chance but the mistake they've made is TOO BIG to be forgiven. They have done something so terrible that they don't deserve another chance until they've paid for what they've done, and a life sentance isnt enough, but its a start.
They don't deserve compassion...because half the fucking victims don't get it. Why aren't you all campaigning for more centres with qualified and understanding doctors to help us get better? Why isn't there more research done into how our minds feel and are working after what we went through? Why are we expected to keep calm when people start defending the twisted people who fuck our childhoods and our emotions and in most cases our attitudes to certain things for the rest of our lives? iv been raped once as a child, and twice seriously as a teenager. the fact that it can happen that many times to one person says everything you need to hear about our fucking justice system.
:mad:
After reading Emsie's post, I will say that such a list shouldn't be published, as such people shouldn't be let out back in society.
It's such a big slap in the face for someone who's been raped to know that the one who has ruined their life, shattered their sense of freedom and twisted their mind, is living out in the open and forming themselves a normal life.
Rape is a worse crime than murder, in my opinion. It's so cruel, and degrading. And again, as Emsie said, this mistake is way too big, to be ignored and forgotten. Consequences...
How, exactly?
I'm not saying rape isn't a terrible crime, but rape victims can continue with their lives, and can go on and live normal lives. Yes, they'll always be tainted by their memories and experiences, and I'm sure it's a terrible thing for them, but hopefully most of them can come to terms with their experience and try to move on. How is this worse than being murdered? I find that a bizarre statement.
Well, I think that you have already given the reasons. One person has to live with the consquence of the crime the other doesn't even know that the crime has been comitted.
You dismiss the effects of rape too easily dude. It isn't a case of picking yourself up and getting on with life, the scars are there forever.
So you'd prefer to be murdered than raped, MoK?
*explodes with rage*
everytime i feel depressed, i wish that he had just smashed my head in against a rock so that i didnt have to go on and feel this way. being murdered would mean a terrible crime had happened, but you'd be dead, rape is a lifelong crime, and if i could rewind the clock id take being killed over being raped any day.
I depends on the circumstances, but I think that I am mentally strong enough to cope with the after effects. Murder affects the victims family omre, doesn't it. I'm hardly gonna be in a position to protest if I was killed, I certainly wouldn't know anything about it.
That said, read the above message and you'll see what I meant.
Being raped means that you have to live with that every day, for the rest of your life. The effect of murder on the victim means an end to their suffering, not the start...
[Not trying to be offensive, just logical. Apologies.]
Logical maybe, but not human nature. Most people will do anything to survive and wouldn't take their own life, no matter what the circumstance.
They may value their life, but that doesn't mean that they like what they have to live with. How many end up without a relationship, or turning to substance abuse, or suffering mental problems for the rest of their lives?
Like I've tried to make clear, a murder victim has no sentient feeling at all, therefore no longer suffers. Rape victims suffer, daily.
Rape victims suffer nightmares, flashbacks and mental difficulties for the rest of their life. The pain is still there in the flashbacks if the rape ewas violent, for instance. Murdered people have no feelings, thus they do not suffer. Thus, for the victim murder is better- the families suffer badly whichever crime takes place.
As for the two from Soham...sadly, people cannot be arrested and detained just because they look like they might hurt someone. Lots of people look like they might hurt someone, but very few do. And I maintain that he is ill- any person who kills a girl must be ill. the fact to remember is that he will never get out of being detained now, but if he stood trial, even if convicted, he would be released sooner or later. As soon as he is well hell be put on trial, but if he never gets well he will always be sectioned. And taht poor woman...shes getting lynched (proverbially) because she lied to cover up for him, when I think she thought hed just robbed a house or something- Im willing to bet that when she found out what she was covering she marched him straight down to the cop shop. Remember that the two people went to the police of their own volition- they werent arrested until later.
People in this country make me sick. All we ever hear about is fucking mobs going around burning down paediatricians houses, or burning down houses of people who just happen to have bought the house from a paedophile. And as Balddog said, it is not illegal to be a paedophile, it is illegal to act on those desires. People seem to forget that, and over-react. Look at the way the school term has been delayed because of the over-reaction after Soham- Im sure the kids will suffer more byy losing out on education than they will with the miniscule chance that they might get attacked. And even after this screening theres still the danger, as the screening only picks up on caught offenders. Not everyone is caught. I wouldnt mind, but Ian Huntley could just as easily have been the fucking milkman.
you think i havent tried?
MoK, covered what I meant.
Murder (unless sexual abuse is also involved) is physical, and after the crime has been commited the victim has nothing to remember afterwards.
Rape is not only physical, but in many way much worse emtionally. Having someone do anything sexually to you, when being unwilling is awful. Cause in normal cases sex would be between two people who care about each other, or at least they both agree on the act.
This is someone breaking into you both physically and emotionally.
I wasn't trying to imply that rape isn't serious, or that people should get over it. I don't think I did imply that, and I made it fairly clear that I thought, and think, rape is a terrible crime, and a terrible thing to have to endure.
However, I personally believe that murder is worse. Rape victims still have their lives, their choices, their freedom to do as they will. Of course they will be affected by what has happened in many and various ways, and may well end up committing - or trying to commit - suicide. Don't get me wrong, this is all a terrible thing. Victims of rape react differently, situations of rapes are different, with different consequences. Some people can survive it and do their best to put it behind them, and live as normal lives as possible. Some can't. It's different for everyone. But I think it would be better to still have those choices than not. Hence I think murder is a worse crime.
But in general I still think rape is worse than a murder.
You are of course entitled to your opinion, I just find it strange.
Hard to compare - if not impossible, I know - but would you say someone who has committed a rape is worse, and deserves worse punishment, than whoever killed those two girls in Soham, for example?
To tell you the truth, I am not really into what exactly happened to those two girls, and not aware of all the factors, playing a role in the case.
Another thing, there are degrees of murder and of rape. My opinion is in general. And I can't compare a specific case to an unspecific one.
Ooh, nicely sidestepped. However, you don't need to know the details of the Soham case. Take it as a hypothetical. A rape (on a date, woman says no, man rapes her). A murder (disagreement, family feud, whatever. Man murders another man). I would say the murder is the worse crime. Again, in general - although I'm struggling to think of a situation where a rape is worse than a murder.
As a general rule though, a rape is worse than a murder. A violent rape makes the victim, and be definition their families, suffer more than a violent murder. After all, when youre gone youre gone.
*agrees*
See this discussion made me think. Maybe I see rape as a worse crime than murder, as murder is not something which anyone close to me has experienced, and it doesn't seem to hang like a shadow which could cloud me at any day, at any time.
Generally I have much more of a chance getting raped, than murdered (notice, murdered not killed. I could get killed in an accident or in an attack, but I don't think that such a thing would be aimed directly at me for being the person I am. In the worst case it would be, for being the part of the community which I belong to).
And this is an assumption, but unless being a victim of incest, or raped while being small by a paedophile, the guys don't have the same chance as a girl to get raped. So it could make guys feel much more scared of being murdered, as this is closer to them than a rape would be in everyday terms.
Though this is just an assumption/thought. I don't have this based on any statistics or surveys, so please do correct me if I am mistaking. And also I do know that men getting raped does exist (jails, come to mind), but as far as I know, not as frequent as with women.
Fair enough. I do disagree with practically everything you've written there though.
I sort of see your point, but I actually think it's irrelevant. I'm not looking at this as what I'm more scared of, I'm trying to be objective. I'm not scared of being raped or murdered (in that I think it's highly unlikely - obviously the idea of it actually happening is scary).
This is nothing to do with what is more likely to happen, more what I think is worse. And given the choice (not a very nice one) I'd rather be raped and continue to live than be murdered. Fairly obviously, I would have thought, but apparently not according to the views expressed on here.
*tears out her hair* well maybe you havent given enough thought to how rape leaves you feeling
Perhaps you ought to consider that 'how rape leaves you feeling' is not something one (especially a man) can figure out by thought in the first place. Hardly surprising, then, that his reaction falls short of the emotional level you seem to expect.
I personally despise rape and rapists: I consider it the vilest crime, and it's one of the few things known to get me angry, with all that that entails. Nonetheless, I am a man, I will never know what a woman feels about rape, and so my reaction will never be quite the same, strong as it is.
ok, i now feel guilty about not really thinking my post through before posting it, it must be hard for a male who's never been raped to understadn it yes but just total....violation, dirtied, worthlessness, like you'll never be good enough, you didnt get the pleasure of choosing who you lose your virginity to, you're views of guys adn sex and the whole world becomes affected....argh im trying to explain but i dont think im doing a ver y good job of it and i cant figure out my thoughts enough to put them down here, so ima gonna stop trying before i get myself into a total headtwizzle
sorry
Emsie, don't be sorry about giving your views and input. The last thing you should feel is guilt.