To clarify, my view of “evil” is that it’s descriptive, not prescriptive, like “luck”. Of course, no doubt there are evil people (aka people who do evil things again and again), but what makes them evil? If we can’t answer that question, and if we have an alternative to killing them, why should we kill them?
Because it is safer than keeping them around after they have already demonstrated that they are willing and able to do these things. We know this kid is capable of molesting other kids or burning other kids to death because he already did those things. He might never do them again or he might be a habitual like Ted Bundy. I prefer to err on the side of protecting everyone else and eliminate him. I see nothing inherently more merciful or kind about locking him up forever.
Lets see: Ties kid up to tree, pours gas on him and lights the gas. If the act is evil then the person who commits such acts is pretty much an evil person and you don’t need a degree in child psychology to figure that out. Unless you agree that such an act wouldn’t be defined as evil. Then I’d have to question your judgment as well as this isn’t anywhere near a grey area.
And while I don’t agree with killing him, I’d have little concern throwing him into a cell and welding the door shut.
Okay, permanent incarceration. Seems a tad wasteful to me, but the mechanisms of capital punishment as exist currently in the U.S. aren’t set up for efficiency in any event.
Makes moot of the “tried as an adult” idea regardless.
Yeah, in the US anyway it’s more expensive to kill someone than to lock them up for their entire life, by quite a bit. So locking them up is a better option from a ‘wasteful’ standpoint for sure.
As to the concern about medicated schizophrenics - there are thousands of them. Show me some data that says rehabilitation never works, because I’ve met paranoid schizophrenics who attempted murder as teenagers and are medicated and normal people 50 years later.
I’m not sure I understand what you mean about possible before the turn of the century.
I have friends and acquaintances who’ve committed various crimes as teenagers including attempted murder (I’ve met, but only briefly, anyone who’s actually succeeded) and who are really fantastic functioning and contributing members of society years after getting out of prison.
And yes, it’s entirely possible this kid will never get better and is a horrible human being who slices up kittens and enjoys it. But there’s no way to know that, and US law and morality has been established for centuries with the idea (in theory at least) that it’s better to let 100 men go free than to convict 1 innocent man. That’s a pretty major cultural keystone, the value we place on an individual life.
My primary concern if he returns to society would be his burning someone else.
Are there any links to statistics on recidivism?
There’s a distinction to be made between a schizophrenic who tries to kill the doorman out of the belief the doorman is an alien changeling who is trying to use mind control and a sociopath who ties someone to a tree and tries to burn them to death because it would be a cool thing to do.
True, but one is just as dead.
I personally do not like the entire concept of trying a minor as an adult no matter how heinous the crime. I think an age limit should be established where a child becomes responsible for their actions completely. ie: the right to vote, right to own property, drink, be tried as an adult etc… The current age of majority is 18 and I personally feel as if anyone who is not legally able to make adult decisions should not receive adult consequences. Whether or not the age of majority should be lowered is a different debate. However the point at which a child crosses into adulthood should be cut and dry without exception. A 13 year old cannot truly process the gravity of their crimes so there is no reason to prosecute them as if they could even if their crimes were detestable.
I’m not talking about the fate of the victim, but how to handle the killer.
But why handle him differently? Is one type of schizophrenia less likely to be treatable?
Is it established that the term schizophrenia even applies to Collins?
Very little about Collins seems to be established, which makes it all the more disturbing that they are so many people demanding his summary execution.
I daresay tying a child to a tree and setting him on fire constitutes a sufficiently large red flag.
I use it work lack of a better term, I may very well be mistaken.
A psychology teacher once told me, “Some people are just crazy.”
Where in that story did it mention that he was released from an institution? Most people who are found not guilty by reason of insanity do not just walk off scott free. John Hinckley Jr, for example, is still locked up. If he had been found guilty and gone to prison, I’m guessing he would most likely have been parolled by now.
Ed Gein was found not even competant to stand trial in the first place – he remained locked up for the rest of his life.
I’m not saying this kid should just be allowed to go on his merry way. But the idea of executing a child? That, to me, is evil. I would think that violates the whole “no cruel and unusual punishment.”
Does it make a difference that the kid is 29 now?
If he was thirteen when he committed the crime? Then no, it doesn’t. If that’s the case, then why bother having an age limit for the death penalty to begin with? Why not just incarcarate them until they’re a certain age, then execute them when they’re old enough?
That’s a pretty good idea.
Euthanizing a psychopath doesn’t bother me too much. In the abstract. But the problem becomes, how do we go from the idea that some people are so horrible that euthanizing them is kinder to them and us, to the real world application of the death penalty?
We have the resources to keep people locked up for life. We’re not on the ragged edge of starvation and keeping a criminal in jail takes bread out of the mouths of innocent kids. Crime rates are going down across the board, not up, so this fear of being overrun by psychopaths clogging the prison system is misplaced. No, we’re not going to rehabilitate people. We’re just incarcerating them so they don’t pose a danger to us. If we could figure out a way to rehabilitate them, fine, except in lots of cases we don’t. So locking them away isn’t to punish them, it’s not to rehabilitate them, it’s to keep us safe from them. Yes, another way is to euthanize them. But it’s not the only way, and I’m not confident we can identify which people we’re justified in euthanizing and which we aren’t.