Oh, and I’ll find the appropriate DOJ stats when I have time (and I hope wring, who is quite knowledgeable on this topic, is able to post here), but statistics demonstrate that the older a prisoner is when released, the longer he or she has served in prison, and the lower their number of prior offense, they less likely they are to be recidivist. Here is a link to a Florida Department of Corrections report demonstrating that:
–Inmates 50 years of age and older (like Van Houten) have the lowest recidivism rate of any age category;
–On average, an inmate’s probability of reoffending drops by 2.1% for each year older the inmate is at release;
–On average, released inmates whose primary offense is a violent offense (like Van Houten) are 31.9% less likely to reoffend than others;
–Inmates who receive few or no disciplinary reports while in prison (like Van Houten) are significantly less likely to be rearrested or reincarcerated;
–On average, an inmate’s probability of reoffending drops by 1.2% for each additional year spent in prison;
–On average, an inmate’s probability of reoffending drops by 2.9% for each higher grade of adult basic education tested.
Want me to go on? Or are you going to enlighten us with some more of your “facts”?
So, assuming she spent 33 years in prison and earned 2 degrees while in prison, she is 146.6% unlikely to commit another violent crime, by these numbers.
Unless she miracles a dead cat back to life or something, I do not see how that would be possible. 100% is where most statistics stop, statistically.
“Within 3 years of release, 2.5% of released rapists were rearrested for another rape, and 1.2% of those who had served time for homicide were arrested for a new homicide.”
Since 1.2% is a significantly higher rate of murder then normal, let 'em rot. Or die, but our jacked-up death penalty rules make that rather difficult.
Methinks those numbers stink. But kudos on finding them!
But there is no reason to give me added scrutiny. Only those who have murdered in the past need to be dealt with. I pose no threat to society; murderers do.
If there is no possibility of parole for LVH, then why should there be parole hearings at all? It seems like this is just an added punishment, cruel and unusual, at that.
Excuse me, but I’m going downtown to find some homeless, starving people. I’m going to hold some food over their heads and say, “Jump! Jump!” Then when they get close I will snatch the food away, maybe stuffing it in my mouth instead. Oh, and I mustn’t forget to laugh like a maniac.
Here’s the thing: IMO prisons have two functions: punishment and reform. It’s wonderful that she’s apparently reformed and turned over a new leaf, but she still needs to complete her punishment. As far as I’m concerned, the punishment for murder should be life imprisonment.
She took someone else’s life, she loses her own, either through the death penalty or through being caged up. Either way.
I think the idea of parole is fine for crimes short of murder. However, parole for murderers is (again, IMO) disgusting as it discounts the life of the victim.
what do the families of the victims feel?
have they met her? forgiven her?
started a campaign for her to receive the death penalty?
never moved on with their own lives because they can’t forgive?
forgiven and moved on?
anyone thought to ask them what they think?
personally i think 30 years in prison and a real effort to change is enough. especially when rapists get 5 to 10 and are free in 3.
or get off entirely.
Uh, Brutus, that isn’t how statistics work. You don’t just perform multiplication on them and come up with some aggregate number like “146.6% less likely.” You’d have to perform a regression analysis for a multivariate problem like that, and look for the interaction between each of the variables.
I haven’t had to do calc or stats for going on ten years now, so I’m not about to start today. But suffice to say that, if each of the variables taken independently show a decreased likelihood of recidivism, then it would be absolutely incredible if a regression showed that the combination of those variables showed an increased likelihood.
And, in fact, just look at the news around you: The population of white females (or females of any race), over the age of 50, who have no other priors, a college education, and have served 30 years or more in prison, who commit murder . . . I can’t remember ever seeing one. I’m sure there are some, but their numbers must be vanishingly small.
If, indeed, she is a “different person,” and the law she was sentenced under allows for parole, and she is reformed (under some kind of arcane definition), then I’d say that the parole board must comply with the law.
My only hope is that she isn’t as easily “mindwashable” as she once was.
White females are less likely to recidivate than others (there may be several factors in that one)
Older inmates are less likely to recidivate than others
Persons having served significant periods of time recidivate less frequently than those having served less time
Persons having no disciplinary problems in prison recidivate less frequently than those having problems (this should be weighted more IMHO, since the number of years available to her to have been a disciplin problem is quite high)
and, oddly enough for the let 'em rot crowd, those serving time for violent offenses recidivate less frequently as well.
I found that last one absolutely true in my years of working w/offenders who’ve been released. Many factors, from many different kinds of cases, but essentially, they generally felt that they had more to prove, more to loose, and having been violent, were much more careful to not get angry or put themselves in tough situations again (by using drugs/alcohol if that was a prior problem for example).
Wring, I’ll conceed that she’s unlikely to murder again. However, unless she can bring her victims back to life, the only fair/just punishment is for her to lose hers, whether from the Death Penalty or from Life Imprisonment.
I’m pro-Death Penalty only because of stuff like this: At least I know that with the death penalty she’d have paid an appropriate price for her crimes. I can’t believe we’re saying that murdering another person is only “worth” 30-some years in jail. How cheap is a life?
Because her sentence was life with the possibility of parole. The duty of the parole board was to consider her parole, with time served, rehabilitation efforts and the reports of councellors being the factors they consider for such parole. After the judge told them that they must seriously consider parole without regard to political expediency or personal opinion of Charles Manson. The reason they gave for denying her parole? They said that she needed further councelling, even though she had been through every rehabilitation program and councelling program available and the councellors themselves testified that she didn’t need any more councelling.
They were told what their duty was when they took the job. If they feel that they cannot do their duty just because it isn’t currently politically correct, they should damn well resign and get out of the way.
The way I see it, imprisonment has 5 purposes: retribution, rehabilitation, removal, general deterrents (for the whole population), personal deterrents (for the person convicted.) If her imprisonment isn’t accomplishing most of these things, there’s no reason to keep her in jail.
Retribution: 33 years in jail. She’s been punished, but different people are satisfied with different degrees. I think she’s gotten enough.
Rehabilitation: Yep. Model record, degrees, etc.
Removal: No longer needed, she doesn’t seem to be a risk.
General Deterrents: I don’t know how you can prove that her imprisonment has effected the general population in anyway. So, we can’t know this one. I say we disregard it.
Individual Deterrents: I think her record, and pldennison’s statistics make it pretty obvious that she’s as deterred as any prisoner can be.
So: 3/4 or 4/4 fulfilled (depending on if you think 33 years is enough.) Either way 3/4 or 4/4 is more than 50%. I think she should have been released.
irishgirl: I don’t think the family’s opinion is fair in matters of the law. They’re clearly biased, and might not be concerned with actually administering justice.
Must we be reduced to Eye for an Eye justice? If she is no longer a menace to society, than the only justification for continuing her incarceration is that of revenge.
No one will convince me that making someone suffer simply for the fact that they caused suffering is good for society, or even in a narrow-minded sense, good for me. I am willing to cause someone to suffer to protect myself (sending them to prison), and I am willing to cause someone to suffer if there is no safe alternative (keeping them in prison), but inflicting suffereing on someone when it causes no positive gain to society (revenge) is purely evil, and as far from justice as one can be.
This is assuming that reform can be objectively determined (which the parole board asserts to have done in the past), and assuming that Leslie has met these objectives (which seems likely).
I have to say, as I have said before… I don’t get the whole “punishment” thing… Qwerty broke it down perfectly, as far as I’m concerned, and i don’t see anything resembling what some seem to view as “punishment”.
It seems some of you think it is only fair that she suffer til the day she dies, because others have lost their lives. But looked at from a different perspective, that makes no sense: those who died suffered very briefly, maybe an hour, if that. Their loved ones suffered terribly for awhile, but to think that they are actively “suffering” 30 years after the fact is a bit of a stretch (which isn’t to say that their loved ones don’t miss them, but missing and suffering the crushing grief and pain that they surely felt at first are quite different.)
I don’t think it is at all fair to expect Leslie to suffer for half a century or more, if what you are looking for is fairness, balance, an eye for an eye. She’s suffered enough. At least, so far as prison goes. Because she will certainly continue to suffer in her spirit no matter where she is.