Comment by skjoldr
2 years ago
Psychopaths are still people even if their brains are broken. It is indeed hard to integrate them into society, especially if their family did a bad job of it in their childhood.
2 years ago
Psychopaths are still people even if their brains are broken. It is indeed hard to integrate them into society, especially if their family did a bad job of it in their childhood.
In a better country he'd be in therapy rather than in prison. Alas the US legal system only exists to detain people, not to allow them to become unbroken.
I wholly believe psychopaths can be redeemed and live a fulfilling life without hurting anyone if given the proper support and guidance. I don't for a second believe the US legal system is equipped to do that, especially the prison system.
He'd be in prison and receiving therapy.
Closed institutions are a thing. You can be in therapy under close supervision and unable to leave until it is safe to allow you to do so. Arguably that is better than therapy in prison because even with trained staff on site a prison is still a prison. You could say that closed institutions are functionally a form of prisons and you'd be right but the difference in motivations matters: mental institutions exist to provide mental support, prisons exist to lock people away.
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I don't live in the US but as far as I'm aware they shot a guy who tried to set fire to a bunch of empty ICE vans so direct action against institutions you don't like doesn't seem to be a winning strategy if you're not enough people to stage an armed insurrection.
I'm interested if this really is your approach for "being the change you want in the world" though. When you think something could be improved somewhat do you play out an elaborate cargo cult interpretation of what you think would work better despite having no resource or professional qualification to pull it off? How has that been going for you?
It's not like there aren't any organisations you could get involved with to advocate for reforms to the US legal system. You don't even have to go whole hog and try to start at the top, a lot of the underlying structures are cultural. If you're a parent, trying to treat your child as a dependent human rather than an inferior (i.e. care, not control) would be a start to building a healthier society where carcareal punishment doesn't feel like the obvious solution to societal problems.
But if making assumptions about strangers and mocking them for saying things could be improved somewhat is what makes your life more bearable, nothing I can say or do will change that. I hope you find what you are missing.
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