Psychiatric or evil
This article from the tribune [The Jeffersonville Evening News and The New Albany Tribune] is an example of a crime that really cannot be justified.
I am sure there will be some people who will try to explain this behavior as some mental condition and I am sure they would find a category he could fit into, but for this man to intentionally hold the 3 year olds hands under scalding water as she screamed it hurt, is just plain evil.
Even the perpetrator stated that he "knew he was in a lot of trouble and that he just needs to go to jail and someone should just throw away the key." Now this is insight that a judge should take note of and accommodate his wishes.
I am sure there will be some people who will try to explain this behavior as some mental condition and I am sure they would find a category he could fit into, but for this man to intentionally hold the 3 year olds hands under scalding water as she screamed it hurt, is just plain evil.
Even the perpetrator stated that he "knew he was in a lot of trouble and that he just needs to go to jail and someone should just throw away the key." Now this is insight that a judge should take note of and accommodate his wishes.
posted by Anonymous at 2:32 PM
3 Comments:
The typical scenario for the person you described being evaluated and diagnosed with “some serious behavioral and emotional problems” is that they are removed from the typically dysfunctional family and placed in foster care.
Here are but a few facts that have been gathered from many sources. The reporting organization is listed at the end of each paragraph.
There are more than half a million children and youth in the U.S. foster care system, a 90% increase since 1987. Three of 10 of the nation’s homeless are former foster children. A recent study has found that 12-18 months after leaving foster care:
27% of the males and 10% of the females had been incarcerated
33% were receiving public assistance
37% had not finished high school
50% were unemployed
*Casey Family Programs National Center for Resource Family Support
Children in foster care are three to six times more likely than children not in care to have emotional, behavioral and developmental problems, including conduct disorders, depression, difficulties in school and impaired social relationships. Some experts estimate that about 30% of the children in care have marked or severe emotional problems. Various studies have indicated that children and young people in foster care tend to have limited education and job skills, perform poorly in school compared to children who are not in foster care, lag behind in their education by at least one year, and have lower educational attainment than the general population.
*Casey Family Programs National Center for Resource Family Support
80 percent of prison inmates have been through the foster care system.
*National Association of Social Workers
Children are 11 times more likely to be abused in State care than they are in their own homes.
*National Center on Child Abuse and Neglect (NCCAN)
Children died as a result of abuse in foster care 5.25 times more often than children in the general population. 2.1 percent of all child fatalities took place in foster care. While this may seem like a relatively low number, we must consider the contrast in population between children in the general population versus children in foster care. In 1997, there were nearly 71 million children in the general population (99.6%), but only 302 thousand in state care (.4%) in state care. As state care is supposed to be a 'safe haven', the number of fatalities should be less or at least equal to what it is in the general population of children. By this standard, there should have been less than .4% of child fatalities occurring in foster care, however, there was 5.25 times that amount. (31 states reporting)
*CPS Watch Inc.
I am not sure our current thinking for the past 20-30 years has been successful to the individual or the community.
You seem to be contradicting yourself again.
You've argued that a person's background shouldn't be given much weight when considering responsibility/consequences for bad choices and have now suggested a direct causal relationship between that background and the person's abilty to make good choices.
Which is it?
To bluegill:
I fully acknowledge that a person’s background contributes to bad choices; but to be very clear, these situations should not be used as an excuse for the bad choices and for being held responsible for personal actions. Just because you grow up in a very tough environment does not eliminate your ability to choose right from wrong.
This is also why I am very supportive of strengthening traditional family values. These problems start in the home and are best managed in the home. The government cannot fix the problem by throwing more tax dollars or programs towards it.
To Mr. Smith:
My original question posed was whether this represented evil or a psychiatric problem. Ceece had no difficulty coming to a decision.
You are extremely intelligent and you immediately chose to put the question posed aside and change the subject back to public policy.
I fear that as our world has become smarter overall, we have lost the ability to see evil for what it is. We will always be able to improve public policies, the welfare system, the foster-care system and all social supports, but we still need to be able to acknowledge evil, address it directly and punish it harshly without making excuses for it.
I believe that many intellectual people do not want to admit evil because they fear that by doing so somehow acknowledges that there is underlying truths that cannot be explained by intellect and requires faith in something.
No group of people believes torturing children is acceptable. Why is that? What is the underlying reason that seems to be the universal thought? Could it be that everyone believes there may be something outside of this physical world, but intellectually afraid to admit it? Could it be there may be some absolute truths? I think intellectually our society is using moral relativism to explain things to escape from being held accountable for these absolute truths.
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