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Post by Moose on Jun 28, 2013 17:57:11 GMT
Moors Murderer Ian Brady, a serial child murderer who has been in either prison or a secure hospital for over fifty years, has just been denied the right to have his diagnosis of insanity overturned so he can be returned to a regular prison where he will be allowed to starve himself to death (I have my doubts as to whether he actually wanted to succeed anyway and suspect it was all an attention seeking game but oh well). Anyway, the courts have decided that he is sane and therefore he will return to hospital, where he will continue to be force fed.
Purely out of interest I would be interested to know how sanity is measured, and whether it is ever completely possible to tell whether a person is 'sane' or 'insane'. Brady claims that he was initially transferred to a hospital because he was 'play acting' insanity in order to enjoy the softer regime that secure hospitals provide over prisons. The judge apparently disagrees. Is it really possible to measure, one way or the other?
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Post by JoeP on Jun 28, 2013 18:19:38 GMT
wibble
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Post by Moose on Jun 28, 2013 18:20:09 GMT
That's you off to Ashworth.
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Post by JoeP on Jun 28, 2013 18:32:48 GMT
says the woman thinking about dressing in a walrus costume ...
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Post by Moose on Jun 28, 2013 18:37:31 GMT
for free accommodation!
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Post by Miisa on Jun 28, 2013 19:00:24 GMT
I haven't read it, but have heard some interviews Jon Ronson gave when his book The Psychopath Test came out, and he told of another man in Broadmoor who was there indefinitely for a bar fight because he made the same mistake of thinking he would have a cushier time in an asylum than a prison. The problem is they can then keep you as long as they like, he'd have been out ages ago if he had gone to prison instead. Of course, Ronson deemed the man a psychopath, but then also argues that most psychopaths are not incarcerated, nor should they be, but do very well in business, etc.
It certainly seems to be one book that asks where we should draw the lines between insanity, eccentricity and sanity.
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Post by Moose on Jun 28, 2013 19:11:55 GMT
I've heard of other examples of people being sent to Broadmoor or Ashworth after conning shrinks into thinking they were nuts and, yes, either not getting out or else serving very much longer than they would in prison. I wonder though whether this is true or an urban myth.
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Post by Miisa on Jun 28, 2013 19:15:14 GMT
I have read of criminals in real, documented cases who refuse to submit to psych evaluations at all to avoid the risk, so I think it is a well-known thing for them anyway.
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Post by tangent on Jun 29, 2013 6:23:36 GMT
Wiki says, "In modern usage insanity is most commonly encountered as an informal unscientific term denoting mental instability, or in the narrow legal context of the insanity defense... There are different definitions of legal insanity, such as the M'Naghten Rules, the Durham Rule, the American Legal Institute definition, and various miscellaneous provisions." (Daniel M'Naghten murdered Edward Drummond in 1843, whom he had mistaken for British Prime Minister, Robert Peel.) "Whether a particular condition amounts to a disease of the mind within the Rules is not a medical but a legal question," says Wiki, "to be decided in accordance with the ordinary rules of interpretation. It seems that any disease which produces a malfunctioning of the mind is a disease of the mind and need not be a disease of the brain itself." Wiki then goes on to give several examples, including a diabetic who was suffering from hyperglycaemia. So, to come back to the original question, are you asking for a legal definition of insanity or a medical one?
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Post by Alvamiga on Jun 29, 2013 7:42:08 GMT
I heard an interesting interview with a person who hears voices, telling him to do things. While he has schizophrenia, he does not do what the voices tell him to and is able to function relatively normally.
I think the law is more concerned about whether any condition is likely to cause harm or danger to anyone, rather than just being present.
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Post by ProdigalAlan on Jun 29, 2013 10:44:50 GMT
It is a widespread belief among the people I spent time with, both loonies and staff, that there are distinct advantages for any prisoner on a full life tariff if he or she is declared insane.
The trouble is, as I suspect Brady has long since discovered, there are also distinct disadvantages. The main one is that you are now registered insane and as such your opinions are held to be insane opinions. As such the courts will put a great deal more value on the opinions of the doctors than they will on those of the patient.
For a man like Brady, who has a long history of manipulation, this is going to be the thing that angers him most.
I believe that the court hearing was just one last roll of the dice by Brady in an attempt to manipulate someone, in this case the courts, into doing his bidding.
So glad he failed.
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Post by JoeP on Jun 29, 2013 13:15:30 GMT
One thing that occurs to me - regarding the insanity legal defence - is that it represents an opinion that treatment is required rather than punishment or rehabilitation - and that the deterrent effective of sentences isn't relevant. But I don't think society as a whole is really sure whether punishment or retribution is justified, and if so how much (and if so, maybe incarceration in a secure loony bin is a pretty good punishment), and whether rehabilitation actually works (and if so, how you know when enough is enough), and whether prison sentences and fines are effective deterrents.
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Post by Alvamiga on Jun 29, 2013 13:26:24 GMT
Maybe prison would be more of a deterrent if the kind of people who kept going back to it didn't find it so easy to get used to it. Stephen Fry compared being in prison to being at boarding school. Maybe we need tiers of punishment instead of longer sentences. If the punishment for premeditated murder, for example was more like a medieval torture chamber then maybe people would think again before doing it.
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Post by JoeP on Jun 29, 2013 13:29:31 GMT
Maybe boarding school is the problem ... it prepares people for life in prison!
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Post by Alvamiga on Jun 29, 2013 13:35:17 GMT
Well, many MPs have now gone down that route!
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Post by JoeP on Jun 29, 2013 13:36:32 GMT
Clear signs something is wrong
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Post by Alvamiga on Jun 29, 2013 13:42:09 GMT
Maybe that's the point! Anyone who goes to Public School is likely to be a criminal type, so they are preparing them for later in life.
We should pre-emptively arrest anyone that has been there, like in Minority Report.
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Post by tangent on Jun 29, 2013 17:10:37 GMT
... But I don't think society as a whole is really sure whether punishment or retribution is justified, and if so how much... and whether prison sentences and fines are effective deterrents. There are two largely competing theories of justice, (a) that it should be for the good of society (keeping the general population safe and preventing reoffending) or (b) that it should be a fixed and objective penalty (punishing the criminal for what he deserves). (Tabloid newspapers want to exact revenge whenever serious crimes are reported - lock him up and throw away the key - but this does not feature in any fair justice system.) Like you, I'm not sure we know what is fair and just but in Brady's case, we need him locked away for our own protection. Norway has a very different penal system. Some of their prisons are more like luxurious holiday camps where even murderers reside and learn trades such as carpentry. And they have shorter prison sentences than the UK too. But whilst the UK has a reoffending rate of 55%, Norway's reoffending rate is 20%. This flies in the face of medieval torture chambers, which would increase the reoffending rate instead of reducing it. (America has harsher prison regimes and longer sentences than the UK and their reoffending rate is 60%.)
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Post by Miisa on Jun 29, 2013 17:17:25 GMT
I suspect Norway also has the same as we do, some open prisons you just live in, you leave them every day to go to work normally.
The main reason for re-offending is not that most of those people are inherently criminal or violent (though some are, but a minority), but that often it is the only world and way of life they know. This is why educating inmates and giving them a trade while letting them "practise" interacting in the real, "honest" world is so important, as is managing to identify and help risk cases in teenagehood before they become a part of that criminal way of life.
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Post by Alvamiga on Jun 29, 2013 17:55:18 GMT
Here's a novel idea... how about educating people and teaching them practical job skills before they end up in prison? What..? They used to do that..? "it was... too expensive.." Well, I'm sure they know what they are doing!
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Post by ProdigalAlan on Jun 30, 2013 23:58:52 GMT
That's fine, as far as it goes (and I'm definitely in favour of prisoners being able to access education programmes) but you do have to factor in some form of penal programme for those criminals who do have a good education (Donald Neilson, Beverly Allitt and both labour and conservative politicians, to name the usual suspects).
Paedophiles are often highly educated, sadly many are in fact employed in education. Now I favour prison sentences as a means of protecting the innocent. We also, sadly have to accept what John McVicar and Jimmy Boyle have stated, which is that no matter what schemes are offered to offenders, they are all a waste of time until the offender makes the necessary changes in the way they think and decide to turn away from the criminal lifestyle.
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Post by tangent on Jul 1, 2013 0:49:46 GMT
We also, sadly have to accept what John McVicar and Jimmy Boyle have stated, which is that no matter what schemes are offered to offenders, they are all a waste of time until the offender makes the necessary changes in the way they think and decide to turn away from the criminal lifestyle. I'd like to know, then, how Norway makes it work (for the majority of their prisoners).
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Post by Moose on Jul 1, 2013 17:22:23 GMT
Ee Col I hope that you are not advocating torture . Re Prison I suspect that the people who suffer most in there are those who are middle-class and probably stick out like a sore thumb. I had always assumed that prison would be like the first secondary school that I went to, or that the rules would be the same - keep your head down, don't speak unless spoken to, don't draw attention to yourself and hope that no-one decides to take a dislike to your face and beat you up anyway
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Post by jayme on Jul 1, 2013 21:25:21 GMT
You beat them with a Sanity Stick, of course, until they finally see purple elephants fly over the rainbow. Duh.
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Post by ProdigalAlan on Jul 2, 2013 21:34:47 GMT
Ee Col I hope that you are not advocating torture . Re Prison I suspect that the people who suffer most in there are those who are middle-class and probably stick out like a sore thumb. I had always assumed that prison would be like the first secondary school that I went to, or that the rules would be the same - keep your head down, don't speak unless spoken to, don't draw attention to yourself and hope that no-one decides to take a dislike to your face and beat you up anyway I don't think you're too wide of the mark there. A lot of the kids I grew up with went inside. Long before they were sent down they knew the rules and they adapted quickly. They were au fait with the slang and they all knew at least one other person doing bird so they had connections inside. Now once you are "connected" it's no easy matter to turn away from those connections. This is the point that both McVicar and Boyle make. But as we all know and as McVicar and Boyle go to great lengths to point out, in order to go straight that's exactly what you have to do. Prison can and does offer really good educational programmes, but they are impotent schemes unless an inmate makes a positive choice to pursue them. The first point is not education, the very first point has to be a genuine desire to change and a genuine desire to get help from those who are traditionally seen as the enemy ie the screws and the penal system. It may be that in Norway the screws are not seen as the enemy and going to seek aid from them is not seen as an act of betrayal and treason by fellow cons, but that is how it is in the UK. In fact in UK nicks that is the most dangerous thing you can do.
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Post by Moose on Jul 2, 2013 22:38:05 GMT
Yeah well, a lot of the kids that I went to school with at that time are or have been in prison. Mostly for 'petty' stuff ... occasionally not so much. A taxi driver who drivers me regularly was not long ago released from prison and was telling me about how he wants to clean up his act and how grateful he was to get the job because 'a lot of people would not have given me the chance'. I think that some of it is also about getting the chance ... not just wanting it.
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Post by ProdigalAlan on Jul 2, 2013 23:57:37 GMT
Yes that as well. If you haven't heard of either John McVicar or Jimmy Boyle one wrote "McVicar: by himself" the other wrote "A sense of freedom" and in both they acknowledge that they needed to be given a chance by both the authorities on the inside and people on the outside.
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Post by tangent on Jul 3, 2013 8:56:09 GMT
People on the outside are very unforgiving, if you read the tabloids.
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Post by Alvamiga on Jul 3, 2013 22:57:53 GMT
I blame the immigrant gypsy benefit cheats!
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