im not subscribed to the prison abolition thing fully but i want to learn. what happens to mass killers? how would they be reformed in this ideology if they would be? how do u make sure they dont do it again? is the official stance that mass murder is not inherent to the human condition? thanks
Isn’t that simply the psychiatric prison system that exists in most nations? For example, there is a prevailing belief that if an individual in the US is deemed unfit for trial or ‘not guilty on reason of mental defect’, then the person is allowed to go free, when in reality the person is remanded to a psychiatric facility for as long as the psychiatrists deem necessary.
I’m not too familiar with the differences or similarities of different systems
The really messed up thing is, if someone gets the death penalty and is legally deemed incompetent, the system will supposedly work to get them competent, since it’s supposedly illegal to kill them until they’re competent.
That’s not exactly how things work.
To determine someone guilty of most heinous crimes such as murder in the first degree, the persecution must prove that at the moment a crime happened, the suspect was in a lucid state of mind, willingly committed the crime, and understood the nature of the crime they were committing. If a person was indisposed because of a schizophrenic break when the crime was committed for example, the person cannot reasonably be accused of willful intent. That’s when a sentence of ‘Not guilt by reason of mental defect’ comes into play. A person cannot be retried after that sentence is entered, and the person will be remanded to a psychiatric facility for decades. This is why all the mass killers immediately claim to hear voices telling them to kill others, as in the example of Nicholas Cruz; as those deemed not in control of their facilities during a crime cannot be sentenced to death.
Essentially the state deems your removal from society pertinent, but the court cannot issue a sentence dependent on willful intent. In states where the death penalty is in play, courts require that willful intent is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, meaning that such indisposed suspects cannot receive the death penalty.
A person being fit to stand trial is a whole different matter, and moreso relates to the persons mental or physical state after a crime has taken place. So if a person suffers a mental break, rapid escalation of mental symptoms, or other debilitating factors, then the trial will be stayed until the person is fit to stand before the court. This also applies to injured suspects, as no judge is forcing a suspect with four gunshot wounds to testify in court, and that suspect’s trial will most likely be rescheduled for a time in the future.
‘Not guilty by reason of mental defect’ is a concluding sentence, ‘Unfit to stand trial’ is a temporary, pre-trial modifier for when the court has a reason to believe that whatever ails the suspect did not influence the crime.
Thanks, yes, I skipped a lot.