Posted on 08/16/2014 6:58:27 AM PDT by Innovative
The last time he was discharged, Will was a different man. He'd refused treatment for 2 1/2 months and gone back into the world the way he'd arrived: confused, incoherent, psychotic.
Two months later, he bludgeoned his mother to death with a hatchet. He believed she was an al Qaeda operative.
Will is part of a special state program in Maine that allows the most violently mentally ill to get treatment after crimes instead of going to prison.
Each remains in the custody of the state but has earned the right to live in the community by following rules, taking medication and abiding by a structured court-ordered treatment plan. The patients walk the streets, eat in restaurants, shop in stores like other residents of Augusta. Though they must report where they are going, they don't wear ankle bracelets.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton
The only good thing about this is that it ended Michael Dukakis’ presidential ambitions. But this kind of liberal thinking keeps on giving. A VP at a Fortune 500 company I worked at was trying to put in place a policy of hiring convicted felons over all others regardless of qualifications, “because they’ve paid for their crimes and deserve a break.” I said, “Don’t the people who have worked hard, kept their noses clean and now need a job deserve a break too?” They didn’t matter in her world.
People in situations this bad must be watched. Nobody’s watching.
It’s possible to help both. It isn’t a matter of either deserving breaks, but God deserving to have His grace shared.
How is “God’s grace shared” when this guy was in a mental hospital, they let him out and he murdered his Mother — now he is back out to murder someone else.
You dodge the question by slinging around negatives. You aren’t very innovative, Innovative.
Also you changed the subject. I was replying to a comment on employment policies.
Exactly. Even as a former Prosecutor I DO think that there is the occasional case where someone should eventually be released. But this one doesn’t fall into that category for me. I’m not even sure I ever had a conviction that didn’t serve full term. I could be wrong but I don’t remember one.
Maybe we should be upward ho (to God) rather than in any lateral direction.
“. I was replying to a comment on employment policies.”
OK — let me rephrase then — how is God’s grace being shared by PREFERENTIALLY hiring criminals, instead of qualified, honest applicants?
Maine is still a part of America, last time I checked, anyway.
If the citizens do not want the dangerously mentally ill turned loose, they should not have voted for such policies.
Evil exists, allegedly allowed by a power greater than bureaucrats, even greater than Liberalism infected voters. Mentally ill persons doing a Lizzy Borden on Mama is not anything new, as the Lizzy Borden case occurred a century and a quarter ago(1892). Neither is community awareness of the risk posed by such “HatchetPersons”.
Maine traded the “Snake-pit” asylum for the “amateur slaughter house” of “supervised community release”.
Hobb’s Choice.
Mr. Hobbs, paging Mr. Hobbs, .......
The states are unable (because of the ACLU, and former abuses) and unwilling (because it is expensive), to put the dangerously mentally ill, “threatening harm to themselves or others” in insane asylums.
And Americans are *definitely* frightened of the idea of a federally run insane asylum, with good cause.
So the best solution might be to set up “regional” insane asylums. With say, five states dividing the costs, as well as paying for each person sent by their state, and one of the five hosting the asylum in a semi-rural but accessible area.
And lots of independent checks before a person can be committed there, as well as be released from there.
Each of these institutions would be subdivided into parts, that largest of which would be for the elderly and others suffering from dementia, persistent coma, and other incapacitating mental deficiency. Demographically, the vast majority would be women.
The next part would be for the treatable mentally ill who are aware of and cooperative with their treatment, but who cannot function in the outside world. It is mostly a minimum security section for their protection. Many there would be intellectually deficient or emotionally fragile.
The third part are for the untreatable who are in slow decline. It is medium security, and the people who are put there are currently put in prison, but are “not guilty by reason of insanity.”
The fourth part is for the “guilty but insane”, as well as those who are an imminent threat to others. They are in maximum security, and except for the rare instance, they are in for life.
To be put in this regional institution, there would first have to be a local diagnosis of mental illness affirmed by a court, then a second, independent state level diagnosis, also affirmed by a state court, followed by a regional diagnosis by psychiatrists from each of the participating states. Without all three, they cannot get admission.
The same with releasing those judged no longer mentally ill. First the regional committee, then the state, before they could return to their home. Local approval would not be needed, however.
The shipyard where I work hires convicted felons on an equal level with everyone else. But they know what they are getting and the company has become just about the best Convicted Felon Rehab outfit there is. Those fellows have to arrive on time, work hard, and not mouth off to the supers.Everyone’s lunchboxes are checked as they enter and as they leave. Getting in the supervisor’s face gets you instantly fired. If the offended supe thinks the guy is a good worker and wants to keep him around he gets overruled by another gang super and the offender is fired and escorted off the property. Most learn to act like hard working citizens and the drinkers learn to confine their imbibing to days off. It all gets to be habit and few can’t maintain. Many of these men stay at the company for many years. Many others learn trades there, welding, electrician, etc, and go off to other yards for higher pay.
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