The cruelest punishment of all

[pegkerr]

I was reading an article about Dennis Rader, the BTK killer who has just been sent off to spend the rest of his miserable life in prison. This paragraph caught my eye:

Prosecutors asked the judge at sentencing to recommend Rader be barred from seeing or listening to news reports regarding his murders, prohibited from possessing anything with which he could draw or write about his sexual fantasies, and disallowed from making audio or visual recordings other than for law enforcement purposes.

The prosecution request surprised defense attorneys, who said they have not had time to research the issue.

If this prohibition stands, I wonder if this means he will be prevented from writing anything at all for the rest of his life. The death penalty is terrible (and I don't believe in it), prison for life is terrible. But being prevented from writing for the rest of my life would be, to me, unimaginable, perhaps the cruelest punishment of all.

There was discussion on this entry yesterday about the question of redemption in those who have committed grievous crimes. I can think of some who did perhaps redeem themselves in prison (e.g., Robert Stroud, the so-called Birdman of Alcatraz); one commonality between them is that they were allowed to read and write, which allowed them to reflect upon their actions and imagine a better outlet for their passions, even if, like Robert Stroud, it could only be in a small thing, like canaries.

Discuss.

Comments

[callunav.livejournal.com]

I worked for a while with a girl (teenager) who required 1:1 staffing within a locked-door detention facility in order to reduce the risk she posed to others. She was awaiting trial on two counts of attempted homicide.

A lot of people said she was psychotic, and maybe she was, though not in the ways I've encountered psychosis before. She was probably mildly delusional. She was also wholely manipulative, to the point where I think she'd lost track of how to tell what she was really feeling, between one role and the next that she performed for the rest of us.

Journalling was probably her favorite activity. She liked to compose songs and write them down. She loved to design new fashions and improbable women's clothing. And she liked to write about what she was thinking. A lot of what she was thinking involved the process of selecting her next target, how she saw them as vulnerable, what she would do to win their trust, and how she would create an opening for trying to kill them.

She told me that she would like to actually murder someone. She thought it would be interesting. She was mildly regretful of all the trouble her previous attempts had caused in her life, and also mildly regretful that she'd been stopped before she had completed her attempts.

It became very clear that her knowledge that her journals would be read was an enormous part of the attraction. She wrote, I believe, honestly; it wasn't by any means everything that was on her mind, she picked and chose, but after spending 8 hours a day in direct contact/conversation with her, 5 or 6 days a week, for a few months, I believe that it was honestly what she was thinking about, and that there was a compulsive quality to the writing process for her. On the other hand, it was also a performance, with the staff and the therapists as her audience. And it was a diversion: it put her in the mode in which she was powerful, cunning, invulnerable, which was altogether a better-feeling place to be than, say, feeling bewildered and trerrified, frightened, isolated, and abandoned, all of which she was down at some bedrock level she rarely acknowledged.

And yet, although there was very much a performance aspect to the writing, although she clearly knew that everything she wrote was read by staff - she was *eager* to have it read - and she was perfectly ready to talk about it with people, nevertheless she responded with explosive rage when anyone made any decisions about her treatment based on her writing.

But when her treatment folks decided to forbid her to write about violence , death, and a few of her other trigger-subjects (they had to, if there was going to be a chance for her in court, because the journals were evidence - and they also thought it wasn't helping her), the ban enforced by removal of all writing tools for a period if she violated it, after the explosions and the assaults, and the unlimited rage, it did seem to keep her more focused on the present, on her restrictedly normal every-day life. In other words, it may have helped a little, at least as much as anything did. She'd been in therapy since she was 5, and in one treatment facility or another since she was 11, I think, and at this point no treatment facility in the country would take her: the goal by the time I knew her wasn't therapy because that had been tried and failed. The goal was to teach her how to control her behavior enough that she could be with other people.

I hope you're not reading this waiting for the conclusion that makes sense of it all. I'm not sure there's any sense to be made. I'm writing this essentially to say that I've been up close and personal in a case like this, and I was just as ambivalent as anyone is from a distance. When she was barred from writing about her obsessions, she was more out-of-control, more self-injurious, more immediately violent. But writing about her obsessions didn't vent them harmlessly, it augmented and strengthened them.

I've been there. I've thought about this a lot. I still don't have any answers.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Thanks so much for giving me the benefit of your experience and insight--even though you, like the rest of us, have no easy answers.

[mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com]

I think it's a different thing to resrict and direct what someone in her situation at that age may write about then a middle aged man. They are in very different places on the developmental wheel. There is no chance or point to trying to straighten this guy out. Not that he doesn't deserve therapy or anything like that.
If someone's journal writing seems to feed inapropriate behavior I think it may be acceptable to restrict it to whatever degree determined appropriate.
Every case must be considered some what individually and all the factors that brought them to the place they are at. And the first more important question for consideration is the age of the child or adult your are talking about.

[callunav.livejournal.com]

And the first more important question for consideration is the age of the child or adult your are talking about.

It seems like it would be, doesn't it?

I can't tell, though, whether you're proposing that the difference is that one has more legitimate authority over a young person than a middle-aged one, or that youth may be assumed to still be capable of change, while middle-aged people are not.

In either case, I'm not sure I agree. It's been one of the hardest things for me, working with both teens and adults: facing the realization that in all likelihood, this person will never significantly change. And it's happened to me in working with both teens and adults...and then there are both who /do/ change, in spite of amazing odds against them.

It's excruciating. No matter how old a person is, 15 or 75, when they're in the grip of a pattern of thought and behavior which is ruining their life and making it impossible for them to be with others safely or sanely--it's like the thing that will help is right there just outside your grasp, just outside *their* grasp, which is more important. It's painful and exhausting and it sucks, for the people trying to help and the people who need help, both.

[mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com]

No it had nothing to do with legitimate authority. It depends on the young person. It depends on the metal state of the person young or old a the time, lots of factors.
The ability to change varies from person to person but theoretically the younger they are the better their odds. Preferrably before the age of 10 when we have the last significant drop in our neural flexibility.
But the goals are very different in these two instances. It is important for her to be able to be with others safely even if it is within confinement. The BTK killer isn't necessarilly unsafe in the same room with others. And he will never walk the streets freely. That doens't mean it's not important he get help, everyone deserves that opportunity. Given his circumstances it isn't going to have the same effect if he makes big changes to his ability to simply be with others. He still won't get the chance at freedom.
In the girls case she hadn't been successful killing anyone, right? In which case helping her grow and change and not want to do that means she could live freely. Which is hughly different from this guy who has repeatedly victimized and tortured and murdered people. Even if he could be "fixed" so to speak he has forever lost the privalage to live freely. I agree with you in either case it sucks for them the system failed them too little, too late. And our system will only continue to fail big time until we focus on prevention.