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

[em-h.livejournal.com]

My parents taught arts in several prisons -- my mother did theatre, my father creative writing. Two of the people they taught actually went on, partly through my parents' influence, to have careers as writers (one as a tv scriptwriter, the other writing short stories). One of them had been a recidivist (car theft mainly) since his teens, but after he started writing he never went back, and in fact, as well as writing, ended up running halfway houses and doing social work with at-risk youth. The other is still working in tv as far as I know & has won some awards.

It's not the only way out -- another man who appeared in a few plays my mother put on, but had no real artistic or intellectual interests, has pulled his life together very nicely as a long-haul truckdriver (still drops in on my mother if he's passing through town). But I really do think that my parents did some substantial good with their prison work.

Unfortunately, the climate of the times has changed, and arts programs for prisoners now tend to be seen as "coddling" or something like that, rather than a way of helping people imagine other lives for themselves.

With regard to this specific case, given that Rader is clearly not ever getting out of prison, I can't see what conceivable purpose is being served by denying him pencils and paper, which is what the phrase certainly sounds like. I suspect they're worried about him selling his "story" to newspapers.