A Criminally Insane Man Goes to The Fair....

[Lucky Bicycle Works]

My personal opinion.
Mental patients on field trips are okay.
Mental patients with history of violence and escape not okay.

That's exactly the problem with the fairground management claiming a right to know before admitting the patients. They will very likely err on the side of caution, and not admit any patients. Collectively, they pose a higher risk to other patrons, perhaps ... but almost certainly some of them pose a lower risk (being shy, and moreover being under supervision) than 'normal' fairgoers.

Health profiling. Is that any better than racial profiling?

I agree with you that the fairground management did not need to be informed since they are not in any way experts on assessing mental health or managing dangerous people, as well as the fact that, if they spend their time obsessing over protecting their liability insurance by barring mental patients, that will do nothing to protect them from drunk or angry or criminal non-patient visitors attacking someone else.

But I think Meoton was talking about what the hospital should have done, and his suggestion seems reasonable to me.

OK.

I'm really glad now that I didn't post the edit I wrote to that post. (4,000 words, extremely convoluted, and culminating in three paragraphs of disturbing — to me — jokes about artificial intelligences and nuns. Available by request.)

Yeah, I hung a point I wanted to make off the nearest available online poster to the thread.

The only further point I want to make is that ideally the fairground and the hospital would co-operate, and the fairground would recognize the value to their reputation of being supportive of rehabilitation and happily accept the entrance fees of the hospital groups, and that the hospital staff supervising their patients at the fair would be able to call on fairground security in case of an incident like this. Security could perhaps stop the patient at the gate as he tried to leave, and hold him until the staff arrived to manage him ... just as one would expect them to stop an unattended child from leaving the fairground.

[Muravyets]

The same could be said of you or anybody else, even without a mental illness or a history of violence. Anyone could kill someone else, for a variety of reasons. So should we ban all public gatherings on the grounds that something bad MIGHT happen?

Well, either the man is still mentally unstable, and thus susceptible to doing more murder by "insanity", or he is not. That he is still undergoing the program and not released indicates that he is not rehabilitated no? I see nothing wrong with heightened security concerns over someone who has already killed someone out of mental instability and has not yet been rehabilitated. Do you?

If you read my posts, including the one you are responding to, you will see the answer to your question stated several times over.

But neither of those arguments agrees with your "throw away the key" approach. Regardless of what you think of the merits of your proposals, the law and psychiatry disagree with you, and I am more inclined to go along with those views based on years of working with the criminally insane, versus your views based on apparently nothing but being a big tough guy on social issues.

As with my progressing discussion with bicycle works, I am willing to extend the idea of open environment rehabilitation as a viable means of treatment, but with extra layers of security to make escape attempts somewhat... inconvenient to the inmates. I imagine you would not disagree with that, barring on what degree of additional security would be appropriate.

See my comment above.

A known arsonist is highly unlikely to get a job as a driver of trucks loaded with explosives. But a known arsonist who has done his time and/or gone through whatever kind of treatment program and been declared good to release is not going to be banned from working ever again or even going out in public again, as you would wish to be done to any person who commits a crime as a result of insanity.

This is rather a false analogy, as the person in questioned was not yet fully rehabilitated no? In this analogy, the arsonist would have escaped from prison and is at large.

No, actually, your analogy is the false one because if your arsonist is escaping from prison then he is (a) not insane and (b) not already in a care program and well advanced towards reintegrating into society. You cannot draw a true analogy between prison and the care this patient is under. You cannot draw a true analogy between a person who committed a crime with intent and one who committed a crime due to loss of control of himself because of mental illness. You cannot draw a true analogy between a convict in prison and a patient under medical supervision.

Since your example was unrealistic, it should be dismissed.

Trucks, fertilizer and fuel oil are not that hard to come by in quantity, and can be staggered in small quantity purchase with varying false identities in order to avoid triggering suspicion.

That is not the unrealistic part of your analogy. I told you what the unrealistic part is in the post you are responding to.

No, it is true. Not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect is still not guilty. Despite the fact that it was proven as a matter of fact that he did commit a murder, because the crime was caused by his mental illness, no personal guilt attaches to his actions because he was not mentally competent to form deliberate intent.

Therefore, he is not guilty of a crime, even though he did actually do the deed.

Legal guilt as opposed to actual guilt, yes, I will concede that it is true that Paul was not found legally guilty by defense of insanity. However, it doesn't mean he is any less culpable though.

No, actually that is exactly what it means, since "culpable" means the same thing as "guilty", so if he's not guilty then he's not culpable, either.

You never offered any other options, however. If they are not to be locked away forever, then under what circumstances should they be released? Especially with mentally ill people, how are you going to be sure they can function in society if you never observe them in social situations?

I didn't offer any other options because I did not rule out the pre-existing ones of controlled environment rehabilitation. To go from that to an option I never put forth was dishonest of Sitspot.

Still, as I have mentioned earlier, I am amenable to the idea of limited open environment rehabilitation, but only with security measures in place to ensure any possible successful escape attempt would be very unlikely. Especially for those with a history of violence based mental illness. Without that, I see no reason whatsoever to approve any form of open environment rehabilitation

What you seem to be missing is that the field trip in this story IS one of the controlled environment rehabilitation methods that already exist and are widely used. The problem is that the people who were supposed to be controlling the environment failed in their jobs, and that would have been a problem no matter what the program was. Hell, it is precisely the problem in the majority of outright prison escapes, which are a far more controlled environment than a supervised field trip, obviously. Yet the majority of prison escapes are a matter of a prisoner slipping away while the guards are not paying attention.

So I would suggest it was not the field trip program that is at fault here, but the negligence of the people supervising this particular trip.

[Bitchkitten]

So your answer is that nothing actually happened to justify his fears - fine

You can't read can you? Or rather, you're trying not to. He killed someone while listening to voices in his head. There is no evidence to suggest that he is rehabilitated. He is an active risk and can kill again. You do not let rabid dogs wherever they please until they bite someone again. You keep them out and you put them down.

Now as for your ANFO analogy,

Which you avoided.

Paul was never found guilty of any crime,

Blatant lie. He was found guilty of murder but was considered mentally insane at the time.

As I say if you think all people in his situation should be 'locked in a cell' forever

Another blatant lie on your part. I never specified that they should be locked away forever. You are manufacturing things out of thin air.

Yes, he can be rehabilitated. There are medications that can stop the voices in his head. They're called anti-psychotics and there are many good ones today that have far fewer side effects than the old ones.
I should know, I'm on one.

[Lucky Bicycle Works]

The same could be said of you or anybody else, even without a mental illness or a history of violence. Anyone could kill someone else, for a variety of reasons. So should we ban all public gatherings on the grounds that something bad MIGHT happen?

Well, either the man is still mentally unstable, and thus susceptible to doing more murder by "insanity", or he is not. That he is still undergoing the program and not released indicates that he is not rehabilitated no?

No. You apply a binary standard (yes/no, right/wrong, guilty/innocent) to a human being. Granted, that is unavoidable when the human being knows the law (or can be reasonable expected to know the law) and knowingly breaks it. In a headbutting contest, only the law should win.

But the law treating mentally ill people by that standard (right or wrong, you should know and ignorance is no defence) is really not the same thing. That's more like what you advocated before ... punishing children for "crimes" as if they were adults. Which I notice you snipped out of your reply to my previous reply to you.

You're wrong on "equal punishment regardless of age." You know you're wrong, and you see the rift it opens in your case for disregarding mental competence in sentencing. So you snipped it.

You're forgiven. My post was unnecessarily long, and you had to snip something.

[Lucky Bicycle Works]

You can't read can you? Or rather, you're trying not to. He killed someone while listening to voices in his head. There is no evidence to suggest that he is rehabilitated. He is an active risk and can kill again. You do not let rabid dogs wherever they please until they bite someone again. You keep them out and you put them down.

They're called anti-psychotics and there are many good ones today that have far fewer side effects than the old ones.
I should know, I'm on one.

Wow. You must be some bitchy kitten without them!

Er ... must not personify other posters as animals ... bad bunny, dehumanizing other poster ... not do again ... er ... meow?

[Sitspot]

pointless post deleted

[Bitchkitten]

You can't read can you? Or rather, you're trying not to. He killed someone while listening to voices in his head. There is no evidence to suggest that he is rehabilitated. He is an active risk and can kill again. You do not let rabid dogs wherever they please until they bite someone again. You keep them out and you put them down.

They're called anti-psychotics and there are many good ones today that have far fewer side effects than the old ones.
I should know, I'm on one.

Wow. You must be some bitchy kitten without them!

Er ... must not personify other posters as animals ... bad bunny, dehumanizing other poster ... not do again ... er ... meow?

You'd better believe it.

[Non Aligned States]

No. You apply a binary standard (yes/no, right/wrong, guilty/innocent) to a human being. Granted, that is unavoidable when the human being knows the law (or can be reasonable expected to know the law) and knowingly breaks it. In a headbutting contest, only the law should win.

But the law treating mentally ill people by that standard (right or wrong, you should know and ignorance is no defence) is really not the same thing.

The binary standard is harsh, but quite fair.

That's more like what you advocated before ... punishing children for "crimes" as if they were adults. Which I notice you snipped out of your reply to my previous reply to you.

I had thought my elaboration on the misunderstanding of your part would have been sufficient to answer this one, but since it doesn't, then I will explain more fully. If some child shoots another by accident using their father's gun, that would be classified as manslaughter. No intent to kill there. But if we take the infamous case of the London prepubescent killers who kidnapped, tormented, and then killed yet another child by smashing his head in with a brick before dumping the body on the railway tracks, that is murder. And in my opinion, should have been treated as murder by adults.

Manslaughter is manslaughter. And murder is murder. One is accidental death, the other is deliberate. That difference, I will allow. But I do not buy into the idea that someone should be less culpable simply because they "didn't know better" because of their mental condition or age. Ignorance is not a valid defense for law breaking.

You're wrong on "equal punishment regardless of age." You know you're wrong, and you see the rift it opens in your case for disregarding mental competence in sentencing. So you snipped it.

Pfft, no. I still stand by it, and have elaborated on it.

[KaIashnikov]

I carry a M1911A1 in my car, and (usually) a M9 on person. Insane people don't scare me.

[New Kereptica]

I carry a M1911A1 in my car, and (usually) a M9 on person. Insane people don't scare me.

People like you make me frightened for insane people.

[Milks Empire]

Well, even lunatics enjoy fresh air.

And the tea-cup ride. Don't forget the tea-cup ride.

I wanna ride in a tea cup...

[Lord Tothe]

Well, even lunatics enjoy fresh air.

And the tea-cup ride. Don't forget the tea-cup ride.

I wanna ride in a tea cup...

Never trust the carnival rides at a fair. Riding them is proof of an under-developed brain or general stupidity

Besides, if you're at the Spokane fair, Silverwood is just a couple dozen miles east

[Korintar]

This should have never happened. One should never allow an extremely dangerous individual, especially a large group of them, to go to such an event, especially w/out adequate security. They should have contacted the police a few days or weeks in advance, if they wished to do this, to ensure adequate security was provided. Also, as a courtesy, the facility should have informed the fair staff of what they were planning on doing first.

Let's take a look at the facts:
You have an individual with schizophrenia, a particularly serious mental illness
Said individual is well known to be violent and has killed a person
Said individual also has a propensity to escape from the mental hospital
Said mental hospital most likely houses primarily criminally insane individuals, thus are deemed dangers to society
The chances of a criminal with a mental illness being found not guilty by reason of insanity is about 1%
The ratio of patients to staff is 3/1
While the patient in question may be perfectly stable when medicated, the probability of his being able to self medicate on the road is slim
Without said meds, based upon prior information, the patient in question can potentially be extremely dangerous
It is known that some mental patients, with certain disorders, cannot be rehabilitated, and thus not be integrated into society if they demonstrated the above characteristics

hmm...... methinks he should not have been allowed at that state fair in the first place, especially without adequate staff, when one considers these realities.