Lock up up the bad people, tread the madPerry Samuel drowned his two children in the bath after they had watched fireworks with him. Today he was locked up for a minimum of 35 years for this terribel act. Samuel suffers from manic depression, and had been having relationship problems with his wife, the mother of the two children.
Terrible that this act was, I fail to see how it is justified to lock someone who is clearly sick for 35 years. This man needs treatment - isn't that obvious to any thinking person? He's clearly sick, not evil. Nothing will bring the children back, no even 35 years in prison for a madman. Why can't a judge and a prosecutor this is a pointless imprisoning for someone who needs can't be served by our hopeless prison services.
Labels: Perry Samuel children murder father prison 35 years treatment depression
Tough love for junkiesRidiculous - that's the only possible reaction to the finding that putting junkies on 'cold turkey' while in prison deprived them of their human rights. We don't do them any favors that way.
I live in a neighborhood blighted by junkies. They have the appearance of being human, but they often don't act it. And they're responsible for a 70% of robberies. Yet the police can't seem to do anything about them.
Why are we going soft on junkies? We don't do them any favors. We need to be a lot more forceful about getting them off drugs and back into normal life. Drugs are suicide by installment. Society tries to stop other kinds of suicide (even some we should allow - like people with painful terminal disseases). Why do we let junkies kill themselves, starting with their humanity?
Why can't we use compulsory detention, as we do with people who are mentally ill and who are a danger to themselves or others? Doesn't that apply to many junkies? Similar checks and balances for mentaly ill could be applied.
So we have to do three things:
- get junkies into jail or some other form of controlled environment
- prevent junkies from getting drugs while they are in there
- get them off drugs before they go out.
Some junkies will accept this treatment gratefully - other will not. Where the junkies face a countr of law (for whatever reason), the courts should be able to impose sentences where parole is dependent on junkies proving they are drug-free over an extended period.
None of this will be cheap, but it has to be done - for the sake of the junkies, their families and the rest of us.
Tough love, if you like.
A vain hope about global warming?It's mid November and I'm looking out of my office window. (As most writers do for much of their day, I'm sure.)
All the trees I can see still have most if not all their leaves. Though some are now turning, very few have fallen in the yard below. The bags I have for recyling green waste remain as yet unused.
Could it possibly be that this is a natural mechnism for controlling variations in the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Indeed, could the biosphere itself have the mechanisms save us from our foolishness?
Or is this as big a fantasy as the denial of human-induced climate change?
