So she was 12 when she did it, but is still a danger to others 10 years later if I'm reading correctly.
Was the psychiatric hospital meant to rehabilitate her?
this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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Was the psychiatric hospital meant to rehabilitate her?
If possible, otherwise keep her away from pointy items. Working in psychiatry years ago, I've met people for whom their psychiatric diagnosis was chronic, and whom you could dope all you wanted, but their psychosis never retreated. All you could do was keep them from hurting themselves or others.
Sometimes we need a way to shield individuals from the general public, without it actually being a punishment. Lady in the story sounds like an example.
Being put in a criminal psychiatric facility for life doesn't sound like "without it actually being a punishment" to me.
Especially not in the U.S.
It depends, I worked in a similar place and the people there lived in relative comfort. Obviously it's going to be a sad situation regardless, as even in the best of settings they no longer have freedom. but to some of the people in there they preferred it. Many of them had their own collections of books and even some video games and the like in their rooms and they could do things like working at the canteen to occupy their time otherwise. For someone with very severe mental issues, living somewhere that keeps you away from the world and makes sure you're fed and relatively safe can be preferable.
I mean sure, but at 12 years old you cannot possibly be a lost cause I would think, there is still so much development going on.
That is like saying a 12 year old should be able to be healed from being quadriplegic because they are still growing. Some medical conditions are for live (at our current medical knowledge) and it doesn't matter if they are "physical" or "mental".
There’s a huge difference between neurological growth and limb growth. Now if you could point to the physical damage on her brain and display evidence it can’t heal I might agree with you. But as it stands all we know is an atrocious act and our own cultural biases that make it easy and convenient to say that a 12 year old committing such an act is irreparably broken.
And even if the causative disorder is irreparable, many psychological disorders allow for workarounds and treatments that can prevent the catastrophic scenarios.
It's not physical damage to her brain. She has schizophrenia and developed symptoms of it at an abnormally young age. She didn't have a clear grasp on what was and wasn't real and that ultimately led her to stab her friend nineteen times. It's clearly a condition that has presented itself as very dangerous for her, and it needs to be under control before she can be released.
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Was the psychiatric hospital meant to rehabilitate her?
You're cute.
This is America.
Probably. But this is not the first time something like this happened
Well, there's concerns here. The mind was able to be convinced of the reality of a clearly fictional character. The mind concluded on murder, of all things, as a solution to something. The mind did this almost entirely on its own, despite what it's been taught and witnessed of others.
Because people can't read minds, things observed of that mind will be very carefully assessed. Things like showing vivid imagination, unusual reaction, unusual phases of personality or empathy change, etc. And being so young, connections were likely shaped and formed in impressionable years and these are the hardest to undo; essentially things like personality are established by 12 and the core of it remains relatively unchanged for the entire life.
She could be ready; she could've been ready a few years ago. But it is the job of experts to ensure that mind is extremely unlikely to do that again, and that it isn't vulnerable to change when released. Get that wrong and the loss is much higher than what is currently occurring.
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A lot of people in this thread really down playing or overlooking she willingly stabbed someone 19 times.
Carl, that kills people!
Yeah, that's the thing that stands out for me too. 19 freaking times. Over and over. Horrible.
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For all of you saying this girl is a lost cause, I suggest you look into the Parker-Hulme murder. It was turned into the film Heavenly Creatures.
Two girls murdered one of the girls' mothers. It was a premeditated murder. The mother was not some horribly abusive woman, the kids had developed an incredibly unhealthy fantasy life which was replacing reality for them and they got separated. There was queerphobia involved, but it was the 1950s so that's not surprising, but the fantasy thing was a much bigger issue.
During their relationship, the girls invented their own personal religion, with their own ideas on morality. They rejected Christianity and worshipped their own saints, envisioning a parallel dimension called The Fourth World, essentially their version of Heaven. The Fourth World was a place that they felt they were already able to enter occasionally, during moments of spiritual enlightenment. By Parker's account, they had achieved this spiritual enlightenment because of their friendship.
Anyway, they decided to murder Hulme's mother so they could stay together and ended up both in prison. They were older than this woman was at the time they committed their murder.
Both were released after a five years in prison.
Neither murdered again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parker%E2%80%93Hulme_murder_case
Also, America’s extreme sentence lengths have not been found to reduce recidivism. I don’t like prisons in general, but in particular I hate that we seem to not give half a shit if the harm we authorize them to do actually improves anything, especially before allowing them to do more harm. This is especially true when we’re talking about someone who successfully pled insanity, which is really fucking difficult actually
I hope this woman gets the treatment she needs then is released and commits no more crime.
This is also why conservatives rail against things like Dungeons and Dragons.
Dungeon and Dragon players actually learn to follow rules.
Homebrew players are obviously satanists /s
I mean yeah, but this isn't a statistical sample, we should have meaningful data to give us recidivism rates for different crimes.
Sometimes the damage is deep, sometimes it's readily curable. Hard to tell which without work.
Damn, that was 10 years ago?
I remember when this happened. I think it's wild that she is still being detained for it.
It happens. I know a weird amount of people who stabbed someone as a kid. Two of them went to the same institution at different times and they both told told me about a girl was really tall, 6 foot at age 13, who had stabbed a few staffers with shanks and almost started a number of fires.
Apparently the staff told them she would never have a moment of freedom in her life.
Did the staff tell her she would never have a moment of freedom in her life before the stabbing and the fires started? Because that might explain them.
So many people like to ignore that mentally ill people are rarely acting out just to act out. Yes it happens, but often there’s a line of reasoning, including emotional disregulation and failure to appropriately escalate. Take someone with those traits, lock them up, and add distress to them (especially when you’re frustrated at their behavior) and they’re prone to do whatever they think they can.
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.. really? It's really crazy to you that someone who ~~murdered~~ attempted to murder a little girl and blamed a meme has been in a mental hospital for 10 years?
Edit: meh. I'm at a "everyone sucks here" conclusion. The abusers suck, and the US prison / mental health "totally not prison" systems all suck.
That 'someone" was a mentally ill child. Yes it's crazy to lock up a twelve year old for 10+ years. Period. Full stop. But beyond that especially one that was mentally ill at the time who you were supposed to be treating for the last ten years.
You've misread. She is and has been in a mental health facility this whole time.
I didn't misread, being in a criminal mental health facility is being locked up. In the US they no better than prisons.
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Just to be clear, the victim survived the stabbing. Not that that changes the intent of the crime.
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Yeah, I remember this one too. Going back and reading one of the articles from when it happened, and I just don't have words for it.
https://www.cnn.com/2014/06/03/justice/wisconsin-girl-stabbed/index.html
According to the criminal complaint, the suspects had been planning the attack since February.
They first thought to kill the victim by placing duct tape over her mouth while she was sleeping and stabbing her in the neck, the complaint says.
Next, the plan was to kill her in a park bathroom where there was a floor drain that could make cleanup easier, it continued.
But, finally, the girls decided to carry out the attack in the park while playing a game of hide-and-seek, the complaint says.
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