Where is the line between a criminal and someone needing help?

[Fiction]

So I want to know your oppinion on this...

Where should the line be for getting help and being a criminal. If events occured early in your life that caused you to murder someone at an older age, should you be punished? Or helped?

Does it depend on what the crime is?

What about mentally ill people? Should thry be to blame for their crimes? Or should they get help instead of punishment?

Debate! :)

[embers]

It depends really. If the murder was premeditated, then the person really should have tried to get help when they noticed the murderous impulses. If it the murder wasn't, and just sort of happened, well then you're fucked.

I mean, people should really see the extent of someone's mental illness. If it's bad enough to force (for lack of a better word) someone into murder, then really, they should be treated differently, but not be made free from imprisonment (someplace they could get treated and isolated is ideal). The last thing I'd want is a necropaedophilic rapist not be sentenced on the grounds that he is mentally ill.

[Quahog]

Guess it depends on the person. If the person who committed the crime is mentally ill, then they shouldn't be charged as a criminal. They shouldn't be in prison, but in a mental institution. But that's my opinion.

[Fiction]

What about children who commit crime? Does it make a difference? Like a child can be changed and an adult can't?

[Bluesman]

If you commit a serious crime you should be punished. However if someone has real problems they should recieve help while undergoing their punishment... ie hospitals in prisons and things like that.

[Korashk]

Where should the line be for getting help and being a criminal. If events occured early in your life that caused you to murder someone at an older age, should you be punished? Or helped?
Punished, severely. By what I'm inferring you mean by "events occured early in your life" it means you had a fucked up past. Which is not a defense, nor should it even be a factor when determining punishment.

Does it depend on what the crime is?
Nope.

What about mentally ill people? Should thry be to blame for their crimes? Or should they get help instead of punishment?
Depends on the mental illness.

[Modus Operandi]

What about children who commit crime? Does it make a difference? Like a child can be changed and an adult can't?

See, this is a difficult point. On the one hand, a child may be ignorant of their actions in some way or another (obviously I speak of relatively petty crimes here). On the other, a child may be committing a crime with full knowledge of the fact that it is a crime and of the possible consequences of doing so. There really is no one all-encompassing good way to deal with youth offenders, as circumstances simply vary too much from case to case to allow for one end-all strategy.

As for a child being 'changed', that, again, varies case to case. Some kids can't and others can. Honestly, it's the same with adults, which is why our current prison system is backwards and fucked up.
Some adults are simply sitting in prison while they could be getting...I'm not sure quite how to phrase this, but I'll try. Reintegrated, perhaps? Put through a 'rehab' program instead of simply sitting behind bars. I'm aware systems like this are in place in some situations, but it seems they're simply not hitting all the people they need to be. However, others simply are not suited to this type of program and are hell-bent on resuming crime as soon as they get out. Again, there's no one best method. However, it's impractical on a large scale to do individual 'evaluations' so to speak, and that leads to help going to the wrong people or not reaching the right ones. Whichever you prefer.

[Evan-9]

If it is murder and premeditated or unjustifiable then that murderer must be punished whether it is a stable person, mentally unstable person, or child.
I do believe it depends on the circumstances and the crime. But sometimes, people can not be "helped"...

[Death]

A problem I see is people commiting serious crimes intentionally and then claiming that they need help simply as an attempt to lessen the punishment. If you do decide to genuinly give a criminal help instead of just treating them like any other, you should need proof that they really are not entirely responsible for their actions. But, like already mentioned, I guess nearly everyone, to an extent, will be. It's like people who ge drunk constantly. If they murder someone whilst heavily intoxicated, they must still be treated like a criminal because they didn't try (or get help) to stop being an alcoholic. I support helping people who really are mentally ill, but I would warn against it being abused.

[Rainstorm]

So I want to know your oppinion on this...

Where should the line be for getting help and being a criminal. If events occured early in your life that caused you to murder someone at an older age, should you be punished? Or helped?

Does it depend on what the crime is?

What about mentally ill people? Should thry be to blame for their crimes? Or should they get help instead of punishment?

Debate! :)

Though this is from a TV show, it shows why.


http://www.cbs.com/primetime/csi/video/?pid=ovADU8RaY_JrA7ytArSmj9wI_qDVJRD7

[music is my soul]

i believe that you should be charged like every other person even if you are mentally ill.
enough said from me

[RAWWR]

Punished, severely. By what I'm inferring you mean by "events occured early in your life" it means you had a fucked up past. Which is not a defense, nor should it even be a factor when determining punishment.

Well I don't completley agree with that. If a person was abused as a child, for example, I don't think they should get as long a sentence for murdering their abuser as someone who just did it for the hell of it would. Like my friend watched her dad stabbed 38 times in the chest. I personally wouldn't blame her for giving the murderer a taste of his own medicine.

[Dunce]

I always wonder about this. In religion we talk about moral issues and everyone is having a fiery debate about capital punishment and I'm sitting there completely overwhelmed. It's so hard to know the circumstances of a person and what's going through their head, how they view life and their perception of what's right and wrong.

I mean, if someone killed someone I loved, and then I went insane and killed them. I find it pretty mind blowing that I would face a life locked away, hated, isolated, and just wanting to die. I would just have my life taken away from me as a result of a bad desicion I made because I was so struck with hatred.
I know I couldnt just get on with my life, but I wouldnt be left much space to re-build my life. But I guess in the end people can't be just let off the hook.

They should be given help while undergoing their punishment, so they know not to do it again and why. And so they can try re-build their lives.

[Aves]

Please don't bump old threads :)

:locked2: