TRIGGER WARNING
I am ONLY posting this because it speaks to AtreyuFreak's point and there is such a thing as a trigger icon. I wrote this essay years ago in response to a district attorneys demand that criminals need to put themselves in their victims shoes and consider what a victim feels like. This is only another perspective, not the only one. It does not seek to exonerate criminals or not hold them responsible for their action...
Quote:
Originally Posted by AtreyuFreak
I do think the mother's remark sheds light on why the killer may have done what he did. If the killer grew up listening to his mother rationalize her own (and possibly her childrens) actions, the killer probably learned that he didn't have to take responsibility for his actions.
NOT RATIONALIZING ANYTHING!!!!! Simply looking at this through a possible psychological viewpoint. And this is just me speculating. I only know of this story what has been posted here.
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My wife was fifteen years old when she was incarcerated for murder. On July 2nd she passed her twenty-second year behind bars. While it may not be true for every class of criminal, I'm would posit that every violent criminal and every juvenile offender does in fact know what a victim feels like.
Further, I would suggest that each and every single one of these men, women and children have been the victims of more unprosecuted crimes than they have perpetrated. I can't prove that and it is certainly anecdotal; yet my experience has borne this out without exception.
Born into heroin withdrawal and continuously pricked with the
needle to get her high enough to shut up so she didn't screw up moms high was the beginning. Had her mother been held accountable for her actions intially, my wife would have been taken away and given a chance. Every single day of her life, unspeakable and horrific crimes were committed against my wife. Society failed her.
Every. Single. Day.
She knows what victims feel like.
She knows what having drugs forced into her system feels like. She knows what being beaten unconscious feels like. She knows what feeling her bones break and what feeling stabbed with her own broken shards feels like. She knows what being raped feels like. She knows what being sold into slavery feels like.
Eventually, still a child, she learned what killing someone felt like.
Society was there this time to right wrongs.
My wife was wrong. Her victim didn't deserve to die. You, and even I, will never know how much she has suffered with that knowledge. She is serving life and she has never make any excuses for what she has done. She never blamed any one of the hundreds of people who directly committed crimes to which she was victim. She never blamed society for not rescuing her, for not righting those wrongs. She's only blamed herself.
Every. Single. Day.
If you take anything away from this, take this:
These people know how victims feel.