A Valid Reason for Not Imposing a Death Penalty.

In this article it is not my intention to enter into, nor explore all the issues surrounding the validity of death penalties.

I merely intend to present to you all a little slice of my life experiences that may hopefully get you to question and examine your own beliefs in this regard.

I've spent many of my working years in the prison system. And in my part of the woods a death penalty is not on the cards.
And I've been right inside the hidden depths of those minds that many of you would consider to be the 'darker side of evil'. Indeed if these people I am talking of were in the USA they would most likely be dead by now - and I could not have had such conversations.

Let me digress a little first.
At one point I was studying what some people might call 'profiling'. To me it was a Masters in Criminology with an emphasis on violent sex offenders. Course units had interesting titles such as Rape 101 etc.
Whilst studying for this degree I shared books and resources with an inmate who was a notorious serial killer around these parts. She was an invaluable resource and pointed me towards many interesting texts, etc. We often discussed many issues. In fact my airing of issues with her helped me to understand and 'get a handle' on many things that I may not have been able to learn from books alone.

Another, related aside is the following story;
A sex offender who I had come to know fairly well had been released on parole. Sex offenders often offend after stressful situations trigger their behaviours. This particular offender rang me up late one night saying that," he had just raped someone". There were a series of phone calls that ensued - but this story might be fodder for a different article. Suffice to say that I tried to persuade him to turn himself in.
A couple of months later he did so.

And as he was in a prison far away from where I was working I went to visit him as a visitor, and not in any official prison capacity.
He was pretty distraught to say the least. One question he asked out aloud was, "Did God put me on this Earth to rape women"?

As I left the prison the officers asked me how he was. I said he was not in a good way and they put him onto suicide watch. As I was leaving the prison I saw his mother and sisters going in to visit him next. His mother said to me," I just don't know why he does these things".
I thought quietly to myself, "I do - but I can't tell you".

During the next week I mentioned some of the things we had talked about to the Serial Killer I mentioned just earlier and she shed great light on some things for me. In fact she even wrote the fellah a letter to help him come to understand 'his hell'.
During the week I thought a lot about things that both prisoners had told me.

I visited this fellah again the next weekend. I suggested to him that he needed to start writing a book and that perhaps one day if he could publicly face up to his behaviour without denying any of it that he might be able to help victims and offenders alike to heal.
He immediately got onto this idea. He sought permission to use a computer and to have files that could not be openly viewed by other prisoners.
He faced his computer towards the wall - which of course attracted much attention. But his 'project' became so well known that it started off a process where many other offenders starting more openly talking about triggers in their lives that led to offending behaviours.

I know personally that many violent offenders live with an internal hell that prevents them from sleeping well at nights. They fight with their demons. Indeed many really bad offenders never make it to parole because they find a way to kill themselves before such a day might arrive.
And my Serial Killer colleague said that, "to die is the easiest way out. If society truly wants to punish us they should keep us alive to live with our own hell and demons that are inside us. That in itself is punishment - not death'.
Then she added, "People such as me (the author) can then study them to help society come up with ways of understanding the processes that lead to their behaviours in the hope of effective intervention strategies".

All this is fodder for further articles later (when I can find some time).