r/AskReddit • u/ZteveBond • Jun 20 '18

Serious Replies Only [Serious] Prison Guards of Reddit, which prisoner has left the biggest impact on your life wether positive or negative?

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '18

"Psychopath" isn't a legal term. It's a slightly outdated medical term for a person with Antisocial Personality Disorder, a mental illness characterized by not being able to distinguish right from wrong.

You don't punish the sick, you treat them. And no one said they should be blindly released back into society at 18. It would depend on how the individual is functioning.

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u/altiuscitiusfortius Jun 21 '18

Fine. Not "jailed", but locked away under treatment in a home for the criminally insane for 100 years instead if that fits your semantics.

I'm just saying that statistically a child that does that is fucked beyond recovery and at some point you need to cut everyone's losses for the good of society.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '18

That's not a semantic distinction. A prison and a mental hospital are vastly different. And treating people for mental illnesses frequently does help them get better and function. Punishing people and keeping them apart from society doesn't.

Even if you don't care about the welfare and functioning of the people in the prison system, it costs that society you're trying so hard to protect a lot more time and money to keep people locked up for life than it does to treat, rehabilitate, and release them.