Do you usually feel sad for most perpetrators of heinous crimes?

[Douglas Carpenter]

Of course this recent event at the cinema in Colorado comes to mind - but other heinous crimes as well - be they serial killers, child rapist or other perpetrators of equally horrible deeds. For the purpose of poll we will be talking about "crazy" crimes - not crimes with financial motive or acts such as political terrorism. It goes without saying that we all feel sad for the victims. But do you also usually feel sad for the perpetrators?

18 votes, 2 passes | Time left: Unlimited
	Yes, in general I do. Every perpetrator of a heinous crime was once a little a child and no child dreams of growing up to be a monster. At least on some serious level , I usually do feel sad for most of them.
	14 (78%)
	In general, no. In the vast majority of situatilons they don't do deserve any sympathy or mercy. Their victims didn't receive mercy or sympathy, so why should they?
	4 (22%)
	2 DU members did not wish to select any of the options provided.
Show usernames Disclaimer: This is an Internet poll

[dkf]

1. Sometimes...depends.

I admit early on I thought Holmes was unleashing hatred at the world and deserved every bad thing we could throw at him but now I wonder if there isn't something terribly wrong but fixable.

It would be a shame to lose such a brilliant mind with all that potential over a chemical imbalance.

But for someone like Tim McVeigh...forget it. If a person did a heinous thing out of anger, there is no room for sympathy.

[Nostradammit]

2. I feel sad for the void that's left

by the person they could have been.

We all have something positive to offer the world - it all too often gets corrupted and distorted along the way, causing no end of heartache.

[Brickbat]

11. I like that expression -- "the void that was left." So much better than "potential," which is the

word I used down below. I like your phrase better. It is sad to think of that.

[Nostradammit]

19. I initially was thinking "potential"

but realized that word didn't quite get what I meant to convey.

So very few of us actually realize our potential because sloth and fear and bitterness are so hard to overcome.

Some people go so far in the opposite direction that they never had any potential - there's just a hole left were a human being ought to be.

I still think Anne Frank was right, however.

[hamsterjill]

39. Yeah, I like that phrase, too.

Those are my thoughts as well. I feel sorry that the individual did not live to see what he could have done in this world, and I always feel particularly bad for the family of a perpetrator.

I remember Robert Nigh's speech after Timothy McVeigh's execution, when he spoke about the "collateral damage" of McVeigh's family. His words were very moving to me.

That said, I certainly will not forget the actual victims of crimes such as these. What could be more innocent that sitting down to watch a movie? Perhaps there is, and should be, compassion enough for all person's affected by something like this.

[Quantess]

3. They could turn their anger inward

instead of taking it out on people who did nothing to deserve it, and who have no relationship with the perpetrator.

[Douglas Carpenter]

4. another kick for more results

[Douglas Carpenter]

5. another kick for results

[MicaelS]

6. Absolutely not n/t

[gollygee]

7. I get sad for whatever events led to it

but not sad for them.

I am staunchly against the death penalty though, for a number of other reasons.

[Douglas Carpenter]

8. try again

[Avalux]

9. Sometimes I do.

No one is all good or all bad...for those where it seems the bad takes over to the point where they are unable to empathize with others and care about the consequences of their actions, I always wonder how they ended up that way. If they made a conscious decision to be 'bad' or if it just kind of happened, like a snowball effect. I think anyone has the potential to commit a heinous crime based on circumstances.

[Brickbat]

10. I feel sad for the potential that was lost. I think your OP says it quite well -- no child wishes to

grow up to be a monster. Everyone was a baby once, and the idea of a baby not getting love and turning into a monster makes me sad.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

12. I don't believe in evil people, just flawed people doing evil deeds.

There are no such things as "monsters."

That being said, there are legal consequences for such evil deeds and one must be held accountable to the highest extent proper. (Excluding the death penalty, which I believe to be grossly unethical and immoral regardless of circumstance).

[Recovered Repug]

13. More with the perpetrators family and close friends than with the actual perpetrator.

I couldn't imagine living the rest of my life wondering if I had missed something that could have prevented the crime.

[gkhouston]

16. ^^ This.

Not only do the people close to the criminal second-guess their pasts, they take a lot of heat from others for "not having done something". I often think of the criminals' families.

Years ago, I went on a "true crime" reading binge. The author whose work I remember the most was probably Ann Rule. Sometimes I found the books a bit hackneyed, but they weren't "crime porn", and she usually discussed the criminals' backgrounds and speculated on what might have influenced them. I liked that she was trying to make some sense of what had happened, yet ultimately still held the perpetrators responsible for their actions. Another thing that's really stuck with me from reading her work is that the perpetrators pretty much damaged everyone in their paths -- not only the victims and the victims' families and friends, but also the perpetrator's family and friends, and often even the police, reporters, and lawyers involved in the case.

Do I feel sorry for Holmes? I'm not sure. If he's a schizophrenic, then I do, because on some level he might not have intended to cause harm. He might have been suffering from some sort of delusion that he was doing a good thing, which would make the shooting tragic for him as well as his victims. On the other hand, if he's a psychopath and truly understood he was hurting people (but simply didn't care) then no, I don't feel sorry for him.

[coalition_unwilling]

14. There's some hope for humanity yet, as this poll seems to be breaking 50-50 roughly. I voted

for feeling sad for the perpetrators, most of whom never had a chance, imo. Decks were stacked against them from the get-go.

[sabrina 1]

22. I was thinking the same thing. I expected only a few to feel any sympathy for the perpetrators.

I'm happy to see that people can still feel empathy even for those who do these awful things. And especially for their families, for whom the acts of their family members equal a great loss, worse than death since they cannot even expect much sympathy which does help when dealing with a great loss.

I also voted for sympathy for the perpetrator. Not even sure sympathy is the correct word, but a sadness that they chose such a path from which there is no return.

[coalition_unwilling]

31. There was this wonderful surreal story a few years back about this

armed robber\home invader who, while in the process of committing a crime or trying to outrun the cops, bumped into a woman who actually talked to the criminal like he was a human being and made him pancakes and somehow talked him into giving up. The story was only out there for a day and then vanished into the media black hole. The story was surreal b/c it so violently contradicted the current narrative which is that criminals are not human, are beyond redemption and so on. Instead, the woman recognized the criminal's core humanity and by acknowledging it helped to resolve the incident non-violently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Nichols

I challenge anyone who voted he or she had no sympathy for the perpetrator to read that story and not come face to face with the mystery of what it means to be human.

[sabrina 1]

38. I remember that story. There have also been a few other stories, although they rarely get

much media coverage.

[DevonRex]

15. For the adult that chose to kill? Hell no.

For the child they were at one time who perhaps didn't get everything they needed? Yes.

But once you become an adult you have choices to make. Choices have consequences. So make the right ones at least regarding whether or not to commit mass murder. Pretty simple.

I am against the death penalty but I shed no tears for the Tim McVeighs of this world.

[coalition_unwilling]

32. Not all of us can be Ashley Smith, eh?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Nichols

[DevonRex]

40. I could easily do what she did.

Women who have been raped, women who have been in the military, women who have been Feds have learned to do whatever it takes to survive. And we do it well.

[coalition_unwilling]

42. She made her assailant pancakes. Could you do that? Easily? She

deserves a Nobel Peace Prize, imho.

[DevonRex]

43. Of course. Whatever it takes with a smile on my face. Nt

[coalition_unwilling]

44. Trying not to beat a dead horse, but she actually engaged her

assailant in meaningful conversation and treated her assailant like a human being. So I'm not sure you could do that, based on your initial comment. But maybe I mis-read you.

[DevonRex]

46. Of course I could. You think I have no empathy? WTF?

I'm done with you.

[coalition_unwilling]

47. Here's how you began this sub-thread (post #15):

"For the adult that chose to kill? Hell no."

I don't know how else to parse your words than how I parsed them.

[soccer1]

17. Yes, sometimes....but

I feel far more sympathy for the victims. But, every criminal came into the world like everyone else.....they have families who I have sympathy for....lots of sympathy for the siblings and parents of criminals. I always think: But for the grace of.....there go I or someone I love.

[Douglas Carpenter]

18. another one

[Behind the Aegis]

20. Bit of a push poll there, Douglas.

The 'yes' and 'no' responses are two different things. However, I will say, with the exception of someone severely mentally ill or "wrong place, wrong time", I rarely feel sympathy for a perpetrator of a crime. I feel more for the families of the victims, the survivors, and the family of the perpetrator. To me, 'mercy' and 'sympathy' need not be tied together. I can be unsympathetic, completely, but still feel the need for mercy.

[Douglas Carpenter]

33. "a lost little lamb who has gone astray,; bah, bah, bah"

After thinking about it - I do have to agree that mercy and sympathy are somewhat different. I guess it would be quite possible to have not sympathy but to have mercy on someone.

Granted it is a bit of a hard sell even in relatively liberal circles to suggest that a mass murderer such as Mr. Holmes is someone people ought to feel sadness for. Still I feel it implausible that someone would arrive at such a point in life that they would actually execute something like this acting on pure free will alone. That is not to say that such a person is blameless or they didn't make some very bad choices or that this is entirely society's fault. Given that an action like this can only be self-destructive for the perpetrator and there is nothing in the sane world in it for them - I am left to conclude that forces at work - probably psychological as well as neurological/biochemical - forces beyond their conscious control played a determining role. Their free will probably played a major part too. But I also see it unlikely that this could have happened but for influences that were beyond their conscious free will.

I also think that the more society tries to understand the why of the most abhorrent - The more society tries to grasp the world through the eyes of the bad man and the sad man and attempts to even if only for brief moments to feel their pain - the more society becomes truly civilized and the closer we can come to the kinder and gentler world governed by the better angels of our nature.

[Alduin]

21. No.

[cbrer]

23. My reasoning isn't the same as the polls

But I do not feel sad for the perp.

[Chan790]

24. Some of them more than others.

For example, I have more sadness for the Unibomber than I have for George Zimmerman. One's a wasted brilliant mind brought low by his psychoses whose responses to a legitimate problem were horrific...the other is a dipshit with a cop fetish who thinks God ordained him to murder an innocent for no good reason whatsoever.

I don't know what to make of Holmes. I'm positive he's nutty as a walnut cake but I really do get the vibe that he did what he did at his most lucid because he simply wants to watch the world burn. I have a hard time having sympathy for someone like that...he's almost certainly going to be brutalized or murdered in jail and I'll probably be more upset if I'm not upset about it when it happens as it bothers me to be that callous as an anti-DP activist. It brings me to the one that really wrenches me and fucks with my head; it's the one that comes closest to your question.

Inevitably, whenever I talk about things like this, I'm forced to confront the case that's closer to me than most others. I knew of the Petits, my brother knew the girls. Dr. Petit was my mom's endocrinologist. It happened one town over from the one I used to work in and two towns from the one I grew up in. I felt personally violated...I had a really hard time with that case because after 15+ years of protesting executions back to when I was 14, it was the first and only time I've ever had to ask myself: "Don't these motherfuckers actually deserve to die?" Ultimately, the answer is no...but to this day I can only reconcile it by considering that life without parole in permanent solitary might actually be worse. There's a reason why the suicide rate for those types of inmates is so high...the sentence is torture. There is something terrible about taking joy in the misery of others, even truly-evil individuals who lack any redemptive quality. Hayes at-least is dumber than wood...Komisarjevsky actively and willingly chose to be a monster, it was his lusting to f**k a 12 year old he saw in the grocery that precipitated the greater crime; a crime he thought about in great depth and strategized in advance of committing it. I cannot conceptualize of a misery that might befall him in this life or whatever afterlife might occur that equals the horror of his crime or the evil needed to commit it.

[flamingdem]

25. Once I heard Holmes sent his writings about killing to a shrink

I felt sad and so sorry that no one was able to intervene. It's possible he was so far gone he couldn't find the path to reach out anymore. But it's possible, if he's not a fully manipulative psychopath that he tried to stop himself. Then again I'm not sure we'll ever know what drove that person. The best outcome would be to find out he had an illness that is quantifiable. Though schizophrenia seems to have other markers (he was too competent?). That might give a tad of relief to the victims.

[mzmolly]

26. No.

I don't.

[wickerwoman]

27. It depends.

Some of them express remorse like Jeffrey Dahmer. Before he died he said he wished he'd been given the death penalty and that he would never be safe out in the general public because he couldn't control himself. Even though he probably did some of the nastiest, more heinous shit imaginable, I've always felt a tiny bit sorry for him.

But then you get really arrogant assholes like Ted Bundy or people who kill for the attention or to show that they're badass and better than everyone else. I don't really feel sorry for them.

And you get people who get sucked into it to some extent because they have weak personalities or have been brutalised themselves. I feel a little sorry for Myra Hindley, for example, but not for Ian Brady.

[Incitatus]

28. No, their decisions are their decisions.

It's too bad they went from innocent child to murderer, but that doesn't make me have any sympathy for them.

[Kennah]

29. While I think there are those who are monsters for no apparent explanation ...

... I think the vast majority endured things that led them to the point where they commit terrible crimes.

Abuse is all too common in the lives of people who commit terrible crimes. They don't know to get help, they can't cope, and they frequently head for an escape.

The word crazy is recklessly tossed around, but there are many shades of mental illness that fall well short of clinically insane. We let it go, and often there is a price.

[Kalidurga]

30. I can feel sorry for the family...

Sometimes, if the family isn't the root cause of the problem. In most cases, the family isn't really the reason. We don't know enough yet to make any kind of judgement. He might have a mental illness, he might have been on drugs prescribed or not, he might just be so hateful for whatever reason that this just seemed to him the best way to hurt the most people around him. Answers will come in dribbles and their will be half-truths and misinformation. It will take years to sort out. But, I don't assume it's the families fault. I don't even assume it is entirely the perps fault. But, I still don't feel sorry for the perp. I feel that something was lost though that this person could have gone another way and chose a way that either felt like it was easier or just more satisfying to them with no regard to the damage that was going to ensue over their choice. Or even worse the perp could have contemplated the agony and misery he was going to cause and felt very happy about it. I suspect in Holmes case he felt very happy about what he was going to do and until he got caught was pleased with the outcome. It may be sometime before he has a full understanding of what is going to happen to him if he is found guilty on all counts. It didn't look like he quite grasped that concept.

Short answer no, not yet. I don't know enough to feel sad for the perp. I am sad for the victims even without knowing them because anyone can be at the wrong place at the wrong time and all they wanted was to sit back and enjoy a movie with other people that wanted the same. They were definitely not out creating a world of pain for other people.

[FSogol]

34. Same here. I feel for the vicitms and the family of the shooter. n/t

[HappyMe]

36. Same here. I feel sad and horrified for the perps family,

and the victim's family.

[magical thyme]

35. it really depends on the circumstances

If somebody is mentally ill, then yes. I feel terribly sad for the woman (can't think of her name right now) who had been previously diagnosed as schizophrenic, was taken off her meds by the psychiatrist and left home alone to care for her 4 or 5 children. I blame her family and the system (the doctors that took her off her meds). That was outrageous, and that she was convicted of murder is even more outrageous.

I suspect Holmes is mentally ill, but am reserving judgement and waiting for the facts to come out.

Zimmerman, no pity. Enough facts have come out to convince me he is a racist who was in full control of his behavior. An opportunistic racist, and a stupid one at that; he saw his chance to be a "hero" and shoehorn his way into law enforcement and instead ending up killing an innocent boy.

Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, other psychopaths? No pity. They are true psychopaths, with no compassion or empathy whatsoever for their victims.

I do believe in the death penalty for the Ted's and Jeffrey's of the world, where there is no doubt who committed the crimes. And in some limits on appeals.

I also believe the death penalty should be viewed and approached as euthanasia, rather than punishment. A failure of society to appropriately socialize a citizen, who is damaged beyond repair and a danger to everybody.

Believe it or not, there are far worse things than death. Life in a shitty prison is likely one of them.

[Douglas Carpenter]

37. another try for some resutls

[Douglas Carpenter]

41. one last time

[HiPointDem]

45. I feel sadness that our society is such that it holds up a lot of illusions and lies about what life

is, what human beings are, etc. and people are warped by them in different ways.

So much of the violence and harm we do each other seems needless and preventable.

I feel sorry for the waste and destruction.

I feel that almost every murderer is in thrall to illusions. But the same could be said of all of us.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

48. no

I feel sad about them, not for them.

[Tom Ripley]

49. I feel sad for their families and loved ones

[Iggo]

50. In general, no.

Period.

[kentuck]

51. Kinfolk of Jesus...

...

[zappaman]

52. No. Never.

Seriously?