Quote:
Originally Posted by peter12
I find the consensus-based group-think on Calgarypuck absolutely fascinating. The crowd decides what they think, and then, just becomes implacable. There is obviously room for discussion here.
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I agree with you for sure. Totally fair game for debate.
Here's where I take issue:
I don't believe Matthew De Grood should be removed from society as a means of "punishment".
I am on board with Matthew De Grood being removed from society if he is deemed a "danger to society".
These are two very different things to me, and it has been argued by a few people that they would like him locked up as a means of punishment.
Why punish the person, and not the condition?
We have trained doctors who have studied this topic more than anyone participating in this conversation. If they deem De Grood to not be criminally responsible for his actions due to his illness taking over, I'm inclined to trust and respect the research.
IMO, it would be a shame to punish a person for their disease. The issue here is that I think many people can have trouble separating the actions caused by the disease vs. the human being. He did kill the 5 people. I get that. I get how that looks.
It would be better if it was more obvious to be linked to the illness. For example, if when the illness was triggered, De Grood was divided into two people, one who tries to kill, and the second person who is normal and visibly tries to stop the other person. And then when the episode ended, the killing version disappeared.
If that happened, it would be easy for us to clearly say, "the illness killed those 5 people and he tried to stop himself". But it isn't that easy to separate the events that transpired.
Anyways, maybe that makes more sense in my head and somebody could write a better example of my point, but that's how kind of how I see it.
At the end of the day, I would like to review past history for how these medications work, and how controllable and contained De Grood could be if given the proper remedy. If past history suggests that when controlled that these people can be rehabilitated back into society where the risk to the remainder of society is negligible, then I think there is middle ground.
We don't want to punish the person, but punish the illness. Don't let the illness and effects of the illness impact society any further. But we also don't want to punish a person that hasn't consciously done wrong.