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Self Care Within The Prison System
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Self Care Within The Prison System
By Lynne Sullivan December 7, 2019
What is self-care?
Self-care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional, and physical health. Although it’s a simple concept in theory, it’s something we very often overlook. Good self-care is key to improved mood and reduced anxiety. It’s also key to a good relationship with oneself and others. (Michael 2018)
Being in prison can be a traumatic experience. The environment, the strict rules, regulations and lack of personal control all have an impact on your mental health. That is why self care while incarcerated is vital to a person’s mental health. Looking after your mental health with self care can help you cope with life in the prison system. Make positive changes to improve your well being. Build better support networks with family, friends and other inmates. Build better relationships with staff and professionals who can help. Self care is essential.
Since incarceration is a very traumatic experience. It can require a lifetime of self care management. There are several methods one can utilize while incarcerated to help keep a person’s mind at peace. However, not all correctional facilities have self care programs; some facilities may have more, some less.. People who are sentenced to state prison often have more programming that a county facility. This is due to the difference in sentencing structure. A typical county facility will house people for up to 2.5 years unless they have an on and after sentence in which case they would do both sentences back to back. State facilities are typically for people serving 2.5 years and up to life. These are the facilities that will usually have more programs available. Most all facilities can hold people who are awaiting trial. These folks can be waiting for years before actually being sentenced or sent home without a charge.
Many prisons have programs that can be accessed by all who are incarcerated. These programs can be utilized for self care purposes. Taking care of your body and mind is essential to maintaining sanity within the confines of prison walls. Let's look at the benefits of a couple methods of self care offered in prisons. A mountain of evidence shows that aerobic exercise—such as brisk walking, running, cycling, or playing tennis—can help improve your mood, reduce your stress, and boost well-being. Worrying now and then is part of life. Living within the prison system, worry is a part of everyday life. People with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), excessive, ongoing worry and anxiety about a variety of things can spiral out of control. This disturbed sleep often goes hand in hand with this pattern of chronic worrying. People with GAD may have trouble falling asleep, or their slumber may be fitful and restless. Add prison stressors to the equation and you have more than sleepless nights. Andrews (2017)
Weightlifting, on the other hand, is anabolic: It builds the body up and promotes the release of the feel-good hormone testosterone.Two new studies lend scientific credence to my experience. The first, published in 2017 in the journal Sports Medicine, found that lifting weights reduces the symptoms of anxiety. The second, published in May of this year in JAMA Psychiatry, found that lifting weights can help ease and even prevent depression. Both of these studies are particularly valuable because they are meta-analyses (comprehensive reviews of multiple experiments). In other words, these aren’t just one-off findings. Stulberg (2018)
There are other means of self care beside participation in activities provided by the facilities. For many who are locked in a unit for several hours a day they might play cards “spades”. This is a form of social activity that not only connects people but releases stress by taking you out of your thoughts. It is a time that you can focus on the people around you instead of where you are or why. When someone is missing home or feeling down, it is often good to surround yourself with people who can understand you. For others prayer or morning meditation is another way many will start the day. It gives them a closeness to a higher power, the hope, the strength that is needed to survive another day. It can be a way to hold peace within yourself.
Self care comes in many forms within the prison systems. Each person will need to find what works best for them. However, no matter what that is isn’t important as long as they are being kind and gentle to themselves.
References:
Andrews, L. (posted Mar 29, 2017) How Strength Training Helps Keep Anxiety at Bay: Resistance training may help you resist excessive worry and anxiety Retrieved From: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/minding-the-body/201703/how-strength-training-helps-keep-anxiety-bayMinding the Body
Stulberg, B. (Jul 5, 2018) Lifting Weights Helps Ease Anxiety and Depression Retrieved From: https://www.outsideonline.com/2324201/lifting-weights-helps-ease-anxiety-and-depression
Michael, R. (July 8, 2018) What Self-Care Is — and What It Isn’t Retrieved From: https://psychcentral.com/blog/what-self-care-is-and-what-it-isnt-2/
Malingering
The picture was for your attention!
I found the discussion our group had on malingering very interesting. I had brought up the movie Primal Fear and many classmates discussed real cases they knew about in relation to feigning a mental illness in regards to the Criminal Justice system. Since I was so intrigued by the real cases mentioned, I wanted to read more about them. However I ended up stumbling on this really interesting article titled, Faking it: How to detect malingered psychosis. I wanted to highlight some of the more interesting points the article made.
According to the article, malingering is “the intentional production of false or grossly exaggerated physical or psychological symptoms, motivated by external incentives.” (Resnick & Knoll, 2005, p. 14) Even the smartest of psychiatrists and criminal justice officials can be duped by cunning criminals. So how can they limit the potential of this happening? How can they act as a human lie detector test when some of these criminals are so highly manipulative and sophisticated? I think it is safe to say there is no full proof way to detect if someone is faking a mental illness; however this article identified some helpful tips in recognizing some of the lies, and provided some insight into the idea of malingering.
Malingering is typically used for two purposes – avoiding pain, or seeking pleasure. Avoiding pain could be feigning illness to get out of jail and be housed in a mental hospital for a shorter period of time, or even to miss some days of work (as seen in the cartoon above). Malingering is also used to seek pleasure; this could come in the form of controlled substances, or even workers compensation benefits. There are three types of malingering: pure, partial and false imputation. Pure is when they straight up fake a nonexistent disorder, partial is when they exaggerate real symptoms, and false imputation is when they “ascribe real symptoms to a cause the individual knows is an unrelated to the symptom.” (Resnick & Knoll, 2005, p. 14)
The article provides some tips and tricks for identifying malingering when conducting an interview. For example, it states that if you suspect the person is faking, do not let on that you are suspicious. Proceed with an objective interview. This way they will not become defensive and be put on guard. This will make it harder for you to make a determination. You should also ask open-ended questions. Subjects should describe their symptoms in their own words and should not be led to an answer. Then once they identify their symptoms, you can get more specific and detailed with the questions.
Some more advice given – try to make the interviews long. Malingerers have difficulty maintaining fake symptoms for longer periods. When possible, the authors recommended monitoring them in an inpatient facility during the assessment phase because faking psychosis is difficult to do 24 hours a day. Also helpful and perhaps, critical, is to review collateral data and information associated with these cases. This could be previous interviews, evaluations, personnel files, depositions, police reports, etc. These are items that can help corroborate or disprove the fact they are faking.
Another interesting finding is when a subject’s language use when they claim to have hallucinations. The authors noted two examples they witnessed firsthand. First, a person who was charged with rape told the officers that voices told him to “go commit a sex offense” and another example was of a robber who claimed voices kept telling him to yell “stick up, stick up, stick up.” This specific language was identified as “stilted or implausible.” The article did not really identify what would have been a more “logical” language that would have suggested a crime was truly committed by a sick person, but my assumption is that it was almost too perfect of an excuse.
Malingerers may also claim to have active auditory and visual hallucinations but do not show signs of being distracted. They may act confused in the presence of a doctor, but are excellent chess players when they play against other patents in a facility. They also may say they “don’t know” when asked detailed questions about psychotic symptoms. A person with honest psychotic symptoms would be able to provide an answer. I found some of these tips as common sense, but a lot were rather interesting and something I may not have thought of (i.e. the hallucination language example).
These fakers typically trip up in certain areas. There are some obvious clues like when they completely contradict themselves, and then there are the slightly nuanced lies that can be picked up on by professionals. They may overact and think that the more bizarre they behave, the more convincing they are. In reality they would be more effective if they don’t engage in unusual or odd symptoms, but rather play it more low-key. Malingerers are noted to almost flaunt their illness and chat about it, whereas patients with true schizophrenia, for example, are reluctant to admit it or discuss it further.
Popular and validated tests to detect malingering include assessments like Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS), Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Revised (MMPI-2) and the Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms Test (M-Fast). The article gives a slight overview of each test.
Worth noting, as I think we have all have mentioned in some discussions posts (throughout our BU CJ journey) is the “CSI effect.” With classes like ours and articles like this, we all get better and more educated and aware, but so do the criminals. On a semi related note, in watching the Netflix show “Unbelievable” which was based on a true story centered on a serial rapist who learned how to clean crime scenes by reading a textbook (basically a “playbook” of sorts, although not at all its intention). So I do struggle with articles such as these that make the good guys more intelligent, but can also benefit the bad guys. Overall, this was a really interesting article. I recommend reading it if you have a chance as it covered some other details I did not touch upon for this post.
Reference:
Resnick, P. & Knoll, J. (2005). Faking it. Current Psychiatry. Retrieved from: https://mdedge-files-live.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/files/s3fs-public/Document/September-2017/0411CP_Article1.pdf
Malingering
The picture was for your attention!
I found the discussion our group had on malingering very interesting. I had brought up the movie Primal Fear and many classmates discussed real cases they knew about in relation to feigning a mental illness in regards to the Criminal Justice system. Since I was so intrigued by the real cases mentioned, I wanted to read more about them. However I ended up stumbling on this really interesting article titled, Faking it: How to detect malingered psychosis. I wanted to highlight some of the more interesting points the article made.
According to the article, malingering is “the intentional production of false or grossly exaggerated physical or psychological symptoms, motivated by external incentives.” (Resnick & Knoll, 2005, p. 14) Even the smartest of psychiatrists and criminal justice officials can be duped by cunning criminals. So how can they limit the potential of this happening? How can they act as a human lie detector test when some of these criminals are so highly manipulative and sophisticated? I think it is safe to say there is no full proof way to detect if someone is faking a mental illness; however this article identified some helpful tips in recognizing some of the lies, and provided some insight into the idea of malingering.
Malingering is typically used for two purposes – avoiding pain, or seeking pleasure. Avoiding pain could be feigning illness to get out of jail and be housed in a mental hospital for a shorter period of time, or even to miss some days of work (as seen in the cartoon above). Malingering is also used to seek pleasure; this could come in the form of controlled substances, or even workers compensation benefits. There are three types of malingering: pure, partial and false imputation. Pure is when they straight up fake a nonexistent disorder, partial is when they exaggerate real symptoms, and false imputation is when they “ascribe real symptoms to a cause the individual knows is an unrelated to the symptom.” (Resnick & Knoll, 2005, p. 14)
The article provides some tips and tricks for identifying malingering when conducting an interview. For example, it states that if you suspect the person is faking, do not let on that you are suspicious. Proceed with an objective interview. This way they will not become defensive and be put on guard. This will make it harder for you to make a determination. You should also ask open-ended questions. Subjects should describe their symptoms in their own words and should not be led to an answer. Then once they identify their symptoms, you can get more specific and detailed with the questions.
Some more advice given – try to make the interviews long. Malingerers have difficulty maintaining fake symptoms for longer periods. When possible, the authors recommended monitoring them in an inpatient facility during the assessment phase because faking psychosis is difficult to do 24 hours a day. Also helpful and perhaps, critical, is to review collateral data and information associated with these cases. This could be previous interviews, evaluations, personnel files, depositions, police reports, etc. These are items that can help corroborate or disprove the fact they are faking.
Another interesting finding is when a subject’s language use when they claim to have hallucinations. The authors noted two examples they witnessed firsthand. First, a person who was charged with rape told the officers that voices told him to “go commit a sex offense” and another example was of a robber who claimed voices kept telling him to yell “stick up, stick up, stick up.” This specific language was identified as “stilted or implausible.” The article did not really identify what would have been a more “logical” language that would have suggested a crime was truly committed by a sick person, but my assumption is that it was almost too perfect of an excuse.
Malingerers may also claim to have active auditory and visual hallucinations but do not show signs of being distracted. They may act confused in the presence of a doctor, but are excellent chess players when they play against other patents in a facility. They also may say they “don’t know” when asked detailed questions about psychotic symptoms. A person with honest psychotic symptoms would be able to provide an answer. I found some of these tips as common sense, but a lot were rather interesting and something I may not have thought of (i.e. the hallucination language example).
These fakers typically trip up in certain areas. There are some obvious clues like when they completely contradict themselves, and then there are the slightly nuanced lies that can be picked up on by professionals. They may overact and think that the more bizarre they behave, the more convincing they are. In reality they would be more effective if they don’t engage in unusual or odd symptoms, but rather play it more low-key. Malingerers are noted to almost flaunt their illness and chat about it, whereas patients with true schizophrenia, for example, are reluctant to admit it or discuss it further.
Popular and validated tests to detect malingering include assessments like Structured Interview of Reported Symptoms (SIRS), Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, Revised (MMPI-2) and the Miller Forensic Assessment of Symptoms Test (M-Fast). The article gives a slight overview of each test.
Worth noting, as I think we have all have mentioned in some discussions posts (throughout our BU CJ journey) is the “CSI effect.” With classes like ours and articles like this, we all get better and more educated and aware, but so do the criminals. On a semi related note, in watching the Netflix show “Unbelievable” which was based on a true story centered on a serial rapist who learned how to clean crime scenes by reading a textbook (basically a “playbook” of sorts, although not at all its intention). So I do struggle with articles such as these that make the good guys more intelligent, but can also benefit the bad guys. Overall, this was a really interesting article. I recommend reading it if you have a chance as it covered some other details I did not touch upon for this post.
Reference:
Resnick, P. & Knoll, J. (2005). Faking it. Current Psychiatry. Retrieved from: https://mdedge-files-live.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/files/s3fs-public/Document/September-2017/0411CP_Article1.pdf
Racial Profiling
Comfort Dogs in Court: Healing Victims or Jeopardizing the Right to a Fair Trial?
My city in New Hampshire made headlines this year for being the first police force in the state to adopt a comfort dog. In April, Liberty the yellow lab officially joined the Concord Police Department to help victims of trauma at court hearings, crime scenes, and car accidents. While Liberty has become something of a local celebrity in Concord, receiving lots of love and excitement during her visits to local schools, senior centers, and city events, most notably she recently visited the statehouse to help the Concord Police push for a bill in the state legislature. HB513--appropriately referred to as “Liberty’s Bill”--would make it legal for therapy and comfort animals like Liberty to sit alongside victims while they give testimony in court. Unfortunately, despite Liberty’s charming guest appearance, the bill became partisan and was ultimately ruled “inexpedient to legislate” which effectively killed the legislation and prevented it from being voted on ("NH BH513"). 
A retired local pediatrician speaking in favor of the bill argued that comfort and therapy dogs like Liberty can “mitigate [a] child’s stress allowing the child to provide more accurate and credible testimony,” (Underwood, 2019). However, the use of comfort animals in court environments has become a topic of fervent debate in recent years. Currently, 26 states have programs that allow therapy dogs in courtrooms, but in many cases where legal teams have requested the use of comfort or therapy animals during testimony on the witness stand, particularly on behalf of children, opposing counsel have frequently argued that the use of these animals undermines the right to a fair trial as they have the potential to “evoke empathy in the minds of the jurors and distract from opposing evidence,” (Holder, 2013).
In a 2013 study published in the Houston Law Review, Casey Holder finds that despite objections to the practice, the benefits to using comfort and therapy dogs in court far outweigh the drawbacks. She finds that in particularly traumatic cases “the testimony of victims and witnesses is often crucial to the successful prosecution of a criminal case,” and that “dogs reduce the likelihood that children will be retraumatized during trial [and] allow children to more comfortably testify in the courtroom.” She argues that “courts consistently conclude that the benefit of a clear and coherent testimony outweighs any potential prejudicial effect of a comfort item on the defendant’s right to a fair trial” and urges all states to allow and promote this practice (Holder, 2013). 
Victims of traumatic and violent crimes often suffer severe psychological distress and face a significant struggle during trials and court proceedings to testify and relive the events in question. Bartol & Bartol detail the difficulties of coming forward for survivors of child sexual victimization in particular--one of the areas where animals like Liberty could prove to be particularly helpful and effective--citing that “one in five survivors never disclosed childhood sexual abuse, and approximately 60 percent delayed disclosure for over five years after the first episode” (Bartol & Bartol). In many cases, therapy dogs have enabled victims to open up about their trauma while helping them to reduce feelings of fear and anxiety, and better cope with the “severe emotional and psychological stress” of testifying in a courtroom (Holder, 2013).
Whether or not Liberty will one day get to do her job in a courtroom remains unforeseen. Given the significant academic research and evidence of the benefits of therapy animals for victims of trauma, this matter poses an important question for our criminal justice system moving forward--do we value the psychological safety and comfort of victims or the constitutional right to a fair trial more highly?
References:
Bartol, Curt. Criminal Behavior (p. 384). Pearson Education. Kindle Edition.
Holder, Casey. (2013). All dogs go to court: The impact of court facility dogs as comfort for child witnesses on a defendant's right to a fair trial. Houston Law Review, 50(4), 1187.
New Hampshire HB513: 2019: Regular Session. (n.d.). Retrieved December 5, 2019, from https://legiscan.com/NH/bill/HB513/2019.
Underwood, K. (2019, January 29). NH Police Department to Receive Comfort Dog. Retrieved December 5, 2019, from https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/Concord-Police-Department-New-Hampshire-Gets-Comfort-Dog-505046172.html.
Human Trafficking
For my blog post I picked something that hit really close to home for me. A few weeks ago a female was apprehended after being indicted in a human trafficking drug ring that has been going on since 2016. The reason this hits really close to home is because in the past several months there have been a handful of unsuccessful attempts to abduct women from local grocery stores. One of those was my mother’s boss. The woman who was apprehended had actually worked with me just a few weeks prior to being caught. I even trained her.
We have discussed crimes such as rape and sexual predators. This young woman whose was apprehended was a victim of human trafficking in the past. She even spoke on the Health Panel at the 9th Annual Human Trafficking Awareness day, to tell her story and help lead the fight against human trafficking. Her charges range from charged with one count each of engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity, trafficking in persons for commercial sex acts, compelling prostitution, promoting prostitution and kidnapping.
In module five on looking at offenders it ask you what image comes to mind when you think of the typical sex offender” (Rousseau, 2019). The image I had in my head was definitely not one of the females that I had previously worked with. Biological, psychological , and social factors play a big role. In this case (which is in the early stages) psychological factors play a huge role. The trauma she had suffered before no doubt contributed; social factors could play a big role as well. The areas she grew up in before moving down to this area in Ohio played a big role because of the individuals she was previously involved with.
I am attaching a link to one of the articles. https://www.dispatch.com/news/20191119/seven-indicted-in-suspected-human-trafficking-ring
References
Rousseau, D. (November 2019). Lesson 5.2 Sexual Offenses and Treatment.
Animal Assisted Therapy for Trauma
I have always been interested in animals and therapeutic effects they can have for humans. Animal assisted therapies are often used in cases of mental health services for patient trauma, and there are also many instances in which we see animals as a therapeutic mechanism for those who have engaged in criminogenic behavior.
It is no surprise that animal-assisted therapies can be incredibly helpful in cases of trauma. Puppies Behind Bars (PBB) is a New York program “committed to mitigating and increasing the awareness of PTSD” (Robinson, 2019). PBB incorporates prison inmates to raise the service dogs, and then uses the service dogs to help veterans and first responders with PTSD. It consists of a 14 day long process, called “team training”, that incorporates the inmates, dogs, and first responders and veterans. (Robinson, 2019) After learning everything we have in this course, it is evident that this social support that is developed in this program is beneficial to the inmates and veterans and first responders alike, as social support is incredibly important in therapy and rehabilitation of any kind. The founder of this program, Gloria Sotga, explains that she has “seen that dogs bring out the best in people, regardless of their circumstances, and by working together with a common goal...the divisions between people on the “outside” versus people on the “inside” begin to blur” (quoted in Robinson, 2019). In addition to social supports and working toward a common goal, Animal-assisted therapy has been shown to lower blood pressure as well (Robinson, 2019), and this can occur from something as simple as watching fish in an aquarium. A 2015 systematic review by O’Haire, Guerin, and Kirkham found that in those who have experienced trauma, including those with PTSD, animal assisted therapy, showed reduced depression, reduced PTSD symptomology, and reduced anxiety. These therapies consisted mainly of dogs, but horses and other farm animals were also examined (O’Haire et. al, 2015). Activities in these animal assisted therapies can include anything from incorporating dogs into clinic-based therapy sessions, and an interesting factor was that “the effects of dogs were generally enhanced by telling a therapeutic story about the dog, which may be attributed to giving the dog a role and integrated purpose in the therapy session, rather than being a mere entity in the room” (O’Haire et. al, 2015, p. 5). In my personal opinion, I think that this speaks to the social aspect of trauma, as even though these therapy animals are in fact animals, it is important to develop connection and understanding between beings in order to alleviate existing trauma.
Another example of animal-assisted therapy for trauma that is relevant to this course in particular is using animal-assisted therapy within the prison system. An article from Dell and Poole (2015) discusses how “therapy dogs can assist in supporting individuals with mental health, addiction, and trauma concerns” (p. 1). They discuss how in Canada, a St. John Ambulance therapy dog volunteer program was used to take a trauma-based approach to therapies for inmates in a Saskatoon psychiatric facility, which was comprised of about 200 inmates and 350 staff (Dell & Poole, 2015). The therapy dog would visit prisoners for around 30 minutes, and the prisoners were chosen based on their complex mental health needs, which included “self-harm, childhood trauma, mental illness, substance abuse, and posttraumatic stress disorder” (Dell & Poole, 2015). They explain that physical touch, a basic human need, is accomplished by therapy animals, and that often those who have experienced trauma may associate physical touch with such trauma. For example, Bartol & Bartol (2017) stated that 92% of juvenile female offenders have “been subjected to some form of emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuse in or outside the home” (Bartol & Bartol, 2017, p. 149). Therefore, using animals “can satisfy the...need for physical contact and touch without the fear of the complications that accompany contact with human beings” (Dell & Poole, 2015, p. 7). Animals also allow for interacting and bonding, healing, and provide judgement free interaction that often may not occur, as inmates, especially those with addiction, can often be met with stigma and judgement (Dell & Poole, 2015). We have discussed almost every week how stigma and judgement can affect everything from seeking treatment to relapse, as well as advocacy for the development of services and policy changes.
Animal assisted therapy can be helpful in a variety of instances for those who have experienced trauma in their lifetime. It has been shown to reduce PTSD symptomology, as well as depression and anxiety, in recipients. It can also be used in the prison system in order to help rehabilitate those inmates that have experienced various traumas within their lifetime. This can be especially helpful with juvenile, female inmates, as they are highly likely to have experienced some form of trauma or abuse. Animals are able to make connections that people may not, and provide a judgement-free experience that may not be possible in human to human interaction. Animals can also provide a less traumatic means of physical touch, which is a common need for humans that can often be affected by prior abuse. With the use of dogs, horses, and other animals, a more trauma-friendly means of therapy may be possible for those who are in need of rehabilitation.
References
Bartol, C. R., & Bartol, A. M. (2017). Criminal behavior: A psychological approach. Boston:
Pearson.
Dell, A. & Poole, N. (2015). Taking a PAWS to reflect on how the work of a therapy dog supports
a trauma-informed approach to prisoner health. J Forensic Nurs, 11(3), p. 167–173.
https://dx.doi.org/10.1097/JFN.0000000000000074.
Robinson, B. (4 November 2019). Mental health is going to the dogs: how pet therapy helps
wounded vets and first responders. Retrieved from
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2019/11/04/mental-health-is-going-to-the-do
gs-how-pet-therapy-helps-wounded-vets-and-first-responders/#6e5e61577fed.
O'Haire, M. E., Guérin, N. A., & Kirkham, A. C. (2015). Animal-assisted intervention for trauma:
a systematic literature review. Frontiers in psychology, 6.
https://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01121.
Is Mental Illness an Excuse for Poor Behavior?
Is mental illness an excuse for poor behavior? I came across this podcast episode and thought I would write my blog about this. Mental illness is more prevalent than it ever has been in our country. After listening to this podcast, I wanted to conduct a little research of my own, so I asked some of my friends, family, and co-workers the same question: Is mental illness an excuse for poor behavior? A frequent answer I got was “Lately I see it as trying to justify actions”. I found this pretty interesting. I actually see this as being somewhat true as well. I am not sure of everyone else’s opinion, but I think the media tries blaming mental illness before anything is factually true. A shooting happens and within minutes headlines on media outlets are “suspect was mentally ill”. To me this is taking away from the fact that the shooter did something horrendous. Yes, mental illness is a huge issue, but the context needs to be monitored on how the word is used. It is not a way to justify actions. In the podcast the podcasters use the example of a mentally ill driver has a seizure while driving crashing into another vehicle. Does the person suffering from the seizure have to pay for the damages? In the podcast, the girl says yes, and the male podcaster seems taken back like the answer should have been no. This is exactly why some might think mental illness is being used as an excuse for poor behavior. This by no means is me trying to be mean, but isn’t it the person with mental illness responsibility to make sure they are taking their medications and going to their doctors? The person who was just stopped at a red light should not be responsible for the damages to his car, am I right? We need to focus on health and responsibility when talking about mental health. Mental health is not something we can use to justify poor behavior. The person with mental illness needs to take responsibility. Avoiding responsibility will just make poor behavior become normal because they can get away with more if this is the case.
https://psychcentral.com/blog/ep-20-is-mental-illness-an-excuse-for-poor-behavior/
Ryan
The Crimes of Ted Bundy and Jack the Ripper: An Enigmatic Juxtaposition?
Delving into the dark catacombs of the human condition lends itself to the exploration of some of the most abominable crimes. Since the late 1880s, modern society began to grapple with the empirical construct of serial murder, demanding attention and insight in explaining its etiology in the criminological framework. A rudimentary understanding of serial killers has inexorably gained momentum and social significance because their attendant crimes both perplex and fascinate those in their periphery. Such illuminating examples constitute the heinous crimes of Jack the Ripper and Ted Bundy, who predated on multiple women and left a trail of horror behind. One may ask: Are there similarities in some of the underlying causes and manifestations of their crimes? Such a juxtaposition raises the specter of whether their crimes share commonalities involving the designation of a sex crime.
Attention to the predatory violence inflicted on the hapless victims of the Ripper and Bundy reflects an insatiable desire to engage in sexualized violence, perhaps stemming from immense feelings of emasculation, giving rise to a eunuch. In describing a sex crime, Caputi (1982) emphasizes a sexualized violence associated with the crime, whereby the target of the attack, the motivation, and the manner of violence are collectively relegated into the realm of “sexual,” within the cultural fabric. Thus, an ideology emerges to reveal a sex crime, conferring realistic and metaphoric significance (Caputi). In a quest for attention and infamy, Jack the Ripper sought women in the slums of London, leaving their morbid bodies on display, eviscerated and mutilated. Similarly, Ted Bundy would lure women into his deadly lair, killing them with no compunction, and dumping their bodies in remote areas to be scattered by ferocious animals. Told anew, these tragedies invoke a ritual, reflecting the perpetuation of entrenched cultural values. In this vein, the murderous ritual functions to align with the cultural universals of male dominance and patriarchy, should they be challenged.
Conceivably, this ritual allows those who manifest sexual violence to enact their dominance over women, and thus, dichotomizing the sexes into the structure of predator and prey (Caputi, 1982). This chasm, serving often as a linchpin for gender inequality, undergirds the rationalizations of a sex crime. Against this backdrop, it is instructive to understand the psychological underpinnings of the sex crimes committed by Bundy and the Ripper. In analyzing them, common themes emerge. Much blame is imputed to their mothers for their criminality, and their murderous arc represents a holy war against women and their inherent sexuality (Caputi). Jack the Ripper was adept in removing the genitalia of his victims, suggesting an animosity toward women, particularly, his mother (Caputi). Indeed, research into the crimes of Bundy and the Ripper do suggest that they had cultivated an ambivalence toward their mother (Caputi). Most likely, their childhoods were mired in psychological and physical abuse by their mothers according to the findings of Caputi in the course of her research on sex crimes.
Juxtaposing the sex crimes of Bundy and the Ripper carries the stamp of male dominance, seeking to denounce and punish feminine values in the context of a ritual, serving as a justifiable representation of embedded social values. They were purportedly raised by domineering mothers, having inflicted ambivalence and pain, which would be concomitantly avenged against. As such, killing women evinced a catharsis to countervail their painful and traumatic memories of their childhood. Having overidentified with their mothers, or the feminine sex, evoked a fundamental antagonism toward their sense of masculinity. By committing violent crimes, their status of a eunuch was neutralized through the symbolic warfare against women. For all the credible rationalizations and explanations of these serial murderers, their personas remain a formidable mystery.
Caputi, J. E. (1982). The age of sex crime (Order No. 8227475). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (303210815).