OT: This picture made me cry.

[rogue]

No jokes this time. Guys I can't even wrap my mind around this. My God the betrayal of these poor kids. :(

Very sad (http://us.news2.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20020217/capt.1013967096.children_slain_ny123.jpg)

[David Jamieson]

who are they?
peace

[rogue]

News story (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&u=/ap/20020219/ap_on_re_us/children_slain_10)

Everytime I hear this story I hug my kids.

[David Jamieson]

Some people are twisted. A sickness of the mind. Definitely another example of criminal error thinking.

Unfortunate for the children.
We have a story like that happening in the city where I live. A young boy who was apparently beaten to death by his father and stepmother.

Horrendous. The boy was all of seven and his injuries were numerous and severe. tragic.

peace

[kungfu cowboy]

If Yates is found innocent, a hearing will be held to determine whether she will be released or involuntarily committed.

Excuse me? Released? You can be sent on your way if you are found innocent by reason of insanity? That's lame.

[Mister Hansome]

It's how the american justice system works my friend, plee insanity and you can get away with almost anything. That women is nuts, they should just put her into an asylum for ten years. Everyone who kills their OWN child is nuts.

[kungfu cowboy]

How exactly does stuff like that happen? I mean somebody actually decided to put that into law? I can understand invountary commital to a mental hospital for treatment if genuine, but a scott-free release? Are these people IDIOTS? Innocent by insanity, ok, not completely happy about, but there are authentic cases. But to let them go with no treatment is just plain dumb.:mad:

[Kaitain(UK)]

it's another well-meaning law that's turned into a loophole

The idea is this:
Man comes home, finds wife brutally murdered. The woman's ex has been stalking her for a few years and last night they had a row and he said he was going to kill her. Knowing this the husband goes to the guys house in a rage and the guy laughs in his face. The husband then strangles him to death.

This is murder as the husband travelled to the ex's house with the intent of injuring him.

He has the defence available to him of temporary insanity - i.e. the shock of seeing his wife murdered and the guy laughing in his face sent him mad for a short period. Obviously he can argue that after the event he calmed down and became sane again.

That's kind of the idea - however, lawyers do their job well and exploit the law. If they can prove insanity then at the very least they will get diminished responsibility.

I would think in this case that she will get diminished responsibility but she will be sectioned.

[Gigante]

This is twisted. She drowned all five? She must have done it one at a time, I guess... so when she took the last child to the bathroom, he saw his four brothers floating lifeless in the tub... horrible...

[anton]

Since we're talking about the insanity defence, has anyone seen 15 Minutes ? - it deals with this issue, and does so quite intelligently IMO.

[kungfu cowboy]

Legal loopholes! Practice of the law should be about justice, fairness, and trying to do what's right by those who deserve it! I guess I'm just being naive. It seems like bizarro world in the land of the "law".

:confused:

[PHILBERT]

The American Justice System is just f*cked up. I am willing to bet that her lawyer wants her to die and burn in hell. The thing is, he can't do anything, he HAS to defend her by law. He might be the appointed lawyer for the case, or her own personal lawyer, probably appointed. He has to, by law, defend her by a certain set of standards. If he doesn't, she can plea that he didn't defend her correctly and she might get set free again. I am willing to bet that most murder trials, the lawyer, if appointed, doesn't like the job. He/she isn't getting much $, and they are being forced to defend the person. It's sad really. This woman did it, its painfully obvious. Let the woman fry, screw some mental institution.

And for that guy (I know it is fictional, but chances are it has happened) who comes home to find his wife dead and her ex laughs in his face, if I were a jury member, I'd let the guy go. I see nothing wrong with Eye for an Eye. Hell, I think the dad should get the throw the switch to watch his wife fry, if I were married and my wife did that, I'd want to kill her with my bare hands.

[guohuen]

After their soles regroup from the horrible trauma of being murdered in such a vicious dispicable way the children will have good karma. Now they need prayers to help find their way.
Even after having been a correctional officer I can't begin to understand the sick depravity of the THINGS that hurt or kill children. Part of the reason I'm not in corrections anymore. We had some sick b-a-s-t-a-r-d. who along with his wife tortured and killed their infant. The details are too sick to even comprehend.I don't know if I can even pray for the soles of some creatures because I'm not sure they have one.

[JWTAYLOR]

Whoa there.

The "insanity" defense is both valid and fair.

First, nobody should be saying that you can get away with anything by saying you are insane. Defense attorneys VERY RARELY use the insanity defense since it almost always results in a conviction.

The defense must prove that the individual charged was not aware that what they were doing was wrong at the time of the act. Simply, the defense must prove that the individual did not know right from wrong. And not in some sort of hypothetical abstract sense either. Not an easy thing to do by any means.

In this specific case, for a "not guilty" verdict to be issued, the defense must be able to prove to a jury that Mrs. Yates did not know that killing her children was wrong. If that were true (IF) then, indeed, Mrs. Yates is not guilty of murder, as murder is legally defined. The jury isn't saying she is innocent of wrong, they are saying she is "not guilty" of the specific charge she is accused of.

Since there is little chance of going at this from a manslaughter angle, a murder charge is the only real option the prosecution has.

Let the jury decide.

JWT

[Budokan]

Having a jury decide looks real good on paper, but often falls short in theory. Ask Sunny Von Bulow, Nicole Simpson, Ron Goldman, countless others...

This b*tch should die the same way she killed her children. I'll gladly volunteer to be the one to hold her head under water until she drowns. No. Wait. I'd rather drown her in a stopped up toilet in a Mexican jail.

Yeah. That would be justice.

[KC Elbows]

Budo,
All of the failures of the jury system you mentioned involved rich defendants. That's the problem.

JWT,
I am in total agreement. Whenever I hear people say this stuff about the insanity defense, I wonder what cases they are using to establish that successfully using an insanity plea is "getting off". They seem to forget that Berkowitz was in an asylum until the day he died, and he was not even in there for a murder charge. Asylums are nasty places, not in any way better than prisons(especially ones for the criminally insane), and people are stuck there for no set amount of time. A man convicted of manslaughter might spend a set amount of time in jail, lets say ten years, but if he's found legally insane, he might go into an asylum until they decide he's sane, which might be never, and if he is found sane at some point, he may then be tried for his crime anyway.

IMO, anyone who drowns all her babies is crazy, anyone who kills people for fun is crazy, anyone who keeps people in barrels on their property is crazy. However, they're not legally insane, which is just a funky way to make it clear that "You're too crazy to ever walk free again".

[Budokan]

KC, I couldn't agree more. That's the problem with our so-called justice system. Rich people get one kind of justice, po' folks like us get yet another....

[dwid]

Statistically speaking, you are likely to spend more time locked up from a successful insanity plea than if you're found guilty of the original murder or manslaughter charge. Predicting violent behavior is like the achilles heel of the social sciences. It is very difficult to do, so being determined fit to return to society after engaging in extremes of violence does not happen as much as some people might think. It's a hot-button issue, so the media grabs any case where it occurs, and people generalize to think psychopaths are released all the time after just a few months in a cushy mental hospital. It's all hollywood b.s. It just doesn't typically happen that way.

[Black Jack]

I agree with Budokan.

This happened here in my own state with the Lemak trail, whats almost worse is that a bunch of rich yenta housewifes got together to support her, to say that she did not know what she was doing.

She was found guilty of first degree murder.

I say ice the ***** and any like her.

[diego]

on a lighter note, kfo-ezine just did a write-up on the 79 smash
WARRIOR'S, you guys seen that flick,
they just put it on dvd now i'm all giddy,

back on topic

KILL THA *****:mad:

[KC Elbows]

LOL at Diego!:D

[Ryu]

I have an "evil Ryu" suggestion but it may cause flames...
it deals with using "criminally insane" people as test guniea pigs for science research into the brain and how it works differently in criminally insane people. You can do what you want to them, cut their skulls open, poke around in the brain, hook em up to special devices, etc. Only for trully criminal insane though... Serial rapists, serial murderers, etc. Use em as human guniea pigs. That way you can torture them (punishment for crime) as well as discover possible ways to prevent their kind in the future. :)

But unfortunately some say it's "cruel and unusual punishment."

Well I say I'm having a bad day, and I want my guniea pigs.

Ryu

[Highlander]

Originally posted by Ryu
I have an "evil Ryu" suggestion but it may cause flames...
it deals with using "criminally insane" people as test guniea pigs for science research into the brain and how it works differently in criminally insane people. You can do what you want to them, cut their skulls open, poke around in the brain, hook em up to special devices, etc.

Wouldn't that also require the cutting up of sane people for comparison. Any volunteers ???????

[KC Elbows]

No sane people here.:p

[Badger]

I know of a special "shot" that will "cure" any murderer,rapist or child molestor.

Always (ocked,Locked & Ready to Rock,Doc!
Badger

[JasBourne]

Actually, the idea is not so farfetched, and criminal behaviorists (profilers) have been advocating scientific study rather than execution for quite some time.

There's been some very interesting papers written on the pathology of serial, mass, and spree killers in the last 5 years or so that suggest very strongly (among many other factors, none of which mitigate the seriousness of the crimes) that brain damage (including 'non-visible' damage like chemical imbalances) may be directly tied to the offending behaviors.

In other words, these yo-yo's may be genuinely whackadoodle, and not merely 'bad'.

Multiple killers have been a hobby of mine for years, I have a warped fascination with understanding what makes them lack empathy to such an astounding degree. Sick, but it keeps me occupied ;)

This chica is typical of the "post-partum" female murderer type, actually a fairly common phenomenon compared to other types of female mass killers ('black widow', 'angel of death', and the very rare 'sexual thrill' killer, an almost exclusively male category).

The system being what it is, she'll wind up being executed (at great taxpayer expense) like 10 years or so from now, so we won't be any closer to understanding what made her and others like her do it, and therefore be able to possibly prevent further innocent deaths. :(

[Black Jack]

Jas,

I am not so sure that any study of length will stop the a murder of this sort. This is a new occurance, or at least from what I know, but as in the Lemak trail, it was just a cover-up for the hatred of her husband.

Though if the research involves pain and torture, then I am all for it.

[Silumkid]

Ryu and Budokan are correct. :D

But seriously, I have long believed that psychos, murderers, rapists, child molesters and other worthless lot like them should indeed be used in experiments.

Wanna know how much electricity the human body can handle before the brain frys in the pan? Dahmer is over there in cell 323.

Wanna test out the effect this new hair spray has on the human eye? Gacy is in cell 621.

And no, the types of testing I recommend do not require the use of sane people as a control. Obviously, Andrea Yates has some sort of major malfunction. It doesn't really matter a whole lot what "made" her do it...she did it. You want to interview her and find out what made her tick, fine by me. But make it quick...Louisville Slugger stress tests begin in 20.

[dwid]

Just to pitch a bit from my experience in the social sciences.

Whenever anything like this happens, people want to know why...why could such a terrible thing occur? What would make someone do this? The problem is that, as I said above, predicting violent behavior is one of the most difficult things for social scientists to do.

First off, the genetics and brain chemistry angle of human behavior is hardly a deterministic model. There isn't going to be some killer gene or some killer area of the brain that, once identified, would allow us to know from the moment a person is born, whether he or she is going to grow up to be a mass murderer/serial killer. The best you can hope for is identifying mitigators that predispose someone to this sort of behavior. Even if you could identify such a thing, the incidence of this sort of behavior is so rare, probably like one in a million of those with the brain abnormality would likely exhibit the behavior. What would you suggest then? Lock up the other 999,999 just to protect society from that one individual.

Second, say we identify this gene or brain lesion or whatever, and by some stroke of incredible luck, unlike all other genetic factors related to psychological problems, this one is 100% deterministic. The only way to identify it would be to genetically test every infant born in the United States, and then locking someone up for life (or aborting them) for a crime they have not yet committed and may never commit (perhaps they will die of natural causes before the gene kicks in or something).

Anyway, this doesn't even address the inhumanity of doing research on someone after accepting the premise that it was their biology that predisposed them to being a killer in the first place. It makes society worse than the killer, as society is then callously and calculatedly doing what only a genetic mistake caused the killer to do.

I agree that the existence of mass murderers/serial killers really sucks, and it's a point where I tend to diverge from my Buddhist leanings, as my gut tells me revenge is the answer. But justifying revenge under the premise of research is pretty absurd.

[Nexus]

It could have been as simple as they were sitting at the dinner table eating, suddenly she consciously snapped into a psychotic fit, she drowned the kids, called the husband, he arrives and finds his 5 children in sheets all dead.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

if she isn't killed i think i am moving to canada. i can not live in a country where you can get away with killing children.

"Anyway, this doesn't even address the inhumanity of doing research on someone after accepting the premise that it was their biology that predisposed them to being a killer in the first place. It makes society worse than the killer, as society is then callously and calculatedly doing what only a genetic mistake caused the killer to do."

FU CK THAT. what the fu ck are you thinking man?????? that ****ing cu nt killed 5 children. 5 . ... children. what the fu ck. genetic mistake my fu cking ass. the only mistake was that someone didn't take the crazy b1tch out before she killed her children.

you want to know how you stop this kind of sh!t from happening?? torture. you take a cu nt like that and you make her sleep in a coffin with a three week old corspe pulled from the river durring the entire trial. afterwards you torture her for no less than 5 days. you could start by romoving pieces of her face and forcing her to watch in a mirror. rape her with a fu cking dremil tool. cut new holes in her and rape those too. disembow her when its all said and done and do everything possible to keep her alive and consious. and you make it all public. put it on pay per view. then maybe the next time some crazy fu ck gets it into their head to harm a child they'll remember what happened to the last guy and decide to get help before they no longer deserve it.

i don't give a fu ck what's wrong with you . .. if you can do something like that to a child you don't need help you need killed . . killed very slowly. any one who thinks differantly needs some fu cking sense knocked into them.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

i hope im not the only one seeking out justice if she EVER fu cking walks the streets again. **** . .

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

this is why i don't watch the news. ever. i wish i hadn't read this thread. someone tried to tell me something about this sh!t last night and i told them to stop.

[diego]

Wait till like ten people have replied, i mean i know exactly what happenned, but didnt even read or click on rogue's post, uno read the end posts first, uno some news can catch you off gaurd that you really did'nt need to see, christ i found out about one of my friends deaths, by seeing the video footage of the accident
on ****ing 5pm evening news

wtf


moniqueishikawa.com

[diego]

http://moniqueishikawa.com/story19990904b.htm

[Ryu]

GDA, you're getting similar to Budokan's type of posts! LOL

In all seriousness, indescribable torture won't do anything because they probably won't know what they did. It doesn't register in their brain (for some) Now that doesn't mean I don't think criminally insane people shouldn't be punished. On the contrary, I think justice needs to be served for victims no matter who the killer. However, you need to know and understand exactly what is not working, in order to possible come to ways of preventing such crime in the future. (That doesn't mean being nice to a serial murderer and asking questions in a cute room while he eats cupcakes and watches a big screen TV)
You deal with criminals with justice and compassion aimed at the victims first. Always.

On a side note, GDA, this is a serious question.
You seem to really have a passion for protecting the rights and lives of children. Have you ever thought of possibly pursuing a career that went down those lines?? Just something to consider if you are looking for a possible new career choice, etc.

Ryu

[JasBourne]

GDA, have you ever considered becoming a child advocate? They are desperately needed, and you don't have to have a pedigree, just a good heart and a commitment to stand up for kids and speak on their behalf in court.

A friend of mine does child advocacy, and he says it's incredibly rewarding but also very tough, because when a child needs an advocate, that means there is no one else in his or her life that will speak for them, and that's a nasty place to be if you're a juvenile...

Just a thought, it might be a good way to release some of that tremendous empathy you feel for kids and be a real hero at the same time. Plus you don't have to completely change your life, its something you can commit just a few hours a week to. Did I mention the real hero part? :)

[rogue]

Sorry guys, I should have said what the picture was in my first post. I can't look at it either.

[Stacey]

I think the "before" picture is nice.

Its the after belly up picture, I don't want to see.

Heard on the news a guy named Ramsey got busted for child porn/molesting.

Remember Jean-Benet?

Well the only logical conclusion, is that all Ramsey's by their genetic nature are dangerous child pervs. I second GDA's motion to kill them ahead of time.

Know a Ramsey? Kim em. Kill em now and without discression. For the safety of our children, we must.

[Kaitain(UK)]

not sure if you have it in the US - but in Limey Land we have Insanity and Temporary Insanity - and with the latter you can walk.

Obviously not applicable in this case but just explaining that in certain circumstances people in the UK have walked free. Like the woman who succesfully defended herself against the charge of stabbing her partner because she had PMT - I sh1t you not.

I tried to hide any coverage of that case from my wife - it'll give her ideas

[Sharky]

If GDA were a child advocate, he'd probably be in jail after a week in the job, after savagely beating some bad parents.

Probably.

[KC Elbows]

Two points:

-I never thought I'd hear the members of KFO recommend GDA for child advocacy.:D

and...

-Out here, this has been all over the news for a while, and a lot of people were really questioning how the husband could have lived with her and not seen all the warning signs. Apparently, the lady was going nuts before the last pregnancy, but nothing was done. Since moving out here, I've met a lot of people whose only goal in life was to have a lot of children, and a lot of guys whose only goal was to have a big family, but no intention of really doing anything for that family except working. Not exonerating her, but pointing out that she was probably batty before this, but the one person who saw her day in and day out didn't seem notice much going on.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

ryu and jas ... actually i hadn't considered it. and now that you mention it i think sharky's right. man i can't even handle hearing about this kinda stuff. i seriously want to track this lady down if she is released. i guarantee im not the only one. sad thing is that after murdering small children and babies she will likely have earned protection from the state if she ever is released. if i were subjected to abuse stories day in and day out by a little kid, and then met the abusive parent .. .

man i hope there would be somone there to pull me off in a situation like that cause they wouldn't fu ck around with me if i went to jail for killing someone. see that's fu cked up too. this lady kills her children and has a chance at ultimately walking away. i rid the world of filth and i'd likely get at least three quarters of max sentence. meanwhile some dumb ass hippy gets arrested for selling acid at a hippy fest and he'll serve more time than the both of us. justice isn't blind it's fu cking stupid.

i dunno. it would be nice to help kids out .. . i just wonder how i would handle seeing their parents after knowing exactly what goes on. if i combined my curent job with this idea i could help kids deal with the frustrations of trying to show their parents how to use the computer.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

kc elbows brings up two good points.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

lol .. i'd be the picture perfect roll model wouldnt i. christ, poor kids would probably get it worse after spending time with me.

[ewallace]

GDA

If she walks you can stay at my place. Houston is 2.5 hours away. We can ride together.


Yates' husband is pretty whipped. If my wife killed our child...
Either that or he is a very compasionate fellow to stand by her after all that.

[KC Elbows]

GDA,
To me, it sounds like you care too much to be a good child advocate. Not in any way meaning to discourage you, just saying that the craziness of it would be hard for you not to act against.

For a time, I was really passionate about being a psychologist, studied all the works of the founders of psychology, read a lot of theory. Then I actually met a crazy person. I can't deal with that kind of suffering.

My sister is a doctor. She trains a lot of doctors every year, and she says two types generally(not always) make bad doctors:

1) Doctor's who don't care at all

and

2) Doctors who care too much

...and she says the first sometimes make great doctors, if they care about the things they do as doctors, but not the people. Then, a patient not getting well is an affront to their expertise as a doctor.

[Ryu]

"justice isn't blind it's fu cking stupid"

Do something about it then. Simply complaining won't change anything.

I know what you mean though. I gave long consideration to being a police officer in my life, and went so far as to join an academy, etc. I decided that I too possible "cared too much" to be a police officer. Some of you guys joke around and say they're jerks, etc. But they have to see the worst parts of humanity everyday all the time..... :( Suicide is the highest among them I think in career profession, or one of the highest. Divorce is high, etc.

The one time I couldn't protect someone or had to see a headless child in a car accident....how would I deal with it?

On the flip side, GDA, if you can channel your anger into extremely passionate and usable energy, you might be able to do very good things for kids. Just a thought.

Ryu

[KC Elbows]

I agree with Ryu.

OT, but last I heard, EMT's had the highest suicide rates.

I condidered cop when I was younger, but I couldn't do it. Not the suffering, I had to attend an autopsy once(for a class), and that stuff doesn't phase me, but I have seen plenty of things in this area that stink of dirty cop to me, and I could never stand for that, which would give me a very short life span as a cop.

I think that the husband is compassionate, not weak in this sense, but I bet he's looking back at all the warning signs going "How could I not see this coming?"

What drives me crazy is that most of the time, people do these terrible crimes, and there was all the warning in the world. A couple of years back, this guy kidnapped a little girl here, but he was seen doing it. EVERYONE was looking for his truck, two days later they caught him, but the girl had been killed by this church. Anyway, someone who knew the guy came forward and said that he had told them once that he was going to kidnap a girl, had the girl picked out, etc. I though "Whay aren't you in jail for not telling anyone til now?" but the guy apparently faces no repercussions for ignoring the obvious, and the girl's family pays all the price.:(

Must leave dreary thread.

[JasBourne]

Ok, maybe not a child advocate. How about a mentor? Maybe be a 'big brother' volunteer at the local Boys & Girls club?

My folks divorced when I was 10. During the next 6 years, I really needed somebody, anybody, to be a stable adult figure in my life - stable meaning there for me without their own agenda and hystrionics taking center stage. There was none, so I got into a LOT of trouble, and wasted a great deal of my young adult years doing heavy drugs and alcohol because of my poor self-image. I sure could have used an ear, GDA. Maybe you could be that ear for someone now?

:)

[Ryu]

It's really refreshing to see someone go through that type of life, and make a complete turnaround, Jas.
Very admirable indeed. :)

KC, EMT sounds right actually, but I think cops are following close behind in there someone. They have high suicide rates too.
Actually this thread is not that dreary I don't think. It's amazing how we can still see the important goodness in the world even through disgust and evil actions.

Ryu

[Badger]

GDA- I agree with you man!
Maybe it's time the good people of America got together to petition or whatever to change some of the BS laws.Not sit around & gripe about it.
Get to know your police. Talk to your Senators.
Do what you can.


GDA is already doing the best service to children.
PARENTING IS THE GREATEST RESPONSIBILITY IN THE WORLD.Period.


Badger

[dwid]

Dwid: "Anyway, this doesn't even address the inhumanity of doing research on someone after accepting the premise that it was their biology that predisposed them to being a killer in the first place. It makes society worse than the killer, as society is then callously and calculatedly doing what only a genetic mistake caused the killer to do."

GDA: "FU CK THAT. what the fu ck are you thinking man?????? that ****ing cu nt killed 5 children. 5 . ... children. what the fu ck. genetic mistake my fu cking ass. the only mistake was that someone didn't take the crazy b1tch out before she killed her children."

Dwid: I totally understand where you're coming from, and I must reiterate that I have a tendency to want to see the death penalty in a case like this myself. In the quote you used, I was simply stating the contradiction in advocating experimentation on psychotics on the basis that their brain chemistry or whatever is different from ours. One of the problems I have with mainstream psychology is the tendency to remove responsibility from the hands of those that do terrible things.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

ewallace . .. i'm there. don't leave the forums anytime soon.

dwid .. . cool .. i hear where you're comming from and that makes sense. sorry if i came off to strong, i just gets all emotional when childens or manimals is concerned.

badger is correct. no bigger responsibility to children than parenting them.

kcelbows . . man, i dunno even know what to make of the fact that the husband isn't the one screaming for the death penelty the loudest.

ryu . .

"Simply complaining won't change anything." heard. no way i can argue with that. but i often to feel like a very small animal in a very very big wood - piglet.

jas ...

you and i arent that far removed in our childhood experiences. my parents were divorced when i was seven and i was left to live with nancey. she's definately the crazy b1tch i spurt out of, but she's no mother to me. the woman is a complete lunitic and a malicious ****. i have tried to give her the benifit of the doubt because she's crazy, but she knows what's going on and what she's doing, she just justifys her actions in a chaotic mess of sentences you can rarely make sense of. so at the mature age of 7 i had to raise my self. had to cook if i wanted to eat, do laundry if i wanted my clothes clean (i actually did laundry more than i would have given a 7 year old credit for, but yeah, most of the time i just wore my clothes dirty), get myself to school if i wanted to go, etc. no, i never really showed up for shcool more than a day or two a week. that stuff kinda sucked, but with absolute responsibility came absolute freedom which was really friggen cool. i came and went as i pleased and enjoyed every minute of it. lots of running around the streets at 3 in the morning, dodging the cops, prentending to be a ninja. odly enough, i never really got into major trouble. i was suspened a couple times every year from school, did allot of vandalizing (never got caught for that though), but never ended up in a home or anything. i was in the back of a cop car a couple times but only for exploring abandoned buildings and/or curfew violations. sad thing is that i kept telling the courts that i wanted to live with my father (in spite of all the fun i was having) but i guess my mother had a **** good lawyer. my mother actually showed up drunk as sh1t to a couple court hearings, saying more off the wall sh1t than usual, and they still insisted i couldn't choose where i wanted to live until i was 13. my father kept fighitng it so i spent allot of time in court for 7 years, as i didn't actually get to move in with him until i was 14. then the poor ******* died on me a year later. luckily i didn't have to go back with my mother though as my older sister and her husband took me in.

the point of this long winded portion of my life history is that i did go through quite a few social workers during this time. none of them were worth a da mn. my mother would call up places saying that i was a problem child and need to speak with a psychiatrist as i was mentally unstable. every single one openly admitted that my mother was the problem within just a few meetings. the big brother types i had would make fun of her with me as much as any of my friends would. yet nothing was ever done. they kept making me go twice a week to play checkers or would assign me a new big brother dude to take me to the park. all the while they should have had my mother committed. the one time someone went off on her she stormed out and demanded i see another counsilor . .. and they fu cking honored it. maybe the system does need more people like myself in it. there is no way i would have let that go on. i mean i was completely open with all of my councilors ... i told them about climbing the tops of bridges, eploring abandoned mines/buildings, running around all night long, jumping off bridges . ... i was a dumb kid and proud of that stuff. and they all knew i wouldnt even think of doing that sh!t with my dad. yet every week i would go to play checkers and not one of them made an effort to get me out of that situation. maybe they didn't believe me or tried where i couldn't see . .. i dunno . . but i would have made it to the custody hearings.

i had allot of fun and wouldn't trade my past as it definately made me who i am, but i'm lucky i aint dead. i wonder how many 7 year old kids are out running around in the middle of the night doing stupid sh1t just becasue they have no fear and are being ignored by incompitant parents and the system. you guys actually got me thinking now, but i still worry about the point kcelbows brought up about caring too much. not being physically abused i could hold back from beating a lady like my mother to death, but if some little girl came and told me she'd been raped by her father, this little dude would be paying her father a visit.

[JasBourne]

Oh dam n, I hear you.

I think you are a lot more capable of exercizing control over your rage than you give yourself credit for. And I think that if you pursued this mentoring/big bro thing for real, you will find that there are a lot of tools and knowledge available to help you.

Think about this - what if the little girl is raped and she has NO ONE to tell, no one to care? Maybe she grows up crazy from the pain like your momma, and turns into a psycho abuser with HER child, and the cycle goes on and on... :(

I think you would be an awesome mentor - you been there and done that, and kids can always tell the difference between a bullsh*t dogooder and the real deal. They can smell a phoney a mile away - you and I both did, didn't we?



:)

[DelicateSound]

I went through a few social workers - none of them were worth da mn

If you could handle the temptation to smack some gruggie whacked-out child abusing father, I think you'd make a good Social Worker GDA.

Jas - That's pretty hard sh!t - how'd you turn out so good? :)

As for the small animal in the big wood - join an organisation. You realise that a lot of small animals make a lot of noise - whatever the cause.

[KC Elbows]

GDA,
I kind of regret saying that. If that is something you could be passionate about, it sounds like you already know the pitfalls(being powerless to the beaurocracy of it, etc.), and maybe you could do some good and manage not to strangle anyone. Also, I suspect there are more angles to it: child advocate, big brother(one that bad mommies and daddies would be scared to death of), even organizational stuff, not necessarily directly dealing with the kids and parents.

My wife works at a school district teaching behavioral disordered kids. I think I've met a few different versions of the young version of you through her. My favorite is Ben, his parents used to get out of prison long enough to get custody of him from his grandmother, take him home, drink, get in fights, treat him badly, and end up back in prison. He used to come over and ask me all kinds of kung fu questions: he wasn't getting beaten, but he wasn't getting anything from these people, the so-called parents. He just liked being a part of my kung fu and my step sons computer stuff. Anyway, the grandmother now has actual custody, and he's doing well.

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

"Maybe she grows up crazy from the pain like your momma"

lmao. nothing will make laugh harder than that all day.

your right about being able to sniff out someone who's really had it rough. hell, you still can. not as well a a kid, but you can tell when some prissy little rich kid is trying to act like he's had it bad.

[JasBourne]

Well now. I didn't mean to imply that your mom was raped as a child and that's why she's a nutso. What I meant is that that kind of pain can make you that level of crazy. I could have worded it better ;)

I'm not trying to push you into anything, buddy. I just see tremendous passion coming from you on the subject of child welfare, and passion like that for ANYTHING is a rare and wonderful thing in this world. It's that kind of passion that makes a difference in people's lives, that makes change happen. I just want to encourage you to rise above and use this gift. You have what it takes to be a real hero, GDA, to make a difference. That is worth encouraging.

:)

[GunnedDownAtrocity]

kc elbows . .. legit concern dude. i said the same thing myself.

jas . . you couldn't have worded it better.