Compassionate Release: No Mercy?
Should a prisoner’s terminal illness be a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free card?
Two of the world’s most notorious murderers—a Manson follower and a terrorist bomber—recently requested “compassionate release” from prison because they are dying of cancer.
61 year-old Susan Atkins—serving a life sentence in a California prison for her role in the Charles Manson cult killings—petitioned authorities for compassionate release. Diagnosed with terminal brain cancer, she believed she should be allowed to die at home.
In Scotland, the man known as the “Lockerbie Bomber”—convicted in the terrorist deaths of 270 people aboard Pan Am Flight 103—sought compassionate release as doctors declared he had only three months to live. He has terminal prostate cancer, seven years into his life sentence.
In each case, relatives and supporters of the victims opposed release, saying murderers who showed no compassion for those they killed should receive no compassion now.
But the prosecutor who originally put Atkins behind bars almost 40 years ago argued in favor of her death-bed freedom, saying it was wrong to believe that “just because Susan Atkins showed no mercy to her victims, we therefore are duty-bound to follow her inhumanity and show no mercy to her.” Atkins’ husband said California should consider the $17,000 a month they’d save in medical bills.
Atkins’ request was denied, and she died less than a month later. However, the bomber, Abdulbaset al-Megrahi, was released from prison and flew home to a hero’s welcome in his native Libya. Scottish officials said they were “bound by Scottish values” in making a morally responsible decision. “Our justice system demands that judgment be imposed, but compassion available,” said the country’s senior justice official.
A life sentence in prison “ought to mean until you’re dead, which neither Atkins nor al-Megrahi is,” countered an American newspaper columnist. “It’s hard to see why people who have committed violent crimes deserve any consideration beyond fair trial and sentencing they have already gotten. Compassionate release is compassionate only to criminals, not their victims.”
Tell us what you think: Do we have a moral responsibility to release terminally ill prisoners? Should a life sentence be commuted for any reason other than the innocence of the convicted? Should state-financed medical costs ever play a role in the decision for compassionate release?
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open minded
I think we have gotten away from allowing God to do His job. At will, man continue to destroy life as God saw fit for it to be.We as humans take everything personal; yet when it comes to us we want mercy. No man is without sin ( be it big or small ). I am neither with it or against it.
Joseph Watson-EL | 1 month, 2 weeks ago
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volunteer at cooper hospital search and resuce
i work all day average 91/2 hours a day and never was paid for it . i hope that that the prisons keep their crimminals in prisons if no second repeat offenders i hope they all are in probation
donnalynn migliaccio | 1 month, 2 weeks ago
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None
I think the issues are getting confused here. It really has nothing to do with mercy or no mercy. The prisoners have been convicted to a life sentence. The only thing that should ever affect that is evidence proving they ere wrongly convicted. Life if life.
Michelle Titus | 1 month, 2 weeks ago
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Release means an unfair second chance...
Who ever is serving a life sentence in prison because of a violent crime they have committed and that is what the law we stand by has decided. Allowing them to be released is forgetting the pain they caused to the family and loved ones of their victims. A life sentence should only be cut if they are proven innocent. Allowing them to be released is allowing them to potentially hurt others all over again. I am completely against their release!!
lili | 1 month, 1 week ago
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Mrs.
I feel that there are two sides to this story and they must be considered on an individual basis. Firstly, showing compassion and forgiveness to some individuals may actually cause a deeper repentance from their actions as they feel the true and unconditional love being shown to them that they were unable to have. But what about the sociopath, who, by their disorder, can never feel remorse or compassion for another no matter what mercy is shown to them? Justice demands that there is a balance. Their sentences should be carried out if that is what a fair trial awarded them. I, myself, have experienced how the attitude of forgiveness/mercy when not balanced by justic allowed my daughter’s child molester to go free with little time incarcerated and no supervision of his being around other children. Justice without mercy is not right but neither is mercy without justice. I feel that the fact that people who commit heinous crimes ,when proven to be sane in their actions in a court of law , are already being shown mercy by not having to endure the same act being done to them or death when proven guilty. The mercy being shown is the fact that they are allowed to live in modest safety and living conditions where they are kept somewhat comfortable—if you look at certain prison conditions. That is the mercy being shown. I feel the sentence should be carried out. In the case of those who committed a heinous crime while not in their right mind could be an exception to this case as in a mother who killed her children under a hormonal psychosis. No amount of worldly justice could ever do to her insides what she must already be feeling. This type of a case should be shown all the mercy we have as the person who committed it was ‘possessed’ somehow and not under control of themselves. In their right minds, they are just as sickened and unable to be consoled by their own actions. Repentance is clear in these cases and therefore justice is already served, as the person would never have done these things under normal circumstances.
Keesha Del Nagro | 1 month, 2 weeks ago
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free dying inmates
i feel that it is wrong for a person to die behind bars. they are not going to hurt anyone if they are released. everyone makes mistakes, in a life time no one is exempt. did you see “sling blade “ movie?
anna allen | 1 month, 1 week ago
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conversation
I think if you’re going to have a conversation about compassionate release, you need to have a conversation about what a death penalty means. Is it a crime deterrent, a punishment, or a means of removing a killer from the streets. Because for each of these possible explanations, there would be a different view on what place compassionate release has in the justice system.
Chris N | 1 month, 1 week ago
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One size fits one
Sadly, there are criminally insane individuals who are deeply disturbed to the degree that they can not be allowed to free range in society. If you need proof, visit the mental and violent offender blocks at your local penitentiary.
That said, no individual, regardless of the crime they commit, should be treated as poorly as we treat the inmates in our “correctional” facilities. The behavior of any “criminal” can be traced to very real environmental and psychological causes. No incident, however vile, is disconnected from the larger environment. Compassion demands we account for the cause of the problem, not just it’s most persistent symptoms. When we do that, account for the cause, we find our hand in the problem. We turn our head as children in the “hood” grow up in fear. We allow racist, violent people to raise children with no supervision, and so forth. These children do grow up. They grow up ready, able and willing to commit a crime. Then, they’re locked up.
Should we let them out? At this late stage, we’ve so badly missed the point that the question has no easy answer. When I was in California I had the privilege to interview several individuals in max-security prison. One was in for possession of cocaine. Another shot and killed a baby while on PCP. Guess who’s still in jail today? (If you guessed the murderer, you are wrong.)
We need a system that understands why people are desperate and how they become deranged and one that aims to help us get better. Job training, mandatory education, drug rehabilitation, learning conflict management skills, and on and on.
We shouldn’t wait until our fellow humans are dying in jail to be compassionate, we should start when they are born. We have turned our collective head for too long. The old “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” bit means nothing to the man with no shoes.
Geoff Wolfe | 1 month ago
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One size fits one
Sadly, there are criminally insane individuals who are deeply disturbed to the degree that they can not be allowed to free range in society. If you need proof, visit the mental and violent offender blocks at your local penitentiary.
That said, no individual, regardless of the crime they commit, should be treated as poorly as we treat the inmates in our “correctional” facilities. The behavior of any “criminal” can be traced to very real environmental and psychological causes. No incident, however vile, is disconnected from the larger environment. Compassion demands we account for the cause of the problem, not just it’s most persistent symptoms. When we do that, account for the cause, we find our hand in the problem. We turn our head as children in the “hood” grow up in fear. We allow racist, violent people to raise children with no supervision, and so forth. These children do grow up. They grow up ready, able and willing to commit a crime. Then, they’re locked up.
Should we let them out? At this late stage, we’ve so badly missed the point that the question has no easy answer. When I was in California I had the privilege to interview several individuals in max-security prison. One was in for possession of cocaine. Another shot and killed a baby while on PCP. Guess who’s still in jail today? (If you guessed the murderer, you are wrong.)
We need a system that understands why people are desperate and how they become deranged and one that aims to help us get better. Job training, mandatory education, drug rehabilitation, learning conflict management skills, and on and on.
We shouldn’t wait until our fellow humans are dying in jail to be compassionate, we should start when they are born. We have turned our collective head for too long. The old “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” bit means nothing to the man with no shoes.
Geoff Wolfe | 1 month ago
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On a different note:
Why should they get released and my son cannot get out of jail to be with his family while he is sick? He has not even been convicted of a crime he was accused of 6 months before he was arrested for it. He has been sitting in jail since Feb/ 2009, because the public defender he has will not put in for his trial date as he was supposed to. He will not visit my son in jail. He will not let him know what is going on. My son has undergone two surgerys, chemotherapy, and radiation since he has been in the Houston County jail. He has witnessed all kind of abuse to the prisoners. He has no money for a criminal lawyer to defend him in a she say, he say, case. They have no evidence against him. Yet these murderers can go free to be with there families? No, I don’t think they should.
Doris Huey | 1 month ago
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