[Jabberwalker]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

You're missing the point entirely. This was a mental health issue from the beginning, not a 'crime and punnishment' issue. Unfortunately, it seems corrections canada only knows how to deal with the latter - I guess when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Their punishment measures only caused her behaviour to get worse, which in turn lead to more punishment and even worse behaviour, and on it went in a viscious cycle until she ended up dead. How it didn't occur to them that they were only making the matter worse is beyond me - my guess is that they didn't really care.

I know people who have worked at Mental health facilities, they can and do deal with people who get violent. The difference being that since they're not law enforcement they don't deal have a "let's punish the bad guy" approach.

How about this.

You put yourself in harms way and let's see how liberal you are with your stance on coddling the violent mentally ill people. Are all mentally ill people controllable with a little love and some medication?

You're passing it off like you know everything and can say with certainty that she should have been handled differently from the beginning.

This is a woman who was in and out of mental health facilities numerous times in her life and was transferred around because she was a violent psychopath. To pretend that Corrections Canada just put her in a cell and closed the door all while ignoring her mental health is incorrect.

No doubt, their lives and workplaces were easier for a time after she died. ... for a time. until those pinko lawyer-types started to snoop around.

[bootlegga]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Mental facilities don't have the means to handle a violent inmate like Smith unless heavily sedated.

Not true at all.

Many psychiatric hospitals across the country have detention wings capable of holding with violent/dangerous offenders ranging from serial rapists to murderers to violent offenders. Vincent Li was held in such a facility in Manitoba, and I know of several here in Alberta with similar facilities.

I find it hard to believe that there isn't at least one such facility in the entire Maritimes.

The problem isn't a lack of facilities to hold people like Smith, but an inability to properly diagnose them when they are arrested.

[andyt]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

How about this.

You put yourself in harms way and let's see how liberal you are with your stance on coddling the violent mentally ill people. Are all mentally ill people controllable with a little love and some medication?

You're passing it off like you know everything and can say with certainty that she should have been handled differently from the beginning.

This is a woman who was in and out of mental health facilities numerous times in her life and was transferred around because she was a violent psychopath. To pretend that Corrections Canada just put her in a cell and closed the door all while ignoring her mental health is incorrect.

How about this - the jury that heard all the facts came down sharply on the corrections system. They want Ashely made a case study in the corrections system - on what not to do.

[BeaverFever]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

You're missing the point entirely. This was a mental health issue from the beginning, not a 'crime and punnishment' issue. Unfortunately, it seems corrections canada only knows how to deal with the latter - I guess when you're a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Their punishment measures only caused her behaviour to get worse, which in turn lead to more punishment and even worse behaviour, and on it went in a viscious cycle until she ended up dead. How it didn't occur to them that they were only making the matter worse is beyond me - my guess is that they didn't really care.

I know people who have worked at Mental health facilities, they can and do deal with people who get violent. The difference being that since they're not law enforcement they don't deal have a "let's punish the bad guy" approach.

How about this.

You put yourself in harms way and let's see how liberal you are with your stance on coddling the violent mentally ill people. Are all mentally ill people controllable with a little love and some medication?

You're passing it off like you know everything and can say with certainty that she should have been handled differently from the beginning.

This is a woman who was in and out of mental health facilities numerous times in her life and was transferred around because she was a violent psychopath. To pretend that Corrections Canada just put her in a cell and closed the door all while ignoring her mental health is incorrect.

What Andy said above.

CLEARLY the way Corrections Canada handled the case didn't accomplish anything except make her behaviour worse. A Coroner's jury has confirmed this through their ruling. Criminilizing the obviously mentally ill and locking them up in solitary for indefinitely periods for petty crimes might make you feel like a big man, - yeah she spit in your face and now you feel like you've showed her who's the boss - but it's a futile waste of your time and resources and in this case, a wasted life.

People with mental illnesses are ILL. Period. Illness should be treated, not criminalized. Remember, she didn't kill anybody, she didn't rape anybody, she came into the criminal justice system for throwing crabapples for fuck's sake! She never should have been in prison in the first place, let alone had her sentence extended beyond all proportion to any offence she committed just because she spit and scratched and kicked her handlers. Like I said, I know people who work in mental health hospitals and kickers/biters/scratchers are routine and common patients that the nurses and social workers deal with on a daily basis.

Here's an interesting documentary I saw recently;

http://www.cbc.ca/doczone/episodes/not-criminally-responsible

NCR: Not Criminally Responsible tells the story of a troubled young man who stabbed a complete stranger 6 times in a crowded shopping mall while gripped by psychosis. Twelve years later, his victim, who miraculously survived, is terrified to learn that he's out, living in the community under supervision. He's applying for an absolute discharge, and if he succeeds, he'll no longer be required to take the anti-psychotic drugs that control his mental illness. With unprecedented access to the patient, the victim, and the mental institution, the film looks at both sides of the debate and puts a human face on the complex ethical issues raised.

[Xort]

Sounds like Ashley was a great person, a true loss for humanity when she killed herself.

[Gunnair]

Xort Xort:

Sounds like Ashley was a great person, a true loss for humanity when she killed herself.

Always the class act.

[DrRosen]

Xort Xort:

Sounds like Ashley was a great person, a true loss for humanity when she killed herself.

That comment suggests she had more humanity than you.

[Gunnair]

DrRosen DrRosen:

Xort Xort:

Sounds like Ashley was a great person, a true loss for humanity when she killed herself.

That comment suggests she had more humanity than you.

Well said.

[Xort]

DrRosen DrRosen:

That comment suggests she had more humanity than you.

Have you read about she did and how she acted? Or did you just take the head line that a 'mentally ill' person was murdered by prison guards?

[DrRosen]

Does it matter how she acted? She was crazy. Crazy people aren't responsible for their actions. That's why she was hospitalized. But she was also a human being, worthy of a little sympathy, at least. Unless you're a goddamn psychopath, in which case you belong in the same hospital.

[Xort]

DrRosen DrRosen:

Does it matter how she acted? She was crazy. Crazy people aren't responsible for their actions. That's why she was hospitalized. But she was also a human being, worthy of a little sympathy, at least. Unless you're a goddamn psychopath, in which case you belong in the same hospital.

I understand your point of view now.

You think that having a mental illness means the person is totally unable to control their actions, is incapable of any sort of reasoning (no matter the evidence they provide that they are in fact using logic and reason), and as such nothing they do should ever be judged against them.

[DrRosen]

No, I think they're human beings worthy of, if nothing else, at least a little sympathy.

[OnTheIce]

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

CLEARLY the way Corrections Canada handled the case didn't accomplish anything except make her behaviour worse. A Coroner's jury has confirmed this through their ruling.

Incorrectly assuming that everyone gets better with treatment and ignoring the fact that she was treated in various mental hospitals but her actions landed her outside of those facilities because of the hundreds of incidents and violence.

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

People with mental illnesses are ILL. Period. Illness should be treated, not criminalized. Remember, she didn't kill anybody, she didn't rape anybody, she came into the criminal justice system for throwing crabapples for fuck's sake! She never should have been in prison in the first place, let alone had her sentence extended beyond all proportion to any offence she committed just because she spit and scratched and kicked her handlers.

Wow.

Do you have the slightest clue what you're talking about?

Ashley was involved with the police and the justice system long before she threw apples at a mailman! Have you even read about this case or do you just base your points on what you hear in the media? She was charged with stalking, assaulting random people on the street, public disturbances....tons of incidents before she was placed into NBYC.

[Gunnair]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

CLEARLY the way Corrections Canada handled the case didn't accomplish anything except make her behaviour worse. A Coroner's jury has confirmed this through their ruling.

Incorrectly assuming that everyone gets better with treatment and ignoring the fact that she was treated in various mental hospitals but her actions landed her outside of those facilities because of the hundreds of incidents and violence.

BeaverFever BeaverFever:

People with mental illnesses are ILL. Period. Illness should be treated, not criminalized. Remember, she didn't kill anybody, she didn't rape anybody, she came into the criminal justice system for throwing crabapples for fuck's sake! She never should have been in prison in the first place, let alone had her sentence extended beyond all proportion to any offence she committed just because she spit and scratched and kicked her handlers.

Wow.

Do you have the slightest clue what you're talking about?

Ashley was involved with the police and the justice system long before she threw apples at a mailman! Have you even read about this case or do you just base your points on what you hear in the media? She was charged with stalking, assaulting random people on the street, public disturbances....tons of incidents before she was placed into NBYC.

You don't think those were indicators of mental illness? Because those sound exactly like indicators of mental illness to me.

[Xort]

Gunnair Gunnair:

You don't think those were indicators of mental illness? Because those sound exactly like indicators of mental illness to me.

What mental illness do you think is indicated?