What happens to the families of those who have committed heinious crimes?

[FaeFae]

Given recent heinious crimes and sentencing, set me thinking. How do about their parents, siblings and grandparents continue their lives?

What happens to them?

Village I grew up in a man bit younger than me who I apparently knew was teacher who went to prison for child abuse and distributing images - they went to his trail though said little locally - then moved away to new part of the country.

Another man who I do remember sucession of prison sentances - last one for rape of eldery women during burglary - till then his parents stuck by him even though he's always been a nasty piece of work and they always belive him and thought everyone was out to get him - previous accusation of sexual assult were gorls making up stories- they'd always defended him - older girl was NC with family. After that house went up for sale and they moved on.

In both cases they may have stayed in touch with their sons in prision - don't know.

These weren't problem families - though there were some of those in village- these were nice middle class outward respectable familes - 2 parents pillars of community types with resources to move away and get away from local notoriety.

I would absolutely disown my child if they did something like Clifford.

They really don't

Sue Klebold, the mother of Dylan Klebold, one of the Colombine shooters, wrote a book about this. Haven't read it, but I guess this would be one set of responses to your question.

I wouldn’t disown my daughter for anything.

I often think about this, I watch lots of true crime. On some programmes the parents of the perpetrator are clearly devastated and in others they help cover up the crime.
I think about it from my own perspective and how crushed I would be that a child of mine could do something so terrible.
In my own family one of my kids has done some pretty reprehensible stuff, nowhere near murder or anything that has warranted police involvement, more just really shitty behaviour over a long period of time. Even this has split my family and my kids are estranged from each other. I have had periods of separation for my own sanity.
I can't imagine what it must be like being the parent of a murderer and the lifelong repercussions of that

In my experience (professional), the families will blame everything but themselves and their child for their childs offence.
They will blame a failure of completion of the sentence on anyone but themselves and their adult child, eg, its mental health. There is never a time where they will say "yep, he did it. He deserves his sentence and he messed up with engaging with services".
All of this is regardless of whether they accept the guilty verdict or not.

This is from my experience of dealing with prisoners and their families:

Some are completely cut off from their families. The family members may be victims, or horrified by the offences. Or just the person was an absolutely horrible person in family life and they don't want anything to do with them.

Some families stay in touch in a superficial way, but the prisoner doesn't realise this. It all comes out when the prisoner might be being released and it turns out their loving family were quite happy with them being in prison.

Some families absolutely believe in their relative's innocence. They stay in touch a lot. This is sometimes from cultures where family is everything, or family members who just can't believe their relative would do such a thing. When you meet the wives they are often vulnerable in someway.

Some families are just completely in on the game eg family with no obvious source of income, insisting on the relative's innocence while all the kids are in private school and the girls have ponies.

And some families are in touch because they have multiple members in the same prison.

Finally there are some fantastic mums out there, who totally accept what their son has done, but remain supportive, sensible, worry about their mental health and are just all round great parents where something (usually drugs) has gone horribly wrong.

Thank you for explaining the various outcomes from your professional experience.

Some families are just completely in on the game eg family with no obvious source of income, insisting on the relative's innocence while all the kids are in private school and the girls have ponies.

I take it that will be drug related,sadly ( and having a relative killed by drug use).

My DC had a friend (very young) and someone living in their house was arrested for murder - now in jail for life. The family had half an hour to pack their belongings into bin bags and were moved to a safe house because of the risk of revenge attacks. It was a long-ago cold case solved by DNA and none of them had any idea that there was a murderer (no relation to any of them) living in their home.

This is sadly very common

I still get chills just thinking about the movie (I haven't read the book).

My ex and Father to my child is in prison for the second time on child pornography charges . Both times he hasn’t been living in our county.

His family relative has got in touch with my child recently to defend him and basically tell them their Dads charges doesn’t mean he abused them and the family relative was basically blaming themselves saying they should’ve done more to protect him coz another family member abused her when she was younger and she thinks he was abused within the family too and this is why he is the way he is and she’s in touch with him bla bla …

My child is nearly an adult now and we’ve agreed if the family member contacts again keep her at arms length and don’t say anything to her about their life coz I have a feeling she will be housing him when he comes out of prison as it’s been all over social media on news articles in their area . My child has already made the decision themselves they won’t be seeing the relative again.

This doesn’t just affect the relative , she will be bringing him back into our hometown and if he does it again it won’t be long till it’s all over the news locally to us too and it then affects us coz people don’t forget a person .

Shamed by association and the relative is just as bad as he is coz she’s defending him . Crimes against children are the lowest and don’t deserve anyone defending them .

I would disown them if they did anything like Clifford or anything against a child or anything sexual.
must be difficult for the families however a lot of the perpetrators come from less than savoury homes. Obviously there will be some from average “nice” families

I know someone whose brother did a terrible thing in the last few years. National news, huge public enquires, etc. The relative I know was instantly destroyed. They were a nice person, absolutely nothing like their sibling and was doing well to get their life in a decent place when this happened. They hit drink and drugs, couldn’t function in any kind of way and has vanished from existence. They didn’t deserve that.

You can hate the crime but love the person. It must be so difficult

I've name changed for this. The person who killed my brother is currently in prison. His family are very vocal about how he didn't do it, but if he did do it, it was self defence or some sort of accident.

I'm sure this isn't the case for everyone in this situation, but his family aren't good people either.

After the Lost Prophets singer went to jail I read that his mother was still visiting him.

I think sitting and thinking about these things theoretically is very different to feeling the emotions when it’s happening.

Someone who I was somewhat friends with as a teen murdered his girlfriend around 10 years ago. (I hadn't spoken to him in maybe 4 years by that point). It made national news so everyone knew.

His family were absolutely hounded by most of our town and the press when it was released. His brother had to move and changed his name. His sister also moved, people were abusing her when out with her child. The whole family had their lives completely torn apart despite them having been no contact with him for 2 years prior.

Despite it being proven they had no knowledge of anything. It took around 3/4 years before people fully left them alone.

They don't visit him. They don't talk to him. They get on with their lives but you can tell they are shells of the people they once were.

In my experience the family all rally together and freeze out any members of that family who won't gloss over the crime. They are offered support and counselling whilst those brave enough to support the victims are left with no support.

I know that's a generalisation but from reading other threads on here it also seems common.

Thanks for the spoiler. That's on my to read pile.

Tbf it was published over 20 years ago - there must be some kind of time limit for 'spoilers'!

I echo the recommendations for reading (or watching) We Need To Talk About Kevin.

Personally I think there is sometimes too much blaming of families - and let's face it, in this misogynistic world it usually is focused on blaming the mum. I remember reading a book analysing the reporting of the Yorkshire Ripper case and how much the women in the murderer's life got blamed for how he turned out. People do have free will and no one is 'just' a product of how they were raised. Many very loving and dedicated parents struggle to manage their children's propensity for violence, or can't stop them from getting into drugs and crime as they grow up, or simply do not see their child's darker side. Some horrendous examples up-thread too of families being unfairly blamed.

That said, I'm sure if a child of mine did something terrible I would find it hard not to blame myself, whether fairly or not. What a nightmare it must be. The grief and horror you'd feel - for what your child has done to others and for how you have 'lost' them yourself - might be made even worse by the total lack of sympathy for you from anyone else.

I know someone whose teenage son murdered someone. It wasn't pre meditated , it was teens fighting over a girl and one had a weapon ( yes I know carrying a weapon implies you might use it ) so it was manslaughter.

The whole family had to move house and change their surname because their other children were bullied at school . Both parents moved jobs - they both had decent jobs like a teacher and a nurse *.

The parents did everything they could to support their son while he was in the Young Offenders institution. But when he got out, he got involved with criminals / drugs / gangs and he didn’t want their help and support. They tried their best but they were scared that he was going to destroy their new lives ( dealers coming to their house to look for him etc ) .

The siblings hated him and wanted nothing to do with him . He screwed up their lives once and got all the attention from the parents for years. Everything in the whole family revolved around their brother’s needs.

Then in his 20 s he was murdered ( drug related ).

Such a waste of his life and the teen he murdered. Neither family will ever get over it. They will all serve a much longer sentence than he did.

As far as I can see, his parents were totally innocent, his other siblings have all turned out fine, went to college, held down good jobs, have partners , no trouble with the police. There but for the Grace of God …………

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@ImJustFineTYVM

Thanks for the spoiler. That's on my to read pile.

Come on now, the book was massive and is over 20 years old and was also a pretty big movie - I don't think you can be annoyed about spoilers online!