What a tragic tragic situation. Those poor children. I really hope they have good extended family who can look after them. It’s heart breaking.
I agree with most of what has been said and don’t think that these are either/or arguments. I think they are both/and.
I felt initial anger towards him and thought the sentence too lenient. But also can see that psychosis means that you are not in touch with reality. The PP who’s heartfelt recollections of her own psychosis that caused her to have instructions to kill her own child was a brave and useful reminder that none of us are immune from struggling in this way.
This man sounds like he had totally lost it. It sounds like it all happened during the main bit of the pandemic when most services were struggling to work out how to operate safely. He didn’t get the oversight he needed. He was a danger but that wasn’t spotted. May be he was a ‘nasty piece of work’ too. Either way he needs assessing, monitoring and treating in terms of future risk.
I agree with PPs who have said that a psychiatric hospital prison/secure unit is no ordinary hospital. They are truly grim and frightening places - even as a staff member!
I also agree that we live in a culture where toxic masculinity has run rampant and needs addressing. This may well be an added layer to this case. It doesn’t negate his psychosis, however. It’s likely to be both/and IMO.
So there are layers to what may have led to this tragedy:
Individual - who knows what his starting personality was like and why (people aren’t born evil). He may have been an anxious frightened man who developed psychosis and snapped. He may have always been abusive, developed psychosis and snapped. Or many other trajectories. There is just no way for us to know. What we do know is that a qualified professional has deemed to have had diminished responsibility.
Service level - services weren’t operating normally. Who knows what was tried but it didn’t work. It’s likely everyone was doing their best but it wasn’t good enough on this occasion. It leaves questions about information flow for gun licensing.
Cultural/societal - toxic masculinity. Gun licensing. Cultural views on domestic violence (it only became illegal for a man to hit his wife in the 1970s). Still violence against women is ignored.
Global - pandemic that left most people feeling more vulnerable. May be triggered a worsening mental health issue for him. It isolated us all which is a risk factor for mental health issues. Impacted on service delivery.
I think it also raises interesting and difficult questions about the purpose of prison sentences. Are they punishment/revenge/retribution or are they for rehabilitation! I think in the UK we like to think that it’s the latter but actually we are crap at rehabilitation.
A PP said focusing on the early years is crucial and the evidence overwhelmingly supports that. If we support families in their first three years [in the right ways] that’s what will help us to raise emotionally healthy and empathic humans that are more regulated less likely to harm others.
But, there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ solution to these tragedies. It’s complex and emotive.
But generally, this has just left me feeling so sad for those children. What they may have been experiencing before, what they went through then and the difficult emotional journey they have ahead. I hope they get the support they need.