Psychopathic Crime

What value is there for society to make a concerted investment and effort in believing against all realistic odds that there is justification in expectations that gentle persuasion will turn a psychopath into a responsive and valuable member of the public? Youth finds itself doing many anti-social acts of denial and chaos, sometimes erupting into violence. These youth are not necessarily deeply psychically disordered.

On the other hand there are young people whose minds are deranged, bereft of normal human constraints against afflicting dreadful injuries upon others. They are organically emotionally deprived of normal human responses of empathy and compassion for others. And this omission in their genetic inheritance allows them to inflict pain and suffering without remorse.

When a youth has garnered a reputation as a violent social offender and is given opportunity by a generous onlooker to aid him during a time of duress, yet takes that aid and simply continues his destructive, disruptive and nihilistic lifestyle it represents a failure of intervention and a desire to keep indulging his base instincts.

When that same young man takes the life of an old man whose lifetime has been one of inestimable value to the society around him, in the most heinous possible manner, with no thought of the dreadful suffering he has imposed he has crossed the boundary of human vice into inhumane brutality. After examination by criminologists, social workers, psychological and psychiatric professionals of the opinion that his own egotistical priorities transcend all other human interaction, the conclusion is reached.

A young killer who beat to death an 88-year-old Quebec farmer - who loved singing Gregorian chants or opera while repairing farm machinery, who sketched landscapes, while growing hay, soy beans and tulips, and over his farming decades raised dairy cows, remaining capable at his advanced age of still performing meaningful work on his farm - is considered for a shorter sentence in view of his age. In the hopes that therapy will help him to mature and rejoin society.

Two young men, one of whom though unemployed spent $1000 a week on drugs, stole from neighbours and failed to pay rent to the farmer who agreed to lodge him, beat him to death. They came away with $40 after ransacking the farmhouse and dragging the old man's body under farm debris, and left. Later to brag to drinking friends what they had done.

Convicted of second-degree murder, the under-age murderer was finally sentenced to adult prison. Sine he was a pre-adult before commission of the crime, he may still apply for parole after serving a minimum of seven years. The second of the two youths was acquitted of the murder charge and charged with robbery.

Judge Jean-Pierre Plouffe of the Quebec Superior Court named the crime "an attack of unheard of violence against a defenceless old man", and in addressing the elderly farmer's two grieving daughters he said "Nothing can take away the pain of losing a father at any age in such a horrible way."