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There was a documentary about this on Blaze last night, did anyone see it? It doesn't sound like the one mentioned earlier on in this thread and it definitely crossed invaded, then nuclear bombed the boundaries of taste with repeated showings of bloodstained clothing or close-ups of the perps faces accompanied by loud drum beats Eastenders style. But it was still interesting and there was footage of the two girls being interviewed by (impressively calm) police officers and interviews with psychiatrists and Geyser's mother. Geyser was apparently not treated at all for at least a couple of years but when she was finally given some medication, she did at least finally understand what she had done.
 
To be honest, if anyone held stuff against me that I did when I was 12*, I would probably still be under supervision.

*Nothing too dreadful, but I was very suggestible and easily led and it's probably more by accident than design that I didn't end up in trouble. Kids of that age, whilst criminally responsible, aren't exactly sensible and forward thinking.
 
To be honest, if anyone held stuff against me that I did when I was 12*, I would probably still be under supervision.

*Nothing too dreadful, but I was very suggestible and easily led and it's probably more by accident than design that I didn't end up in trouble. Kids of that age, whilst criminally responsible, aren't exactly sensible and forward thinking.
True but trying to stab a friend to death is pretty extreme.
 
I reckon that someone trying to kill a friend means that they are no longer friends.
I mean, why would anybody try to kill any of their friends? Beggars belief.
Geyser at least was definitely diagnosed with schizophrenia (I think Weier was too?) and responded to medication. I can't pretend to know what that is like but I know that it can be a symptom (if that is the right word) of that. So as hard as it is to understand, we have to bear in mind that they were both mentally ill and were not acting in the way that a "normal" 12 year old would. The unusual thing here is her age as it apparently does not normally manifest until late teens.
 
I reckon that someone trying to kill a friend means that they are no longer friends.
I mean, why would anybody try to kill any of their friends? Beggars belief.
I suspect that a weaker or more submissive person could be talked into practically anything by another person whom they held in esteem and wanted to impress.
 
Morgan Geyser hearing set for April 10-11 to consider the reports and possibly rule on the release request.

WAUKESHA, Wis. (AP) — A Wisconsin judge will hold a hearing in April to determine whether the second of two women who nearly stabbed their sixth-grade classmate to death in 2014 to please online horror character Slender Man should be released from a psychiatric hospital.

Morgan Geyser, 21, asked Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren on Jan. 16 to grant her conditional release from the Winnebago Mental Health Institute. Geyser made a similar request for conditional release in 2022 but withdrew the petition two months after filing it.

Bohren held a brief hearing on the request Monday. He appointed three psychiatric experts — one on behalf of Geyser, one on behalf of prosecutors and the third as a court appointee — to examine her and produce reports on her current mental condition by March 1. He set a hearing for April 10-11 to consider the reports and possibly rule on the release request.

https://apnews.com/article/slender-man-attack-morgan-geyser-fa02bfaa721cd155f3a1f72a8a6f879f
 
I confess that I find conflict between my two instincts here:

1) Twelve-year-olds who almost murdered their friend with knives to protect their families from a fictional character = mental damaged and dangerous: throw away the key.

2) Am I (or any adult) even the same person I was aged twelve in any meaningful sense--even without having had any psychiatric intervention? On a slightly more abstract day, I think not: humans tend to 'be' multiple 'people' across a lifetime of seventy or eighty years, so how long do we go on punishing them for that earlier life?
 
Armstrong cites a study by Joseph Cocozza and Henry Steadman6 who analysed predictions by psychiatrists in New York. The psychiatrists were asked by courts to predict whether mental patients posed enough danger to warrant involuntary confinement. Judges in such cases face a dilemma – get the decision wrong and a dangerous patient could be released into the community. Alternatively, a person who is safe might suffer unnecessary confinement. But, although the advice of psychiatrists was sought, there is no evidence they can make such predictions with any accuracy. In her controversial book7, Margaret Hagen, a professor at Boston University, has argued that the psychiatrists would be just as accurate if they simply flipped pennies or drew cards or put on a blindfold and chose without being able to identify the patients. Yet courts typically base their decisions on these predictions. In the Cocozza and Steadman study they accepted the expert’s recommendation on 86.7 per cent of occasions. The researchers wrote that the judges appeared to believe the psychiatrists had a mysterious secret knowledge – magical powers enabling them to predict how patients would behave. Conveniently, this also unburdened them of responsibility if their decision proved to be a serious mistake.
 
I once read that those criminal institution psychiatrists have a positivity bias, because they want to believe they can help and improve their patients.

And you think it odd that they should believe they can cure/rehabilitate people? They would have to be deeply cynical and misanthropic if they took a negative attitude towards patients from the outset. She has been under observation for 10 years, I think the doctors' views in conjunction with the judge's assessment is more reliable than my gut feeling or yours.
 
Armstrong cites a study by Joseph Cocozza and Henry Steadman6 who analysed predictions by psychiatrists in New York. The psychiatrists were asked by courts to predict whether mental patients posed enough danger to warrant involuntary confinement. Judges in such cases face a dilemma – get the decision wrong and a dangerous patient could be released into the community. Alternatively, a person who is safe might suffer unnecessary confinement. But, although the advice of psychiatrists was sought, there is no evidence they can make such predictions with any accuracy. In her controversial book7, Margaret Hagen, a professor at Boston University, has argued that the psychiatrists would be just as accurate if they simply flipped pennies or drew cards or put on a blindfold and chose without being able to identify the patients. Yet courts typically base their decisions on these predictions. In the Cocozza and Steadman study they accepted the expert’s recommendation on 86.7 per cent of occasions. The researchers wrote that the judges appeared to believe the psychiatrists had a mysterious secret knowledge – magical powers enabling them to predict how patients would behave. Conveniently, this also unburdened them of responsibility if their decision proved to be a serious mistake.

It is surely a bit different though if a person has been under close observation for 10 years.
 
I assumed this young lady had autism and was easily led. She could well have learned a lot of coping strategies whilst in prison and have a whole new level of self understanding and knowledge which should mean that she's unlikely to reoffend.
 
Can we expect someone who has had an abnormal upbringing to behave well?
Some people will reject their upbringing, and some will embrace it. I have known people to come out of gangs and be thoroughly decent people. On the other hand, some people are "just" psychopaths, decent upbringing, no obvious reason to do what they do, but go on to commit appalling crimes.
 
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