Family members of a man stabbed to death by a Ventura County woman during an episode of cannabis-induced psychosis in 2018 are outraged after a judge on Tuesday sentenced the 32-year-old woman to t…

During that psychotic break, she stabbed O’Melia multiple times, eventually killing him. She also stabbed herself repeatedly, officials said.

The next morning, officers arrived at the apartment to find O’Melia in a pool of blood and Spejcher screaming hysterically while still holding a knife in her hands. As officers tried to disarm her, Spejcher plunged the knife into her neck, authorities said.

This seems like the right move to me. If you drink alcohol, you know that you’ll be impaired driving and should be held accountable. When you smoke pot, you don’t expect that you’ll stab yourself in the neck. She truly seems to be a victim just as much as the guy, even if his outcome was ultimately worse.

  • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
    172·
    10 months ago

    Prison is supposed to exist to rehabilitate someone who commits a crime, if she had a psychological break prison is not really the place to send her.

    I think she should get psychological treatment though instead of probation, they should get to the bottom of what caused this so it wouldn’t happen again. Also I would definitely need some counselling after killing someone during an episode.

    • quindraco@lemm.ee
      1·
      10 months ago

      Prison is supposed to exist to rehabilitate someone who commits a crime

      Absolutely false. What gave you this idea?

      Prison has the following priorities:

      1. Specific deterrence: while the prisoner is incarcerated, they are physically incapable of committing most possible crimes against the populace. After they get out, hopefully their hatred of prison will keep them from reoffending.
      2. General deterrence: People who would otherwise commit crimes will choose not to for fear of prison.

      Rehabilitation is not and never has been a goal of American prisons. It’s an actual goal in e.g. Norwegian prisons, if you want to know what such a system looks like.

      • themeatbridge@lemmy.world
        4·
        10 months ago

        Well, no. Those are the reasons the prison industry gives when pressed for an explanation for why conditions are so brutal and recidivism is so high.

        Prison is not an effective deterrence in either of the examples you provided.

        The American prison system has precisely one priority, profit. Anything else is tap dancing.

      • FluffyPotato@lemm.ee
        3·
        10 months ago

        I did say prison is supposed to rehabilitate someone as that’s the only way a prison is effective. The American system doesn’t even work as a deterrence since you got like the highest percentage of your population imprisoned among the better off countries not run by just a warlord.

        Even if you are using prison as a theoretical deterrence putting someone who had a psychological break in there deters nothing.