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Yes, you're right about HMP Australia. We sent all our crooks there, only to have them turn around and beat us at cricket and rugby far too often.

And if that wasn't bad enough, they seem to have a parlement that is closer to the people who elects them than any other country I know of....

Damn them all for putting our British civilisation to shame



Although, if you look at whats happening to the indigineuos aborigony (spelling?) population, Its kind of sad, the way it has destroyed a lot of their culture. (well as far as I can trust what I see on TV anyway)

Andrea Yates did not live in some "shack". She lived quite a normal type of middle-class life. She and her husband had a strong belief in their religion, and she was expected to continue having children as long as her body was able. They used no birth control whatsoever. She had no support from her husband in raising her kids, she was left alone with her kids even though she had an evident and well-known history of postpartum depression. Her type of postpartum depression manifested into postpartum psychosis. She should have had her children taken away and she should have been receiving mental help long before she murdered her children.

Neither Yates nor her lawyer "asked" for a new sentencing - the courts mandated it because of the technicality. That wasn't her fault. And they were only asking for what was originally asked for.

I believe people pay a higher price for their crime if they are left alive to face it day after day after day. Killing her only puts her to rest. But I don't approve of he death penalty anyway. I'm a believer in life sentences for those who should not ever return to society - and that is what she has received. She never will return to society. And now that she doesn't suffer from the postpartum psychosis, she will spend the rest of her days suffering in her mind from the crimes she carried out.

Y'all give me a few moments to duck for cover...

Loonette

She was receiving treatment. Her husband was taking her to the hospital to help her and even talked to the doctors to help them treat her when she refused to cooperate.

If she was in such a position that she didn't want to have more children or it was too much for her, she could have stopped. Last I checked she was an adult woman, not a 5 year old.

And believe it or not, there are many women out there who don't have husbands, have 5 kids or MORE, are on welfare and live in poor conditions, and women with mental illnesses have children but they don't murder them.

Not to point out the obvious, but if the husband had drowned the children he would have been sentenced to death within 5 minutes and we wouldn't even be asking if he had a rough life or what his 'mental condition' was.

Loonette wrote:Andrea Yates did not live in some "shack". She lived quite a normal type of middle-class life. She and her husband had a strong belief in their religion, and she was expected to continue having children as long as her body was able. They used no birth control whatsoever. She had no support from her husband in raising her kids, she was left alone with her kids even though she had an evident and well-known history of postpartum depression. Her type of postpartum depression manifested into postpartum psychosis. She should have had her children taken away and she should have been receiving mental help long before she murdered her children.

Neither Yates nor her lawyer "asked" for a new sentencing - the courts mandated it because of the technicality. That wasn't her fault. And they were only asking for what was originally asked for.

I believe people pay a higher price for their crime if they are left alive to face it day after day after day. Killing her only puts her to rest. But I don't approve of he death penalty anyway. I'm a believer in life sentences for those who should not ever return to society - and that is what she has received. She never will return to society. And now that she doesn't suffer from the postpartum psychosis, she will spend the rest of her days suffering in her mind from the crimes she carried out.

Y'all give me a few moments to duck for cover...

Loonette

+1 and you can't really compare a man to a woman with this crime because men don't get postpartum depression.

I'm not saying that she's not responsible for her actions. But shouldn't her husband bear some burden in the situation? He knew of her condition, and knew that her mental state was indeed unstable. Would you leave your five children alone with anyone who didn't seem capable of holding it together? I certainly wouldn't. I would make every arrangement to keep my kids safe - even if it meant keeping them from my spouse. I'm not saying that her husband should be charged in the murders, but since he knew full well of her ill state of mind, he should at least be charged with child endangerment or neglect.

On the issue of not having any more children - you're right. But again, it was strongly held in their religious practice that if able, they are to have children. Maybe her husband could have helped in that department, hmm? They are his kids too. She's the one with the mental condition - don't you think the sane people in her life could have helped her out a bit? You know - through sickness and in health?

And it's true that lots of women get on just fine without murdering their children. That's because not all women suffer from PPD or other mental ailments. I didn't either. But I know that the edge sure felt close some days. Having a good, positive support system certainly helps a lot. For whatever reason, there wasn't enough help or maybe the right kind of help for Andrea Yates. And not one of us can know for sure why it had to go so badly - we're not in her head.

She should pay for her crime. Again, though, I don't approve of the death penalty, so that doesn't even matter to me. I believe that we can hold folks accountable for their crimes, keep them detached from society, yet still have some sort of empathy for them. Anyone, man or woman, would have to be in a pretty messed up place - mentally as well as spiritually - to carry out such a heinous crime. And she already received a life sentence. They're just asking that she be placed in a mental facility, which say what you will, it's no picnic in a state mental hospital. Now that she isn't suffering from the PPD, I'm sure she's haunted every moment with the reality of what she has done.

I happen to know a woman who does research on this very topic. The research she does is used for psych classes at a local university. She has had several interviews with Andrea Yates, and she said that on many occasions Andrea has said that all she wants is to die (she didn't sentence herself, you know). I'd want to die to, if I were her - but will that really help her face what has happened? Not in my opinion. But it's just my opinion...

Loonette

A lot of women do suffer with pdd. They don't murder their kids.

I'm sure tired of our society blaming our actions on illnesses.

How is it the husbands fault? The husband is one of the victims, his children were murdered! Are we back to blaming the victim? (ps: he WAS trying to help, and did take her to the hospital)

And what if he had done it instead of Andrea...would we be looking into the stress of his work, maybe he works 13 hours a day just to make ends meet, comes home to a disinterested wife, has an alcohol problem, etc etc. The answer is; we don't care. Women need treatment, men need punishment.

Don't mean to start an argument, but 5 kids are dead and all the sympathy seems to be on this woman. There's something seriously wrong with that.

The fuzzy emotive side of me says that she was a victim of religion and a faulty upbringing and she shouldn't have been allowed to slide down whatever downward spiral caused her to have kids to kill... that her slide should have been arrested by some sort of social safety net that probably includes mandatory birth control for all fems at puberty and licenses (with training, psych evaluations, and a reasonable service charge) for each child... that the lack of such a safety net, the lack of those controls on reproduction, are criminal in the face of the massive and irreparable harm that is being done to millions of kids today by their unqualified and untrained parents.

My cold hearted rational side says that people should have the right to have kids without government intervention even if a few of them are unfit to be parents and wind up transferring weird religious beliefs, strange behavioral patterns, undesirable medical conditions, and other undesirable traits to their offspring...or killing the kids through poor judgment (e.g. letting them ride motorcycles) or poor impulse control (e.g. drowning them in a bathtub). The rational side also breathes a sigh of relief that she did kill them before they could transfer her problems to yet another generation by having kids of their own.


I don't know which side is right... but I know I probably wouldn't exist in if the "fuzzy" side's ideas of licensing and control had been reality when I was conceived.....


Worse things happen at sea.

Didn't read the last few posts, but I believe Andrea Yates should've been given the death penalty or life sentence. I still remember one quote from her. "I killed my children because the devil told me to, so that the children would go to heaven." It was that or something really close to that sentence. If you think about that for two seconds, you can see how mentally challenged that sounds. I also hate the "she is insane because no one sane would commit those murders." Makes very little sense at all as CNF said, and people need to stop blaming the environment and these chain of events that lead to an event. Maybe we should put some guy in jail because he impregnated some woman and left, so she became a poor single mother. Than her child grows up in the ghetto and sells drugs and eventually murders someone. Not his fault, it is everyone elses.....

edit- I know this is a sterotype and that isn't true about everyone who is a single parent or lives in the ghetto, but it does happen for some people.

andrea yates is just another Sad Sally who got tired of taking care of her kids and killed them.she knew that the PPD drivel would prevail.juries and judges are made up of the same group of stupid and lonely people like the MotoF150 tour group.that is the reason there is never any just punishment for these premediated murders of children.PPD IN A PIGS AS...

Kal wrote: I propose setting up colonies on islands in the worlds wilder seas. These places can support life but it has to be worked for. I propose single sex self managed colonies. Just drop them off there and never think about them again - let nature bear the cost of containing them. Let them earn their food and allow them their freedom on the island.

This has already been tried by the UK and France.

UK sent their prisoners to Australia.
France sent their prisoners to Devils Island.