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Should Peter Sutcliffe be released?

Rolfe

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Rolfe
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The "Yorkshire Ripper", Peter Sutcliffe, is seeking a court ruling on the tariff on his sentence. At his trial the judge recommended a minimum of 30 years (which expires next year) but imposed no formal tariff.

At the time of his trial there was some discussion about his sanity. It was a bit of a Catch 22 - nobody who did what he did could be called sane, surely? However, he was tried for murder (not manslaughter) and considered to be sane at the time.

He was later diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and moved to a secure mental hospital. His psychiatrists are now saying that he's "virtually cured" and presents a "very low risk" of re-offending.

However, there is a strong argument from within the criminal justice system that his notoriety is such that he will have to be kept confined forever because he may well literally be lynched if certain segments of the general public get their hands on him. In addition, this news comes simultaneously with significant public concern over the risk posed by mental health patients who are allowed to live freely in the community. There was a BBC TV documentary only last night about one such murder. "Virtually" cured, and "very low" risk don't sound entirely reassuring to me.

Here's the BBC news report of Sutcliffe's application.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bradford/8543353.stm

Oh, and by the way, I'm obviously psychic.

Rolfe.
 
I never saw any sense in imposing more than one "life" sentence.
Assuming life is 70 years, 20 life sentences, bu my arithmetic equates to 1400 years.
That puts his release date in 3381.
Let him out then.
 
Hm, while his talk of voices and God are pretty classic schizophrenia, violence is not a symptom of schizophrenia. It takes a special kind of added crazy to do what he did. The clearly sexual nature of his crimes can't be ascribed to delusional episodes like his violence might be. The guy was classic serial killer, a set method, specific target type, cool-off periods, and paranoid schizophrenia doesn't cause that. Oddly, I'm having trouble finding what made his schizophrenia paranoid, exactly.
 
Tsukasa Buddha said:
Oddly, I'm having trouble finding what made his schizophrenia paranoid, exactly.
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Apparently he heard God speaking to him from a gravestone and commanding him to go forth and kill prostitutes. I think that's sufficient to make it qualify as paranoid.

I doubt that he's never going to be released: no home secretary would take the risk of being labelled the person who set the Yorkshire Ripper free to kill again. All the legal and moral arguments that could be found weren't enough to free Myra Hindley, and I doubt Sutcliffe will find his applications better received.

What is the problem with giving him a finite sentence? Does there then become a risk that he might, having served a percentage of it, become eligible for parole?

Edit: Having read the story in full it seems that there isn't necessarily a problem, it's just that the trial judge recommended that he serve a minimum of 30 years, which he's now done. He wants to know what he's looking at next which in my view will be the rest of his life locked up.
 
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I always had a sneaky suspicion he might be faking the "voices from God" stuff. I'm a complete amateur on this and I've no idea how gullible psychiatrists are or how easy that is to fake, but I have memories of his trial when all this was discussed.

It's possible to propose that nobody who does what he did can be sane by any normal definition of sane. However, that doesn't make him a paranoid schizophrenic. It puts him in the class of "serial killers" along with Fred West and Myra Hindley and so on. We usually treat them as if they are sane in terms of being able to plead and having committed a crime that must be punished and so on.

He was smart enough to evade detection for quite a long time, and to go on killing while he did it. Then when he was caught, the suggestion that he was mentally ill started to surface. There were suggestions that he shouldn't be charged with murder at all. It didn't stick at the time, but he seems to have managed to get the diagnosis a few years later while in the prison system.

My suspicious mind wonders if it's possible to hoodwink a psychiatrist in this way, and if so, is that what he did? It can't be that hard to find out the signs of paranoid schizophrenia to know what you have to say and do. Or is it?

My own feeling is, if he was sane when he did these crimes, he deserves a whole-life tariff. And if he was mentally ill, I don't have sufficient confidence in a doctor declaring he's "virtually" cured to trust anyone's life to that. Release him when he's a hospice or at least a nursing home case, and not before, is my current thinking. But I'm genuinely interested in other views.

Rolfe.
 
Rolfe said:
I always had a sneaky suspicion he might be faking the "voices from God" stuff. I'm a complete amateur on this and I've no idea how gullible psychiatrists are or how easy that is to fake, but I have memories of his trial when all this was discussed.

It's possible to propose that nobody who does what he did can be sane by any normal definition of sane. However, that doesn't make him a paranoid schizophrenic. It puts him in the class of "serial killers" along with Fred West and Myra Hindley and so on. We usually treat them as if they are sane in terms of being able to plead and having committed a crime that must be punished and so on.

He was smart enough to evade detection for quite a long time, and to go on killing while he did it.
Click to expand...

And rational enough to know that he needed to. This gets into the difference between legal sanity and clinical sanity. Legally he had to know what he was doing was wrong. If he did not know that, why did he cover it up and hide instead of preaching on street corners about gods commands to kill prostitutes?
 
Rolfe said:
...snip...

He was smart enough to evade detection for quite a long time, and to go on killing while he did it.

...snip...
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If you look into the circumstances he was anything but a smart killer, it was police incompetence that allowed him to continue to kill for so long.
 
Keep it simple: if he's a danger to society or is in significant danger from others then remaining in a secure place may be the only option. What I am dubious of is that a period of time is sufficient for someone to 'mend their ways', whether that be 5, 10, 20 or 30 years, or in the case of mental illness, be 'cured'.
 
Rolfe said:
Here's the BBC news report of Sutcliffe's application.
Click to expand...
BBC said:
The judge who reviews Sutcliffe's tariff later this year will take into account the gravity of his crimes, whether or not he has made "exceptional" progress in custody, the state of his mental health and any representations from Sutcliffe, his victims or their families.
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I'm not really clear what the highlighted part entails, since--absent new evidence--the gravity of the crimes should have been adequately considered first time round.

Hopefully it is not taking the temperature of public opinion, which is what home secretaries used to indulge in in respect of life sentences, before the courts took that power away.
 
Mmmm, good point.

I think 30 years in pokey is probably a reasonable sentence for the crimes as such. I'm more concerned with the possibility of re-offending. I don't think the shrinks can say at this stage that there's zero chance of that, and I don't think "very low" chance is close to good enough. He's only 63, and that's not exactly geriatric in this day and age.

Darat's right about the police incompetence of course, expecially the bit where they got completely hung up on a hoax tape message. However, the fact remains that he did cover up well enough not to give himself away for quite a long time.

Rolfe.
 
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Be compassionate. Let him go!

Free the ripper! Free the ripper!
 
30 years for killing 13 people? That's roughly 2 years and 4 months per murder.

Seems fair to me.
 
Do we really want another lorry driver let loose on society?

(apologies to Roadtoad, of course ;) )
 
Just for background: Most lifers don't go from being locked up completely to being freed. If I remember correctly from reading Erwin James' Guardian columns ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_James ) most are moved to a low security or open prison and gradually given things like day release - learning how to live in the outside world again -, and then progressing to working a job during the day and returning to prison at night and weekends. Once released on "life licence" even the smallest breach will result in them being sent back to prison.
 
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That's pretty much correct (member of the family works in a prison and has dealings with such prisoners on track for being released).
 
Wow, this is timely. I just finished Alan Moore's From Hell last night, wherein I ran across the name of Peter Sutcliffe for the first time in my life. Now, within hours of this introduction comes this thread? What's it all MEAN?
 
Professor Yaffle said:
Just for background: Most lifers don't go from being locked up completely to being freed. If I remember correctly from reading Erwin James' Guardian columns ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_James ) most are moved to a low security or open prison and gradually given things like day release - learning how to live in the outside world again -, and then progressing to working a job during the day and returning to prison at night and weekends. Once released on "life licence" even the smallest breach will result in them being sent back to prison.
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Do you think it's a reaslonable move to prepare him for release, then? Do you think all these checks are sufficient precaution?

Professor Yaffle said:
But Peter Sutcliffe wasn't even the real Yorkshire Ripper - just a copycat killer. the real Ripper is still on the loose:

http://www.yorkshireripper.com/index.htm

:boggled::D
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And Conspiracy Theories are thattaway --> :D

Rolfe.
 
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