Interviews with law enforcement officials and lawyers for the men, and friends, co-workers and relatives of all involved, along with a study of court records, paint a picture of what happened that morning and show that there were missed opportunities on both sides of the law leading up to the deaths.
The criminal justice system failed to treat Mr. Hayes and Mr. Komisarjevsky as serious offenders despite long histories of recidivism, repeatedly setting them free on parole. The suspects never capitalized on those chances to turn their lives around, instead apparently forming a new criminal alliance after meeting at a drug treatment center in Hartford.
“There’s no question about it: The system didn’t work,” Dr. Petit’s father, William A. Petit Sr., 73, said last weekend outside his home in Plainville, 12 miles north, where the family has long formed a pillar of civic life. He paused, then added: “It’s too late now.”
It started out like any summer Sunday.
Read it all but be aware that the content is deeply disturbing..
This man’s life has been pulverized beyond recognition.
I can’t imagine.
One word: Evil.
From a Judeo-Christian perspective, sinfulness/wickedness is called by its real name; evil.
Modern scientific studies and approaches are providing us with greater insights and better understanding in the fields of criminology and other sociological matters. However, the big problem with some of these modern approaches is that they tend to downplay the proper placing and the attribution of faults and responsibilities to where they rightly belong – which is more to the individual offender than to anyone else.
I think we must be very careful with how we attempt to explain away, or rationalize some deeds of evil, all in the name of modern approaches and understanding of the human mind. Nothing has changed with the human mind and the evil that lurks within.
Some modern criminological theories provide social scientists insights such as:
(1) social disorganization/Chicago School theory, which posits that disorganized communities and breakdown of informal social control are the causes of crime. Criminal cultures emerge when these disorganization and breakdown occur;
(2) differential association/social learning/sub-cultural theory which states that interactions with antisocial peers is a major cause of crime because crime is learned through associations with criminal definitions;
(3) strain theory which states that the strain and pressure which result when individuals cannot obtain what they regard as their success goals lead to crime;
(4) control theory which assumes that the presence or absence of control is the key factor in crime causation; and
(5) rational choice/deterrence theory which is closely related to the classical theory. This theory holds that an individual weighs the “cost†and “benefit†of a potential crime, and that there is a calculus of “rationality†involved in the decision to commit or refrain from crime.
Obviously, there are some truth and understanding we may gain from these perspectives. BUT we MUST NOT push aside the individual responsibilities of these two alleged offenders in handling these horrific criminal acts. In a lot of cases, attempts have been made to place the blame on the society or the “system†rather than on the actual offender.
I pray for the surviving members of this victimized family. I also pray that the legal system and for those involved in the administration of justice in this and every land. I pray they may not be misled by criminological and other theoretical perspectives as they handle cases of victimization and evil deeds in this and other societies.
We Christians have our work cut out for us. We must not cease preaching the message of repentance and turning away from sin and the works of the Devil. We must continue to be true to our Baptismal Covenant, renouncing Satan and all the spiritual forces of wickedness that rebel against God, and renouncing the evil powers of this world and the sinful desires of the flesh.
Spiro
This story just haunts me.
This story is a dreadful one — I cannot imagine what Dr Petit must be going through.
I noticed that one offender, Komisarjevsky, was raped at the age of 14 by one of his family’s foster children. The psychological trauma of that event may well be the starting point for the drug addiction that followed. Sexual activity is not just a pastime; it has great repercussions — so it is no wonder that the Lord says that sexual activity has but one proper venue, heterosexual marriage.
#4, Personally, I don’t particularly care how a perps pathology began, it simply doesn’t matter in the real world.
In the real world, this waste of hair and teeth, terrorized, tortured and killed innocents in an act of evil.
What this proves, is that if there are individuals who are unwilling or unable to live his life correctly, they ought to be totally and permanently removed from society. Period.
Three strikes? These perps had scores of strikes, but the idiots in charge of the courts and prisons, (you know, the kinder gentler prisons where they are convinced they are re-habilitating the perps), let them out time after time, so they could engage in their anti social criminal activity.
They should be kept in prison for the rest of their lives, as should all such evil outlaws. It is only be separating the perps from the civilians that the civilians may be kept safer. Either keep these habitual criminals in prison for the rest of their lives, or post them as being listed under *open season* when they are released.
Pure evil. Yet as Christians we believe and we experience that where evil abounds, God’s grace does abound even more. Lord Christ, grant that it may be so in this man’s life, in his family and in this community. Amen.
Arm yourselves citizens, because our modern society indulges monsters.
May God be with the Petit family.
My personal reaction to this heinous crime……and I was a juror who heard testimony and saw evidence in a similar case here in California……is that if these two don’t get the death penalty, they should get life without parole and in solitary confinement. I don’t believe in the death penalty, because it solves nothing.
#8, the DP certainly solves three things.
1) It keeps the perp from murdering another. Such as these, when entering prison, will have to carve out their own niche there, in order to survive, and this often means that they have to make their bones. It is very common for incoming perps to injur,maim or murder other inmates, in order to qualify.
2) It gives closure to the remaining victims of the murder.
3) It keeps the perp from somehow getting out of jail again, on some kind of stupid, kinder-gentler prison parole adminstration and murdering another innocent.