Ethan Crumbley, who was 15 when he killed 4 Michigan students, could spend the rest of his life behi

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. I pondered for a long time before commenting, because truly, I know my opinions are often

derailing. I appreciate the thought!

how would you recommend we handle cases like spree killers and mass murderers?

There's no easy answer to this -- which, I get it, is often used as a gotcha against abolitionists. But usually when people ask me this, my response is, "What are we doing with them now?" Specifically to this question, regarding spree killers and mass murderers, what we're doing is ignoring them until they kill enough people that we can't ignore them anymore, otherwise there wouldn't be a spree or a mass. What if we didn't ignore them? What if the resources that went into police and incarceration instead went into education and family support, so Ethan Crumbley and his family got the help they *clearly* need when he was a toddler? We know what prevents crime, but we refuse to fund it.

There are certainly serial killers who didn't have a wretched childhood, undiagnosed mental illness or ignored head trauma. They are very rare. People are comforted by the idea that there is a place with a lock on the door where they can hide people they think deserve to be hidden. In that case, for those very rare examples, perhaps a system could be designed that cannot be used against the powerless for political or social or cultural caprice, that has no roots in the current system, that is not torture, and that has a clear outcome that we all agree on. In our current society, I'm not sure that's possible.