THE BTK STRANGLER,TRIAL: AND THE ACADEMY AWARD GOES TO……? DENNIS RADER!

Who are the real sickos here? Because I am a criminal profiler it is assumed I will be watching the Dennis Rader trial with great fascination. In fact, I haven't seen anything but the clips as they have flashed across the screen on the news and I have found those to be offensive. The coverage of Dennis Rader's sentencing is nothing more than reality television at its most depraved. Have we as a society sunk so low that even the court proceedings of cases of such a terrible nature are nothing more than cheap entertainment for the masses? Are we no better than Dennis Rader as we titillate ourselves with sick sexual perversions, scenes of torture, and brutal death? Perhaps we ought to sentence ourselves along with him if we hope to achieve any justice at all from this whole abysmal charade.

First, we need to get the cameras out of the courtroom and return criminal proceedings back to a reasonable level of decorum. Judicial proceedings are no places to allow criminals, lawyers, judges, experts, and witnesses to play to the camera and national audiences.

Secondly, crime scene photos and videos should stay in the courtrooms, the police files, and police training sessions. I myself have thousands of photos from a decade of cold case work but none of the photos end up on the Internet or in books for the public. I consider these photographs sacred and private. Only in the analysis and instruction of crime scene investigation should these photos be viewed outside of a judicial setting. Free speech should have its limits when the rights of the families of victims and the memory of their loved ones is sullied, trampled, and humiliated.

Third, once a person has been arrested, that person should only be permitted to speak to the police, court, his lawyer, his immediate family, or his minister (priest, rabbi, etc.) Following his conviction, those should be the only people he can continue to communicate with. Committed felons should not be permitted to show up on Dateline and Montel. They should also not be permitted to strike up "friendships" and "love" relationships while in prison, "date", marry, and father children. They should have no contact with the society they have abused. Ever.

Fourth, we as a society need to get over how "creepy" serial killers are. For God's sake, anyone who rapes and murders is a creepy guy. Do we really need to go over and over how perverted they are? Serial killers are pretty much carbon copies of one another. Yes, some dress up in women's clothes, some torture their victims in their basement chambers and others cook and eat their victims. They are depraved, horrible human beings who do very ugly things. Instead of wasting all our time focusing on every little detail of their crimes, why don't we focus on every little detail of police investigations, prosecutions, incarceration, parole, and laws regarding these criminals? In other words, why don't we spend our time getting serial killers off the streets and into jail where they belong?

We allow criminals like Dennis Rader public air time to tell his lies, mock his victims, continue to abuse the survivors, and have one hell of a grand time because we want to be entertained. I always thought that was what fiction was for, not real life and not at the expense of the suffering families; obviously I am not in the majority.

Pat Brown
The Sexual Homicide Exchange

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