BTK-sounds like the new sandwich at Burger King, not a confessed serial killer. I heard about the BTK killer for the first time about 3 weeks ago, which makes the timing odd since he was just caught. Just in case there were people born in my generation who were to young to know who he is and for some reason haven't heard of him since his capture, I linked to hisstory.

One time he actually killed almost a whole family, including two children in the house, a boy and a girl. Their bodies were found by another child in the family. This is terrible, tragic, so bad I can't even come up with the right words to describe how i feel about this or about what i think should happen to him. But I still think all punishments should happen TO HIM.

Let me explain. When he was caught this was talked about a lot at work. I have someone sitting with me because i am training her. She and i were talking about it, so we started looking up some things on the court tv site. She said she was disappointed because there wasn't a picture of his family in there. She said that she thinks his kids should have big posters made of them with the tag line "Child of a Serial Killer." She said this would actually be a deterrent. She said that he killed the kids in that other family so his kids should suffer(by the way, I think they are suffering a LOT even without posters!) Then she put the last spin on it i could take. She said "It's in the genes so they will probably grow up to be murderers anyway, so it doesn't matter if they are hurt by it."

Needless to say, after that I stopped talking to her because i was afraid if i talked about this anymore I would have to get really upset and i was at work. So I just dropped it. But lets tackle these now(it will make me feel better)

1. Deterent-This would not act as a deterrent, especially if the children weren't even born yet. This is one of those sins of the father get visited on the children. I thought we were over that. I wonder if this woman would agree with the village counsel that ordered a woman gang raped as punishment for her brothers infidelity. Same principle, punish the family as a deterrent. People who are in the middle of committing serial killings will not stop and think, "Hmmmm, if i do this they might punish my children who I will have in the future so i should stop now." This is completely unrealistic.

2. Punishment-Lets brand the children because of what their dad did as punishment for their dad. Again, completely unrealistic. Kids of a serial killer have to suffer enough as it is without throwing fuel on the fire. There will already be people who blame the entore families, do we have to make it state sanctioned?

3. And my favorite-they will grow up to kill anyway-First of all, I would like to say that children of serial killers don't usually grow up to be serial killers. I know of only one instance where that happened, and thats because the dad trained his son to kill from a young age, not because the kid just happened to grow up and do it without any assistance from the father. Then, iven if this were true, if it were genetic and there was a small chance that children of serial killers could grow up to kill themselves, you still can;pt punish them for a crime they MIGHT commit. How would it be if people came along and considered the risk factors kids have in their lives. "Oh, your father is in prison, your older brother is in a gang, your mom isn't home much, and even though you are getting straight A's in school and show no signs of criminal behavior we assess you with a 40% chance of committing a crime. So please come with us sir to begin serving your estimated jail sentence." Wouldn't and shouldn't happen.