Raymond Buxton- once again criminalizing the insane

  An alert reader of your CRIME story on January 31 (  " Long denied parole, rapist freed on ' good time'  " ) will note that Raymond Buxton " was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder " , that he had delusions and hallucinations - " such as believing in radio transmissions from one of his teeth and that the ACI was withholding Oscar and Grammy awards that he'd won ".  What is the rational basis for criminal punishment for such a deranged mind ? How can  " free will " and " knowing right from wrong "  be applicable here ?  How are people with broken minds more wicked than people with a cancerous liver ? 

      

        The president of the Rhode Island Brotherhood of Correctional Officers, Richard Ferruccio, says " We do hope.... inmates are being rehabilitated here, with classes and programs ". ACI  classes and programs  for the  severely mentally ill like Raymond Buxton ?  A professional psychiatrist supervises these programs ?  Along with a resident exorcist and an astrologer to assure his future " good time "  ? 

          The idea that ANY inmates - most certainly not the clearly and diagnosed insane - are being rehabilitated in the American Gulog is  absolutely false.  Why does not the Providence Journal  consider  planting an investigative reporter at the ACI ?. Perhaps an honest report will get the attention of the United Nations or the World Court. Shine some light on this infernal darkness ?

            Gathering dust in our public libraries are whole collections of scholarly books on the nightmare of the U.S. prison system. The daily abuse of helpless, voiceless prisoners is just plain  unacceptable injustice.  But fear not citizens of Rhode Island this guy  Raymond Buxton -and many other  ACI inmates just like him: " The Department of Corrections has an excellent probation department " , says Peg Langhammer.

              

                    " Counselors who are highly trained in supervising "...... the severely mentally ill ?

February Reader's Digest article : INSANITY of closing mental hospitals

Just weeks after the Providence Journal published my letter observing the neglected mentally ill in  Providence's Kennedy Plaza ( " Misery of the mentally ill all around us ", Dec.!5 ) I was pleased to read this article, " Schizophrenic Killer- My Cousin " by Mac McClelland in February's  Reader's Digest.  The article makes the same points on the moral catastrophe of deinstitutionalization  with a personal story of a horrific murder that could have been prevented: "  It's insanity to kill your father with a kitchen knife. It's also insanity to close hospitals, fire therapists, and leave families to face mental illness on their own ". The writer goes on to detail the " vanishing mental health safety net " in this wealthy country. " Today there is one public psychiatric-care bed per 7,100 Americans- the same ratio as in 1850 ".

          My own beloved but severely mentall ill brother was also a victim of this not so benign neglect . I found his bloated, blackened, unrecognizable corpse in his Warwick apartment one very hot day last June. My sister and I were bringing him his  lithium refill. His medical doctor had delayed it because Ray had failed to keep an appointment ( not cooperating ? ) . Ray was a radio technician for the Warwick Police Department for some 20 years.  A funeral  contingent showed up at the Pawtucket Cemetery to fire off shots in his honor. " Finally, a little dignity for Ray ", I thought. At the wake his two daughters and old friends agreed sadly that our mental health system stinks. Not for nothing Ray talked to God at night in the tone of old Job of the Old Testament. He was a devout Catholic to the end.

            We hope change is in the air.

Raymond Buxton- once again criminalizing the insane

   An alert reader of your CRIME story on January 31 (  " Long denied parole, rapist freed on ' good time'  " ) will note that Raymond Buxton " was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder " , that he had delusions and hallucinations - " such as believing in radio transmissions from one of his teeth and that the ACI was withholding Oscar and Grammy awards that he'd won ".  What is the rational basis for criminal punishment for such a deranged mind ? How can  " free will " and " knowing right from wrong "  be applicable here ?  How are people with broken minds more wicked than people with a cancerous liver ? 

      

        The president of the Rhode Island Brotherhood of Correctional Officers, Richard Ferruccio, says " We do hope.... inmates are being rehabilitated here, with classes and programs ". ACI  classes and programs  for the  severely mentally ill like Raymond Buxton ?  A professional psychiatrist supervises these programs ?  Along with a resident exorcist and an astrologer to assure his future " good time "  ? 

          The idea that ANY inmates - most certainly not the clearly and diagnosed insane - are being rehabilitated in the American Gulog is  absolutely false.  Why does not the Providence Journal  consider  planting an investigative reporter at the ACI ?. Perhaps an honest report will get the attention of the United Nations or the World Court. Shine some light on this infernal darkness ?

            Gathering dust in our public libraries are whole collections of scholarly books on the nightmare of the U.S. prison system. The daily abuse of helpless, voiceless prisoners is just plain  unacceptable injustice.  But fear not citizens of Rhode Island this guy  Raymond Buxton -and many other  ACI inmates just like him: " The Department of Corrections has an excellent probation department " , says Peg Langhammer.

Notorious Foot Licker Redux

 Police news in the Providence Journal , Jan.28: "  Raymond Dublin, the notorious ' Footlicker in trouble again ". The Boston Globe published my comments on him in a letter dated August 31, 2003: " Free the Footlicker ! " it was titled. " At worst Ray Dublin represents Providence at its most kinky ". I thought he had received " a rather harsh sentence of 18 months in prison ".

         Now more than a decade later we see how hopeless it is to process pathological cases through our criminal justice system. When will we cease to make severe mental illness a crime ? When will the courts rise above a Dark Age understanding of the human soul ? In general, our legal system acts as if intellectual giants like Darwin, Marx and Freud never existed. No more lawyers like Clarence Darrow out there ? No more editors like H.L. Mencken ?