Kazan shooter Galyaviev sentenced to sanity

Although initially a forensic psychiatric examination showed that Galyaviev was suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. But then another examination showed that he was fully aware of what he was doing. How fair is the sentence, or would it be more correct to send this person for compulsory treatment?

On the one hand, everything is clear – today’s Russian society would hardly have accepted it normally if the killer of children had gone not to jail, but to a hospital bed. Albeit in a medical institution of a specialized type with intensive supervision.

On the other hand, this is a thief and a murderer should be in prison, and a mentally ill person should still be treated in a hospital. By the way, there are eight such special hospitals in Russia. They contain about 5,000 people. And the observance of their rights, no matter who they are and no matter what they have done, has not been canceled.

According to surveys, the majority of our fellow citizens believe that getting into a psychiatric hospital, albeit a special type, is like escaping punishment, getting off the hook.

At one time, Chikatilo was also recognized as sane and shot. Even Soviet people, who are much more calm and peaceful than our contemporaries, would hardly have understood if a serial killer had been declared insane and, on this basis, left to live. Although the fact that the Rostov maniac, one of the most bloodthirsty in world history, was mentally ill, the medical community has no doubt decades after the execution.

“In fact, the criteria for sanity are quite vague. This is all very subjective, – at my request, a familiar psychiatrist agreed to assess the situation. – One expert thought so, another that, and the judge, who is not a doctor, makes the final decision based on his own inner convictions and life experience, which can also be subjective. We are all people, and people tend to make mistakes or follow the lead of the collective majority. The same Breivik in Norway, who shot dozens of people, was once recognized as sane. Personally, I have doubts about this. Yuri Budanov, who shot the Chechen woman Elza Kungaeva in 2003, was subjected to four examinations: first he was declared insane, diagnosed with an “organic disorder of personality and behavior due to a brain injury” associated with experienced concussions, and then still sane and sent to a correctional facility colony. The request of society at that time required just such a decision; at another time, under similar circumstances, it might have been different. In this case, the diagnosis, in my opinion, was generally secondary.

By the way, those who have gone through such medical institutions themselves are sure: the usual zone is better. More hope that sooner or later you will be released. Even a lifer.

As Pushkin wrote there: “God forbid I go crazy, it’s better to have a staff and a scrip.”

In fact, this is a very thin line – sanity, insanity. Even the presence of a mental illness does not negate the fact that a person was aware that he was committing an unlawful act. And, therefore, must answer to the fullest extent of the law.

“But the task of a humane society is not to take revenge on the mentally ill, but to isolate and ensure their safety in the future,” the expert believes.

Any convict who is recognized as insane and, therefore, unable to answer for his actions, can be sent for compulsory treatment – from an ordinary thief to a maniac-murderer. (Although, according to statistics, murderous maniacs are just more often recognized as sane for the reason that we described above. – Auth.)

For doctors, they are all patients, not criminals. However, the difference is not too great. Doctors are people too. As are the judges. And they also have their own experience.

But, let’s be honest, such a “patient” has much less opportunities to change his position than an ordinary criminal.

The same life-sentenced person has the right to ask for parole after 25 years of serving his sentence, but staying in a medical institution does not depend on the severity of the offense, but solely on the verdict of the doctors. In general, there is no direct connection between the crime committed and the punishment imposed.

When I was a human rights activist, I talked with a recidivist thief with a psychiatric diagnosis of schizophrenia, who served 23 years. Every six months, the medical commission extended his treatment.

Doctors can be understood too. There were cases when they were released, taken on bail, and already at liberty a person committed a new crime, sometimes even more terrible than the previous one, and again stopped by his own bed.

Nobody wants to bear such responsibility. Therefore, let it be better so – under supervision and forever.

The first few years in intensive care. Under huge doses of drugs. In fact, they are not aware of themselves. You talk with such patients and you don’t understand: they are in this world or in the next.

Yes, the chambers here do not resemble prison cells. This is exactly what hospital rooms are. During the day you can sleep, you are allowed to read books and newspapers. So the years go by…

No hope to change or fix anything. Without even hope to influence what and how they treat. From this point of view, the relatives of the victims can be completely satisfied – retribution has come true.

By the way, no one canceled judicial errors either. Dmitry Medkov spent three years in a special hospital in the Stavropol Territory, who was once accused of killing his sister. And then it turned out that the girl simply ran away to her fiancé in neighboring Dagestan. When the guy was released, he was almost a vegetable. Yes, the perpetrators were punished, but who will return a person to health and years of life?

All the time spent in the special hospital, Medkov tried to explain that he did not kill anyone. But who would believe a schizophrenic? By the way, this is one of the problems of such institutions – complain do not complain, but a psychiatric diagnosis is a stigma. Especially if the patient is a criminal.

Of course, Galyaviev is a completely different story, he committed mass murder in front of many witnesses, but the law is the same and must be respected in any situation, as well as human rights.

But for the same human rights activists, it is in many cases much more difficult to get into such institutions than into correctional colonies. And it is even more difficult to achieve any positive changes in this system. Which seems to be more medical than correctional. Although, rather, two in one. Moreover, the disadvantages and disadvantages of one are added to the disadvantages of the other.