Originally published at Notes From The Bunker. You can comment here or there.

From the scene shortly after a child-killer is executed by hanging:

That night I tried to figure out how such things could be kept from happening. Of course, they hardly ever do nowadays—but even once is ‘way too many. I never did reach an answer that satisfied me. This Dillinger — he looked like anybody else, and his behavior and record couldn’t have been too odd or he would never have reached Camp Currie in the first place. I suppose he was one of those pathological personalities you read about—no way to spot them.

Well, if there was no way to keep it from happening once, there was only one sure way to keep it from happening twice. Which we had used.

If Dillinger had understood what he was doing (which seemed incredible) then he got what was coming to him. .. except that it seemed a shame that he hadn’t suffered as much as had little Barbara Anne — he practically hadn’t suffered at all.

But suppose, as seemed more likely, that he was so crazy that he had never been aware that he was doing anything wrong? What then?

Well, we shoot mad dogs, don’t we?

Yes, but being crazy that way is a sickness—

I couldn’t see but two possibilities. Either he couldn’t be made well in which case he was better dead for his own sake and for the safety of others—or he could be treated and made sane. In which case (it seemed to me) if he ever became sane enough for civilized society. .. and thought over what he had done while he was “sick”—what could be left for him but suicide? How could he live with himself?

And suppose he escaped before he was cured and did the same thing again? And maybe again? How do you explain that to bereaved parents? In view of his record?

I couldn’t see but one answer.

…..

I wondered how Colonel Dubois would have classed Dillinger. Was he a juvenile criminal who merited pity even though you had to get rid of him? Or was he an adult delinquent who deserved nothing but contempt?

I didn’t know, I would never know. The one thing I was sure of was that he would never again kill any little girls.

That suited me. I went to sleep.

 

:shrug::: Crazy people do crazy things because…they’re crazy. When someone commits a heinous crime all the hand-wringing in the world about why and how are pointless – they do it because they’re insane. It’s really that simple. You cannot prevent someone from doing it, but you can prevent them from doing it twice.

Heinlein gets a rough rap about Starship Troopers but, much like Ayn Rand’s stuff, if you can get through it you certainly do wind up doing some thoughtful examinations about the philosophies within. Might not agree with them, but at least you think about things in ways you hadn’t before…that, to me, is the sign of good literature.