Dementia, prison and psychiatric hospital stuff.

Hi everyone!

I had an idea a few weeks ago for a new project, and I need some information before I start planning everything and realize I've got it all wrong, so for those of you who know a little bit (or more) about criminals who are minors, feel free to share your information!

So, in this story, there's a guy, who's under 18 and he's killed several girls, let's say 3 or 4. At some point, he's caught while he's trying to hurt someone else. Everybody thinks it's the end of the story, but I don't want it to end there. I want the guy to come back later, angrier than ever and seeking revenge. So, I have a few questions:

- Is there a prison for minors who are particularly dangerous or would juvie take care of this?
- How long would a minor go to "prison" for murder? Does it change depending on the amount of murders?
- If he said he had dementia/insanity, would it be enough for him to go to a psychiatric hospital instead of jail? If not, what more would he need because I'm really thinking about sending him for a psychiatric hospital? And if it is enough, how long would he stay, knowing that he doesn't have dementia but there is definitely something not right with him?

Those are the few questions that pop up into my mind right now, but if you have more information that might be important, feel free to share them as well. Also, if you need more information about the story, just ask. I'm only writing the first draft at the moment, so I'll be able to give you some information and I'll also be able to change the story according to the info what you might give me.

Thank you to those who took the time to read and I'd really appreciate if you answered this post!
Good luck to those with exams coming up!


Edit: - I realize I might have used the wrong words here, I don't mean dementia necessarily, I thought that was an umbrella word for several mental diseases, but what I mean is insanity, or any condition that could explain or cause his violent and antisocial behavior.
Or, I thought maybe he could fake something else, because I think there's definitely something in his mind that makes him different from everyone else, but I thought he would fake something worse so he wouldn't go to jail, but in a psych hospital instead.

- The killer is about 16-17 when he kills the girls.
I haven't thought about his race yet, I didn't think it'd matter much, but someone pointed out that people of color usually get longer sentences than white people, which is sadly true, so the killer might be white in order to avoid stereotypes and also a political war, but I haven't decided yet.
He's American, he lives in the US, goes to school with the other characters in the story, he isn't in the US illegally or anything, to answer one of your questions in the comments.

- The girls were killed separately, with several weeks between the kills. The first girls were a "training" in different states (the story is in the US) to figure out his MO and get better, so he wouldn't be a suspect for the first kills before he kills the girl who was his target in the first place.
I don't really know his MO yet, like I said, I'm still writing the first draft, but I know the girls were killed in different states so the police wouldn't find a link between the kills. But they weren't very heineous crimes, and by that, I mean that he didn't eat them or torture them beforehand. And I don't think he raped them, either, but I need to dig deeper to find all of the details in the story.

- He might be convicted only for the last murder, since it was the one that happened in his state. Maybe the police from the other states don't find the link between the murders or they can't prove he's guilty since his MO changes in the first kills because he's experimenting.
Maybe it would fit better with the story if he was only found guilty for one murder, because I want him to go to a psych hospital (or something close) with even a slight possibility of escaping, and 3 or 4 murders would probably place him somewhere too safe and unable to escape from.

- Also, when I said I wanted the character to get out of prison/psych hospital angrier, I meant escaping. I realize killing 3-4 girls would keep him locked up for a long time, and I didn't write it in the post, but I wanted him to escape, possibly with the help from someone on the inside and/or outside, if that's possible, which it is probably going to be because I'm thinking about creating a fictional prison/medical ward thanks to someone's brilliant idea in the replies. But considering how much time passes in the story, if he waited for his sentence to actually be over, it would take wayyy too long.

Adelle said:

Hey! I used to be an attorney, so these are answers based on personal experience/legal background.

1. If your murderer is over the age of 13, and has committed several violent felonies (such as murdering 3-4 girls), he would be tried as an adult and likely sent to an actual prison where he would be kept in a semi-solitary confinement in maximum security, or kept separate until officials thought he could be integrated into a lower levels of security within the prison.

2. There are tons of cases where minors killed a single person and were given life imprisonment without the possibility for parole. I've never heard of a minor receiving the death penalty, but I don't think it's outside of the range of possibility depending on the state.

3. Saying you have dementia doesn't go far in court. At all. You need to be diagnosed by several medical professionals (who all agree you have a legitimate mental disorder that prohibits you from understanding right versus wrong). Even slight mental impairments (sometimes you hallucinate, you're a rageaholic, etc.) don't always qualify you for "not guilty by way of insanity". I know the insanity plea is played up in a lot of media (movies, TV shows) but it's super rare in the real world, and often doesn't work.

Just by the nature of the crimes, obviously something isn't right about a kid that murders lots of other people. That, again, doesn't prove he's insane for way of the plea in court. Some prisons have medical facilities all on-sight to deal with slight mental problems (some prisons even have dentists on staff) all because they'd rather not move prisoners all around, as that's unsafe.

If I were to offer you a solution to your problem, I would suggest you invent an experimental prison/medical ward institution that takes younger individuals and tries to rehabilitate them. Making up a plausible facility allows you to create the rules of the institution, and thus allow for your villain an escape route when there might not otherwise be one in real life.

*** This is all in terms of the United States - I have no experience with any other legal systems (outside of historical research involving common law).

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Thank you so much for your answer, it really helped a lot. I really like the solution you offered, I might create that experimental medical ward. I think that's what's best for the story.
Thank you very much for taking the time to answer!

cornflake said:

Need way more info but I think you're going to run into a serious roadblock if you want a teenager to have killed several people, on purpose, and walk out in any close timeframe. Deeply unlikely.

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Hi!

Insanity is what I meant when I wrote the post. I wrote it quickly and might have used the wrong words in some places.
Also, I don't want him to be released, I want him to escape, possibly with the help from someone on the inside and/or outside.

To answer your questions, he's about 17. He killed the girls one at a time, with a few weeks between each kill. And yeah, I guess I could say he killed the girls in different states, does it make a big difference in his sentence?

loose leaf said:

How long he'd be in prison depends on what country he's in, and whether or not he's tried as a minor. Some minors are actually tried as adults. Unless the legal minutia are critical to your story or message, I wouldn't worry about the details of how such things actually work in real life. Like someone else suggested, just create something new--a different system-- if it works better for you.

Dementia is NOT a psychiatric illness and you would NOT be in psych ward for it. Also, dementia does NOT make a person violent, murderous or heinously deranged. You've got the wrong illness here. It also almost never affects younger people, either. It's also not even a single disease--it's a term for a category of illnesses involving neurological decline.

Also, if the character is just trying to escape punishment, then trying to fake a disease is one thing. If he's actually suffering from it, I'd be extremely careful about what light that portrays sufferers of the disease in.

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Hi, I'm sorry I didn't use the right word. I meant "insanity" as in any condition that could cause his behavior. As a person with mental illnesses, I cringe when I see an inaccurate portrayal of my illness on TV or in books, and I definitely don't want to do that in my books.
Thank you for your answer, and I think I'm actually going to go with the different system, I think it would work better than anything else. After all, it's fiction.

Oh, also, the story is set in the US.

KiwiLady said:

Just agreeing with Loose Leaf and Albedo about dementia. I don't think it would usually affect someone in their teens. Both my mother-in-law and her sister have/had dementia and they were considered relatively young to be diagnosed in their early 50's (although I believe it's not unheard of to be diagnosed in your 30's). My MIL can still operate in an almost normal way. She knows right from wrong. What she doesn't know is what she did yesterday (although her sister recently died and she has these almost miraculous moments of remembering that - perhaps because it is a huge event for her), what she just said, what she's just been told. Basically, anything in her short term memory disappears. Long term memory is fine. I don't think dementia is the illness you are looking for here.

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Thanks for your reply. I realize now with all of your replies that I used the wrong word too quickly. Thank you for your explanation of the condition, I'm going to edit my post.

ConstellationSkies said:

Is there a prison for minors who are particularly dangerous or would juvie take care of this?
- How long would a minor go to "prison" for murder? Does it change depending on the amount of murders?
- If he said he had dementia, would it be enough for him to go to a psychiatric hospital instead of jail? If not, what more would he need because I'm really thinking about sending him for a psychiatric hospital? And if it is enough, how long would he stay, knowing that he doesn't have dementia but there is definitely something not right with him?


Hello, hello~

I'm going to come at this with a background in dementia and Alzheimer's (both parents worked for decades on care staff)

Q1) Adelle brilliantly answered the juvie / length of sentence questions. However, I'll add a bit: how long a kid goes to jail can vary with their age, race, gender, and state, but there are other factors.
*Sadly, people of color go to jail on average longer than white folks. (I say ON AVERAGE to avoid starting a political war) If you make your murderer a person of color, make sure to aaaaaaaaaaaaavidly avoid stereotypes - maybe even make them a factor in his release. Perhaps his lawyer argues his original sentence was unfair because of the judge's bias or something. Just... tiptoe.
*Female murderers often get far lighter sentences than men, which is reflected in the percentage of females executed for crimes and women imprisoned for crimes versus the male side of the stats. There currently aren't any reliable stats for those who don't identify as male or female.
*After age, perhaps the biggest effect of how long kids will stay in juvie / jail is their state. Was each murder committed in the same state? If note, prisoners are often extradited to states with the most severe sentences. Some states don't allow kids under a certain age to be held in federal prisons - which can be very different from jails - and other states won't allow kids to be placed in jail for life.

Q2) See above. Though, how long a person goes to jail mainly depends on the skill and time commitment of their lawyer, the heinousness of the murder (did he torture them beforehand? Eat them? Rape them? Or just kill them in a single, rage-induced blow? The more disturbing the crime, the longer they'll go away.

Q3) Dementia and Alzheimer's actually don't allow for complete memory loss of all new memories until the later stages. As others have stated, if he has such late-stage dementia he (1, would constantly be surprised by where he woke up if he wasn't in his house --- and 2) There would be a massive amount of doctoral documentation, especially for dementia appearing in such a young individual.

Regarding early-stage (or early-onslaught) dementia, it is most frequently seen in extensive alcoholics, and even then the earliest case I've heard of is in the early thirties. Generally, for novels like this, being a practically-unseen medical phenomenon is just... convenient. Try a more reasonable excuse to forget his crimes: he has traumatic brain damage from something, which can include *falling the wrong way down the stairs, *playing football, *being failed by a bicycle helmet. I've personally seen all 3 of those cases. There's also drug-induced memory loss (both pharmaceutical and abuse), traumatic denial (where the brain forces out memories, see some abuse victims), and scores of other reasons not to remember.

Your premise sounds like it can work, but dementia most likely isn't the answer.

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Hi. Thank you for your answer! Yes, dementia isn't the word I was looking for, I realize that now.
Your reply is very helpful, I'll probably use some of the ideas you wrote. Thank you so much for helping me!

Tabitha Rose said:

One possibility for having him getting out would be that to catch this guy, the cops framed a guilty person. That is, he did it, but they couldn't prove it, so they faked enough evidence to get him put away. This comes out and he gets released. Not super realistic (it's hard for an actually innocent person to get out in that situation), but definitely within the bounds of possibility.

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Hi!
Thank you for your reply, I'll definitely think about it!