Let’s rub her nose in it! That will teach her a lesson. We’ll all feel better. The world seems like a safer place. Pictures of the "runaway bride" (Jennifer Wilbanks) are in the papers this week – mowing the grass at a probation center. She is to spend 120 hours doing public service for lying to the police. I don’t have any problem with her being held accountable but when I read that she has completed 24 hours of the time by scrubbing toilets in probation offices, picking up trash and washing public vehicles I felt sick.
Then I saw the story on NBC’s Today Show. Their zeal for exclusive stories has a reporter and camera crew interviewing Ms. Wilbanks in the middle of probation office grounds. She becomes visibly anxious and cuts the interview short saying, "I better get back to work. I don’t want to get in trouble." The reporter then interviews a woman who apparently works there and is supervising the various assignments. She reassures the reporter that Ms. Wilbanks has been very responsible and has worked hard. The reporter concludes the story saying "she’s no longer running away from her responsibilities."
What an idiot! Is that really the way he understands this story? It has been widely reported that she has been under intensive psychiatric treatment since she drew national media attention. The facts of the initial story and the subsequent events have shown that she is not a sociopath or criminal – she probably suffers from a form of bipolar mood disorder.
So let’s chase her around the yard as she mows the grass and let’s make her scrub toilets at the probation center. Let’s get the message out to all the potential criminals out there we’re not going to tolerate lying to the police. I think I’ll throw up!
2 thoughts on “I Think I'm Going To Be Sick”
The national news carried very little on this poor woman compared to what the locals did. They ALL reported that she “checked in” to a mental health center. The implication was that she somehow used a mental problem to escape the reality of the law. This goes to show how far we still have to go to accept help from mental health professionals and by doing so not appear like we’re copping out.
Well now, let’s see here. I worked for two years day and night to get a girl out of prison. She became a drug addict trying to medicate her bi-
polar illness back in the late 70’s when we had our little “war on drug addicts.” She was diagnosed with this before her arrest for a personal amount of crack cocaine, and again in
prison. She was given 20 years for her crime of
drug addiction,(did 12 1/2) and she got many cases against her in prison because Nuerontin (?) just was not
doing the job for her manic behavior. As furious
as I was about this case (and her three children
who had to grow up without a mother)I do agree that we are all responsible for our behavior and
should have to suffer some kind of consequence. It’s too bad we don’t have some kind of Mental
Illness maditory Treatment Centers but we don’t.
We have some evidence that childhood vaccinations
could be a big contributor to the amount of people we have who are self medicating ADD and
Bipolar illness. We had better get it on the ball
and make an alternative to the hard core prisons
(which only teach a person how to survive and do
nothing what so ever to treat them!) That’s what
we should be discussing here! Is there no spell
check on this thing?????