Have you ever had Sympathy for a prostitute or a serial killer?

i understand why the OP used the tag, Referring to a specific case but Prostitution and Serial killers are not comparable in anyway.

It Makes me think of the death penalty. I don’t get why some see it as Barbaric if you have undeniable proof of things like this. You put down a rabid animal with no conscience or concern. I don’t get why people feel some sense of moral duty to not put down people who will threaten others lives for as long as they breath. Is locking them in a cage for life more “humane”? Seems like any exercise in optics , looking more civilised to feel good about yourself when it fact it’s not really.

I feel sympathy for anybody who suffers pain that is not of their doing. Especially children who have no help and are innocent to these corruptions. Everybody is a child at some stage , so even people who grow up corrupted or “evil” were once innocent children.

But I’d extend it out to drug addicts and anybody with additctions. Society is awfully close minded and ignorant to addiction and why people would choose to destroy their lives with a substance. Usually there is unbearable pain behind the addiction and the way society treats them is with contempt. Such a fickle, shallow ,uninformed, pathetic society in many regards. Keeping up appearances, the look of civility and no interest in anything they don’t fully understand.

You will see some suburban or upper middle class family suffer something awful and the collective pain felt will be ridiculously over blown. A junkie or alcoholic who was abused as a Child, never had any support (or a chance) and was demonised by society, succumbes to the addiction and nobody cares. Not just that “they deserved it” would be the sentiments of many on some level.

I think most of it is ignorance and people just absorbed in their own lives and what they can personally relate to. There is only so much we can care about but the problem is when most people don’t care about something they don’t care to understand it. It’s easier to presume addicts are people of poor character who choose a life of crime and pain rather then understand why a person would do that.

That is probably very true, but the rest of society can’t fix their problems for them though. If their instinct for survival isn’t strong enough then they will perish.

Yes I understand that. But what difference does it actually make whether you feel sympathy or n not? Essentially the drive still has to come from the effected person themselves.

My friends' clients tended to be older, wealthy, divorced men. Not criminal or dangerous.

I remember meeting two of them: one was a lawyer working for a big tech multinational, the other was C-level at another big tech company.

If I had to stereotype them (negatively) I'd say they were lonely and had low self esteem.

On a side note this makes me think of Vigilantes and where their actions are understandable. Parents or communities ganging up against drug dealers or anti social behaviour when the laws leave innocent people vulnerable to thugs.

This is one thing I’m surprised we don’t see more of to be honest. There’s plenty of injustices where criminals get off on technicalities or the police know who’s doing bad stuff but just can’t nail them.

I think of the tv series Dexter aswell with some of this talk. It’s hard to feel sympathy with bad guys who don’t get caught , getting killed.