Content area
Full Text
Compassion for other human beings, even perpetrators, is a priceless quality that should be encouraged.
By the time this makes it into print, Susan Atkins may already be dead. Personally, I don't care one way or the other. The only thing I care about is the fact that she breathes her last breath in custody.
For those too young to remember, Susan Atkins was part of the Manson Family, a group that centered around and did the bidding of a man named Charles Manson in California in the late 1960s.
Manson, who is still in prison, is probably familiar to even the most youthful of police officers, but Atkins is not as well known. She should be.
Atkins was a young woman who worked as a topless dancer and willingly became involved in the drug culture of that era. Manson, a hypnotic cult leader, took Atkins into his group, which included a number of young, impressionable girls. Under his guidance, several of the young women, including Atkins, participated in a series of...