It is really unfortunate when horrific crimes are committed and end up on the news. The authorities have to work very hard to catch the criminals fast so it will not happen again. And yet each time they broadcast the investigation or crime it gives ideas to copycat criminals. The copycat-criminal may not be as smart as the original evildoer or bad guy, and although they may be caught easier; that only means that the original culprit is still at large.
District Attorneys work very hard to make an example of these sorts of menaces to society and put them away for long periods of time. Sometimes law-enforcement pushes the envelope and tries to pin crimes on the copycats or even when they didn’t do all of the crimes. The district attorney gets credit for prosecuting someone, the sheriff gets credit for catching them, the detectives get credit for good detective work, and the judge also gets credit and will perhaps be reelected or reappointed to the bench.
However, Justice is not served until all the criminals of all these crimes are caught; including the original culprit and all the copy-cats.
It is often easy to lose sight of true justice when the media and the public are so demanding action, and yet that is the job of the criminal justice system, and the police. Things get even more complicated when a copy-cat-criminal is caught, and another one takes their place, while the real-criminal is plotting more serious acts of violence or even murders, attempting to differentiate.
A copy-cat-criminal may admit to a crime he did not do just to take the credit for it and although he has committed other crimes and deserves to be punished, he is inevitably convicted of a crime(s) he did not commit while the actual bad guy goes unpunished; only to live to commit another crime, on another day.
Please consider all this. No I am not writing any true crime novels, I just thought you should know.
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