Woman who killed husband "needs medical treatment"

Story here. Excerpt:

'Teresa Pohchoo Craig has a preoccupation with knives and could harm or kill herself or someone if she's not receiving proper medical treatment, a court heard yesterday.

Craig was convicted in June of manslaughter in the stabbing death of her husband, Jack Craig, while he slept in the couple's trailer near Kemptville in March 2006.

On Day 2 of a sentencing hearing, Crown prosecutor Jason Neubauer suggested Craig's risk to reoffend could put the community in danger.

"We're not talking about a property offence," said Neubauer, referring to Craig's crime. "If she relapses, somebody could die."'

My note: Correctional Services of Canada, in their paper called "Women convicted of Homicide Serving A Federal Sentence" (Oct. 1998), document that when women kill their victims usually are asleep or involved in some "other activity', whatever that may mean.

To quote: "Descriptive statistics demonstrate that a contract killer was more common in the context of a spousal homicide [committed by women] compared to the other typologies." [end quote]

Considering that a significant number of homicides remain unsolved we can only deduce that the number of men killed by their female partners will never be known.

And what were the men doing when they were killed? Corrections Canada tells us that

• 33.3% were asleep or passed out,
• 35.7% were engaged in some other activity,
• 4.8% were arguing or assaulting the co-accused,
• 19% were arguing with the offender,
• 7.1% were assaulting the offender.

On July 5-7, 1995, Correctional Service Canada (CSC) held a brainstorming session on women’s anger. As a result, a detailed program manual, called "Pathways", was written and completed in March 1996 by five of the community experts who participated in the brainstorming session. The following recommendation, however, was not accepted:

• "As CSC continued to learn more about the behaviour and needs of women who use aggression instrumentally [i.e. without provocation] and persistently, it became clear that this program could not meet their needs, as it required women to be ready to assume responsibility for their actions".

In its “Week without Violence” propaganda leaflet called “Facing Violence Among Men” the YWCA (Canada) writes:

• “Increasing number of men are realizing that they have to take responsibility for what they do. There are currently over 2,000 programs for men who have assaulted their partners”
and:
• “Confronting Violence Against Women -- Anger Focus Workshop” -- allow women to direct the anger that often comes with being the victim/survivor of abuse" (YWCA Week Without Violence p. 19)

Regards,

Eva