I recently came across a clip from an old American TV show where they interviewed serial killer Westley Allan Dodd, who was a sadistic pedophile who killed three kids and raped at least 175 others. His is a history of being arrested and released, with short or very mild sentences that let him continue victimizing innocent children for about 15 years. That is, from the time he was only 13 until the day of his arrest, which occurred when he had by then turned 28. When asked what he did when he was arrested and convicted, Dodd replied:

I just went back to doing what I used to do.

He seemed to blame the authorities for not stopping him, rather than taking responsibility for his actions.In short, Dodd had taken advantage of all the opportunities American law had given him to turn his life around and stop committing crimes. Instead, this “clemency” made him more and more convinced that nothing could ever stop him. It drove him to commit more and more serious crimes to satisfy his perverse sadistic curiosity. Even after he was sentenced to death in 1990, the idea never left him. He even said:

I must be executed before I have an opportunity to escape or kill someone in prison… If I do manage to escape, I promise you I will kill…