Reason First: How Many Theodore Bensons Are in the World?

To die in prison is a strange fate. It means that a person who clearly committed the crime now must meet his or her death for what they had done wrong. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, just under 20,000 men and women perished behind jail or prison walls between the years 2007 and 2010. In Delaware, convicted murderer Theodore Benson was the latest case of this face of death. While investigators continue to work on the case, it appears that Benson passed away from natural causes at the James T. Vaughn Correctional Center in Kent County.

Benson deserved his end. He had been found guilty of allowing a woman to burn to death after a kerosene lighter ignited a mobile home in 1994. Just to show how the justice system works, the killer served his time and was released in 2008. What brought Benson back to the big house involved his violation of probation in 2012. Upon his return to prison, he then assaulted a person. Is there any reason why this individual had such a short sentence in the first place? Why was Benson not put in solitary confinement until his heart gave out or he lost his mind or simply died spiritually, and had to live with the consequences of his actions until he eventually expired?

As many as 120,000 prisoners in America of the 2.4 million locked up may be innocent of the crime that they were charged with from the start. Benson was not one of them. He deserved absolutely no recourse or special treatment by the staff at the JTVCC. Some people ought to be punished and held accountable for their dealings early. His death signals a chance for cases like this to carry mandatory sentences that are in the hundreds of years. Whatever was wrong with Benson happens to inmates all across this land.

If they commit such a heinous crime as rape or murder, they should be caged in and never let go. Prisoners who are without a doubt guilty of taking another human being’s life where no self-defense remained present or assaulted someone should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. What separates Benson is the fact that he killed Elaine L. Sudler in such a horrific way. He strangled Miss Sudler and then exited from the flames. His stunt carried a sentence of 15 years. That’s it. He should have never been able to see more than an hour of daylight each day for the rest of his life, then die in prison.

When he assaulted the person while behind bars, this should have sent a red flag up to the Delaware Department of Corrections. Some people are just rotten. Now, will universities discuss the ugliness of felons? No. They’d choose to attempt to explain the goodness found in everyone. Will books and television and movies glorify the successful, thoughtful, and selfish businessman? No. Publishers and studios would rather indulge in the exploits of the vicious like Benson rather than see an ethically sound entrepreneur.

A set of choices, not spirits, or ideas distinct from reality led Benson to do what he did in this life. His death serves as the justice for Miss Sudler and the unnamed victim of his assault while in police custody.

Even though he did not serve a term that he should have or even receive the ultimate penalty, Benson found his end at the bottom of a prison cell. For those people who seek to harm others through force or fraud, it is not selfishness that they operate on but self-destruction. Though it appears to not be a suicide, Benson’s death demonstrates this fact.