The issue we have is that we have a revenge based idea of justice, not a rehabilitation based idea of justice.
Your uncomfortable crime and punishment thread for the day
- Thread starter GasBandit
- Start date
GasBandit
Staff member
What amazes me is that steinman can't see the benefits of not having one more career criminal a few years down the line.
There are three parts to sentences typically handed out in our justice system.
1. Punishment
2. Rehabilitation
3. Protect society/themselves
Rehabilitation, education, training, and therapy are all part of our system. They aren't ideal, but they are available for those prisoners who wish to use them.
The reality is that we cannot force prisoners to take part in rehabilitative activities due to our unusual legal structure that also prevents hard labor and so forth. We can encourage participation, but rehabilitation is not a big part of our system because we can't force them to participate.
Sometimes encouragement comes in the form of "If you attend 'boot camp' for troubled youth for two years you can avoid 5 years of prison." Other times encouragement comes while in prison, where attendees of classes receive special privileges.
Our legal system prevents us from forcibly rehabilitating someone against their will. That pesky 8th Amendment in our Constitution.[DOUBLEPOST=1383351693,1383351214][/DOUBLEPOST]
It's pretty amazing, that conclusion you were able to jump to from so far away.
https://www.google.com/search?q="10+year+old"+murderer
Take a look at a few other cases, and tell me that there has never been, nor will ever be a case where a 10 year old who kills another human in cold blood shouldn't receive any punishment.
Take a look at my posts and tell me where I said that.
It's strange how in a thread about racism you can detail the most specific hypotheticals to try to justify the practice, but here you're willing to take a broad brush to the situation without a second thought to specific differentiating circumstances between cases.
I get it guys. You read an article that is clearly biased to make the father look like a bad father, and the child look like a victim, and your heart reaches out to the child. You honestly believe in the innocence of children, and that they cannot, in and of themselves, become corrupt, and therefore are unable to comprehend their actions. You don't think they have the capacity to kill in cold blood, and thus should be exempt from justice when they kill someone.
Sometimes that's the case.
I don't think it's always the case, though, and in the absence of sufficient evidence in this case I have a hard time justifying this man's death.
You may not agree with the man's choices in life, but if you had the gun and the opportunity to kill him, would you do it for this child? Do you believe strongly enough that the man deserved a death sentence to pull the trigger yourself? Could you seriously say he deserves death from what little you know about him?
Now that he's dead, does he truly deserve no justice on his killer? The only thing you can see is this damaged child, and there's no point in punishing that child?
It's sickening that you think so little of human life that you want a killer, albeit a 10 year old killer, to get away with cold blooded murder just because of a few lines in an article suggesting that maybe there was some abuse, and that the father held viewpoints abhorrent to your white picket fence viewpoint of life.
"Huh. Little timmy killed his pa. Poor fella. He probably feels really bad. Let's go cheer him up. Just toss the dead body aside, the boy is far more important."
Yes, the child is damaged. He is also a victim. The sentence should be balanced, taking into account his ability to understand his actions, whether he can be rehabilitated, as well as the punishment for the crime of murder.
To say that justice is best served by only considering the child's needs is to completely dismiss empathy and justice for the victim of the murder.[DOUBLEPOST=1383352400,1383352270][/DOUBLEPOST]
So. Tell me what makes you personally believe that this child did not deserve the sentence he received.
I'm all ears.[DOUBLEPOST=1383352614][/DOUBLEPOST]And, just to be clear, I'm playing counterpoint to all the bias going on in here, inflamed, no doubt, by the exceptionally biased article.
I have no proof this child should have received the sentence he received. I'm merely responding to all the generalizations people are making about how children shouldn't be sentenced to prison for crimes.
I honestly expect we'll just go around and around in circles like in the trayvon martin thread due to too little information and too much bias based on emotional assumptions.
Sometimes that's the case.
I don't think it's always the case, though, and in the absence of sufficient evidence in this case I have a hard time justifying this man's death.
You may not agree with the man's choices in life, but if you had the gun and the opportunity to kill him, would you do it for this child? Do you believe strongly enough that the man deserved a death sentence to pull the trigger yourself? Could you seriously say he deserves death from what little you know about him?
Now that he's dead, does he truly deserve no justice on his killer? The only thing you can see is this damaged child, and there's no point in punishing that child?
It's sickening that you think so little of human life that you want a killer, albeit a 10 year old killer, to get away with cold blooded murder just because of a few lines in an article suggesting that maybe there was some abuse, and that the father held viewpoints abhorrent to your white picket fence viewpoint of life.
"Huh. Little timmy killed his pa. Poor fella. He probably feels really bad. Let's go cheer him up. Just toss the dead body aside, the boy is far more important."
Yes, the child is damaged. He is also a victim. The sentence should be balanced, taking into account his ability to understand his actions, whether he can be rehabilitated, as well as the punishment for the crime of murder.
To say that justice is best served by only considering the child's needs is to completely dismiss empathy and justice for the victim of the murder.[DOUBLEPOST=1383352400,1383352270][/DOUBLEPOST]
Ok. Tell me the specific differentiating circumstances in this case. The article is quick to point to allegations, but they aren't useful unless proven.
So. Tell me what makes you personally believe that this child did not deserve the sentence he received.
I'm all ears.[DOUBLEPOST=1383352614][/DOUBLEPOST]And, just to be clear, I'm playing counterpoint to all the bias going on in here, inflamed, no doubt, by the exceptionally biased article.
I have no proof this child should have received the sentence he received. I'm merely responding to all the generalizations people are making about how children shouldn't be sentenced to prison for crimes.
I honestly expect we'll just go around and around in circles like in the trayvon martin thread due to too little information and too much bias based on emotional assumptions.
I don't believe that when a person gets fucked up, and acts in a fucked up way toward the person who fucked him up, that the fact that the person was fucked up should be ignored. You're saying that the sentence should be balanced, but then defending the sentence as-is, which doesn't appear balanced.
A person of sound mental health typically doesn't go up to a sleeping person and shoot them. So he should be in a mental health facility where they can work on adjusting him to appropriate mental health standards. At that point, a sentence should be carried out, its length taking into account the mitigating circumstances of abuse. I do not think 40 years is an appropriate length of sentence for an abused person against their abuser, especially at 10 years old.
Now I pose a question--how far would the father have had to go where you would think the child's actions were justified? You've already said threat of immediate harm, but when services had been called, done nothing (as they typically do), how far should the abuse go? Or is it never, that the kid would never be justified in doing this?[DOUBLEPOST=1383353375][/DOUBLEPOST]To append that, a woman was recently granted parole after 20 years in a California prison. She was a human trafficking victim. Her trafficker raped her and brought other men in to rape her. One day, she got the chance to kill him and did so. She was put in prison for it until today. I don't think she should've been put in prison at all considering the situation she was in. Obviously we would've heard if the abuse in this case had been anywhere near that bad, but my point is that there are times where it's justified.
I've said what I think should go on with this kid and it's not just letting him out into the world right away, make him feel better, etc. other hyperbole bullshit.
Murder is such a horrific "solution" to a problem, that I think that individuals should only carry it out when their own life is in danger, or the life of another.
Abuse is a difficult call, though, and in some cases I would say murder is reasonable, particularly in cases of imprisonment and abuse that takes place over extended periods of time. Torture is, in my eyes, having one's life put in danger, so it's a relatively easy call there.
The fact that the jury determined that his action was not the result of self defense means it doesn't meet my admittedly high standards, assuming they and the defense did their job properly.
That sounds terrifying.
I think that your PROBLEM is that you're using your BRAAAIN when you ought to be using these...TORCHES!
--Patrick
I don't know about other people in this thread, but I'm certainly not condoning what the child did. Far from it. It was a horrible, horrible thing, as is all murder. The point is, is a ten year old child of full enough facilities to be fully culpable for his actions? There's a reason that children have different rules for those over 18. They generally lack the tools to understand the consequences of their actions, particularly when their sense of right and wrong has already been compromised by a background of abuse (which may or may not have happened in this case). My point is that this child obviously has serious developmental issues that will only exasperated by his incarceration. So, basically, we'll end up with a worse problem down the line.
Which is why it's important to decide on a case to case basis.
However the article suggests and many people here think that in this case the jury, judge, or lawyers failed in some way, though they don't provide evidence as to which part, exactly, failed, nevermind suggesting a fix.
Juvenile recidivism ranges from 12% to 55% depending on the state and how you measure it(p234).
But in the worst case, there's really only a 55% chance that he'll get out of jail and immediately turn to a life of crime.
I know everyone likes to paint prison as a place where people who made poor choices become bad guys, and bad guys become hardened criminals, and hardened criminals become kingpins, but I suspect that is exaggerated. Certainly the recidivism rate doesn't support that assumption.
So your assertion that his serious problems will only be made worse in prison and he'll be a worse problem down the line isn't backed by evidence. There's a chance he will, certainly, but evenadults have a recidivism rate of below 50%. Yes, that's intolerably high, but it doesn't support the theory that prison makes things worse any more than it supports the theory that prisons make things better.
But again, going on a case by case basis, this child obviously is not average. The vast majority of kids aren't in Juvie for murdering someone. I think this deserves a very close look at what is actually going on. Of course, that's always hard to do when everything is sensatinalized to hell and back.
I can at least say this - had this happened in Wisconsin, he would not have ended up by me. The state of Wisconsin does not adjudicate juveniles under the age of 12.
I vaguely have a memory of a similar case happening in Milwaukee - I believe it was involving the group of kids who beat an old man to death on the north side - but I don't recall what was done with the particular youth involved.
On a more generic level - crap like this happens frequently enough that I'm employed. Even here in Wisconsin.
I vaguely have a memory of a similar case happening in Milwaukee - I believe it was involving the group of kids who beat an old man to death on the north side - but I don't recall what was done with the particular youth involved.
On a more generic level - crap like this happens frequently enough that I'm employed. Even here in Wisconsin.