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#1
08-27-1999, 02:04 PM
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Recently in Philadelphia a woman was stabbed to death while walking her dog by an eleven year old girl, who later walked into a beauty parlor and told the owner what she had done (holding the bloody knife in her hand). She claims to have done this because she was angry that her cousin had hit her with a belt. Another woman who has walking with her 2 year old escaped the same fate by crossing the street. This woman had no idea what the girl was doing and by the time the woman called police, the dog walker was already bleeding to death on her front porch.
Authorities are trying to decide if she should be tried as an adult. What factors should be considered? ------------------ I someday hope to become the person my dogs think I am... 
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#2
08-27-1999, 03:32 PM
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Tough question there, Jen. I'm no psychologist, but I would say it's a different story for each child. Children all mature at different ages, such that some 11 year olds (though not many, I would venture to say) might not understand the consequences of their actions. Not that they shouldn't be punished, but if they don't understand then the punishment shouldn't be as severe. Therefore a set age (much like statuatory rape ages)for being tried as adults is really not the best of ideas. I mean, some 8 year olds might do the same thing and understand completely the ideas of motive and the consequences of their actions. I am quite certain that I would have been much the same way when I was young. The children at Jonesboro were very sure of their actions. But who can really say?
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#3
08-27-1999, 03:36 PM
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Yoinks! That's a tough call. But the girl seems to have had something resembling premeditation in mind. I'm no lawyer, mind you. But that girl was angry, and she left her house (or wherever she happened to be), looking for some serious trouble. My knee-jerk opinion--try her as an adult. I think I'd have to know more about the girl, though. Any links to a story I can read about this?
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#5
08-27-1999, 08:24 PM
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I say try both the girl and her parents as adults...
------------------ Brian O'Neill CMC International Records rockuniverse.com/cmc/cmc.html ICQ 35294890 AIM Scrabble1 Yahoo Messenger Brian_ONeill
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#6
08-28-1999, 09:42 AM
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First off, children should only be tried as adults for major offenses which injure or kill others; arson, murder, and armed assault fall into this category. Something like theft, even if he stole a car, just doesn't justify putting a child into an adult prison.
I think that anyone over 15 should be assumed to know the consequences of his actions, and should be tried as an adult. Before that age, a psychological evaluation should be performed to see if the child knew and understood exactly what he was doing. This is the best I can come up with, though there are any number of problems with it. For instance, if a ten-year-old is able to plan and attempt a murder, he's probably smart enough to feign ignorance of the consequences. ------------------ I'm not a warlock. I'm a witch with a Y chromosome.
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#7
08-28-1999, 10:04 AM
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What do y'all mean when you say "consequences"? I can buy the idea that an eleven year old may understand the idea that if you do bad, you go to jail. And I can easily see an eleven year old too pissed off to care about going to jail. The harder consequence is understanding about death. At what age do we start understanding the permanance and seriousness of death? At that age you certainly don't believe that you yourself are ever going to die.
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#8
08-28-1999, 11:24 AM
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Here is a link to the story from last Sunday's Philadephia paper.
http://www.phillynews.com/inquirer/9...ity/STAB22.htm
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#9
08-28-1999, 11:32 AM
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Oh jeez, I just read that story. Something's telling me now that maybe this girl should not be tried as an adult. I think she does need to go to a juvenile center, though, and it sounds as if she needs some real help. I'm going to keep an eye on this story & see what happens.
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#12
08-28-1999, 02:45 PM
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Does anyone remember the murder of James Bulger from the UK? He was the two year old who was taken from a shopping mall and turtored and murdered by an eleven and ten year old. I was just wondering, since I cannot remember, what ever happened to them? Were they tried as adults?
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#13
08-28-1999, 03:52 PM
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Satan: my point is that only someone incapalbe of thinking would consider the parents to be responsible for the commission of an act they did not commit.
I seem to recall a lenghty thread about this very subject.
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#15
08-28-1999, 11:40 PM
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Monty:
Well, I did not comment in the thread on the subject. I say that if you breed, you are responsible for your offspring's behavior to a degree. If they look into the parents history and see they were bad parents by even the most liberal definition you could think of, I say that they should share in the blame for this. Not when the individual is, say, 17 years old. But when a 10 year old snaps, I'd say that looking into how the parents treated their little bundle of joy should not go unaccounted for. Example: A 10 year old is taught overt racism by his KKK parents and kills a black person. Example: Child lives whole life around drugs, sex and violence caused by the lifestyles of the parent(s). Example: A young boy is molested or abused on a regular basis and lashes out an another authority figure. Of course, there are kids who, like postal workers, just *snap* and I am not prepared to say that every bad thing a child does is brought on by bad parenting. But in cases where the parenting proves to be a cause or at least a starting point for the violent act committed by the child, hell yes I hold them accountable. More so than the child in some cases...
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#16
08-29-1999, 12:00 AM
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Satan
Member posted 08-27-1999 08:24 PM Quote:
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#17
08-29-1999, 07:04 AM
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I still say an 11 year old knows it is WRONG to kill someone, and it is WRONG to stab someone.
You do the crime, you do the time. I certainly wouldn't want that 11 year old out in society. Unfortunately putting her/him in jail will just in the long run make him/her a crim so there is no real easy answer. Still I say they should be punished as an adult. We don't really have a lot of VIABLE options. Truly a case of nobody coming out better.
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#19
08-29-1999, 04:33 PM
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Auraseer: legal or moral responsibility?
Legally, the act of the murder is an event in and of itself. The act of teaching racism would, sadly, work in favour of the defense. Now, one would suppose the child would ask, "Hey, parents! Why aren't you killing those folks, then?" But, of course, racism and bigotry know no logic. Anyway, I personally find the act of the parents above to be reprehensible. But it's not an accessory before the fact to murder. It's just damn poor parenting.
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#20
08-29-1999, 05:44 PM
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Please show me, Monty, where I said the parents were guilty of murder?
I said the parents were accountable in some cases, and should be tried. Period. Call it what you will - an accessory to murder? I'm sure there are a ton of things they could get a bad parent on even not including the word murder. I said they are accountable for their offspring up to a certain age, and should be held accountable. And I maintain that...
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#21
08-29-1999, 07:51 PM
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Good grief, Satan. Then exactly what word did you leave out in your statement that the parents should be tried? I certainly don't think you meant the children should be tried for an act they didn't commit. Yet, you are right here trying to support the argument that the parents should be. Can you really have it both ways?
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#22
08-29-1999, 07:54 PM
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And what about the parents of the parents, Satan? And their parents? Ad infinitum? One day, just maybe, you'll recognize the concepts of individual responsibility and informed consent. But from your posts in this thread, I'm not holding my breath.
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#24
08-29-1999, 09:21 PM
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Individual responsibility is fine for an adult. We are talking (in the cases that I am talking about) about children who have no values because of the adults whose job is to raise them correctly.
I say the minute you bring a life into the world, if you make that life into a fucked up human being who kills other human beings, you have responsibility. According to what you're saying, if a 9 year old boy broke your car window with a baseball, by accident of course, the parents would be perfectly within their rights to say to you, "Hey, he's got to take individual responsibility! Of course he has no money, because he's nine and all, but I'm sure you and he can work something out when he is 16 and gets his first job. But that's not my concern, because I certainly didn't break your window!" If it's my kid I pay for the damages, and if it was my window, the parent better pay for the damages. And I believe that there are court cases on record where the parents are responsible in this case. They are not guilty of actually breaking the glass, but they are held accountable. Which is what i said all along. As for you other arguments, really childish and moronic. Yeah, I suggest we blame Adam & Eve since they started it all... How stupid can you be?
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#25
08-29-1999, 09:40 PM
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No, Satan, that is not what I'm saying at all.
Childish and moronic, hey? Check the courts for how adults handle this stuff. Small Claims gets pretty interesting. And in case you haven't noticed, I was ascribing that argurment to you. Nice of you to give a good description of it. In the case of the broken window; if it's an accident, then it's up to the parties involved on how to work it out. Usually the parent of the offending party volunteers to pay for the thing so the minor inolved doesn't get what's commonly referred to as a juvenile record. If it's intentional, then the minor gets the juvenile record. In the case of the killing of another human; well, that's been quite a political hot potato recently. Do you have any background in law? My rating in the military involves administrative tasks in both nonjudicial and judicial aspects of the military.
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#26
08-29-1999, 10:17 PM
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Why is it that the only time we want to treat children as if they are adults are when we want to punish them? If a child is a good citizen, gets good grades, and behaves like a normal adult should, do you let them drink alcoholic beverages or have sex when they want it?
I say that when a child is legally a child, you treat them as such. anything else is hypocracy and revenge disquised as societal concern.
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#27
08-29-1999, 11:00 PM
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slythe:
Actually, to a degree when kids do well they are treated more like adults. In school, kids who get good grades and are not brats generally have more priviledges than other kids. Also, many parents use increased responsibilities and rights as a reward. Often, curfews will be lifted, cars will be loaned, things will be bought, more allowance and what have you. Theoretically, it is these baby steps of greater responsibilities and more freedoms which help a child learn the difference between acting responsibly or not. Conversely, bad children tend to have less freedoms than their good counterparts. Monty: I don't see how your background in law means your opinion is any more or less valid than mine. In terms of what I said legally, yes, there have been tons of cases where parents are held responsible for the acts of their children. Surely, someone as accomplished in law would know this, if a layman such as myself has seen cases. I really hate debating someone who doesn't know how to debate. I am giving you reasons why a parent should be held responsible in some cases for what their children do, and you respond back that I don't have a law background. I guess I could easilly just say you must not have a communications background, because you sure don't have a clue how to make a point, or respond to one with any intelligence.
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#28
08-30-1999, 12:02 AM
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Satan: your example above does not directly tie the killing (the result) with the teaching of racism (the initial act). Good luck on getting that through the courts, though.
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#29
08-30-1999, 12:55 AM
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Monty, presume the parents routinely told the kid, "Black people are evil and they all deserve to die." Would you still say that they bear no responsibility when that child murders a black person?
------------------ I'm not a warlock. I'm a witch with a Y chromosome.
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#32
08-30-1999, 01:04 PM
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My wife is a doctor at a youth detention facility. Some of the kids are just victims of being born in a bad situation. Crime is a part of their environment.
But other ones are organically messed up. They will never be stable or safe. I see it at least 4 times a year. There is some kid who is mentally ill and violent. They get let out and a few weeks later they are on teh front page of the paper. For the latter types, there is only one solution: lock them up forever. It is very, very sad.
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#33
08-30-1999, 01:25 PM
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When should children be tried as adults?
My answer: never. I'm no softie when it comes to crime. However, it sound to me like "taxation without representation." If we don't extend to a person all the privileges of an adult, it's wrong to extend to them all the obligations of an adult. I am of the opinion, though, that juvenile crime records should be considered relevant when, as an adult, that same person commits a crime. ------------------ Chaim Mattis Keller ckeller@schicktech.com "Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible. The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks." -- Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
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#34
08-30-1999, 04:35 PM
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Quote:
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#36
08-31-1999, 12:35 AM
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When should children be tried as adults? I don't know. There are many good arguments on all sides of this. But I would like to ask a related question: When children are accused of these crimes, the courts and/or media will often conceal their identities. This is done very rarely for adults. Why is that distinction made?
If someone is convicted, everyone should know all the details. But if someone is merely accused, why does the media have a right to publicize everything they want? Why don't adults have the same protections that children do?
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#37
08-31-1999, 08:47 PM
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Satan
Member posted 08-27-1999 08:24 PM Quote:
Satan Member posted 08-29-1999 09:21 PM Quote:
Satan Member posted 08-29-1999 11:00 PM Quote:
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#38
08-31-1999, 09:46 PM
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Actually, juvenile records are made public for sentencing in later adult offenses in some states, VA being one of them. We have also opened juvenile trials to the public in most instances. This year is the 100th Anniversary of the Juvenile Court System in America. The idea of dealing w/ juvenile offenders is that kids are maleable: we can't look at a small child and tell with much certainty how they will come out. We closed juvenile records and trials on the same theory: a kid might make a bad or uninformed decision at 13 or 15 that would keep him or her from being allowed to reform and contribute to society for the rest of his life. I have two friends who were stone juvenile delinquents. One saw his father murdered in front of him and gave up on society for a while. Loving people worked with him and he is now a judge. The other was so just plain wild (skipping school, smoking pot, your clssic Rebel W/o a Cause) that the judge forbade him to associate w/ his best friend until they had both turned 18! That guy got a GED, went out west, saw that he couldn't make a living w/o an education, went to junior college and then to a 4-year school, put himself through law school and is now a respected atty in our community. Whenever I have a kid who thinks he's ruined his life by aggravated idiocy, I point to this lawyer and often they are encouraged.
The focus in juvenile justice is on rehabilitation rather than pure punishment. The focus in adult court is on punishment, pure and simple. When kids go wrong, it's almost always more complicated. Some people have no parental training; some people's parents train them to be criminals. Think of The Lord of The Flies or of your playground bully: that's what kids' society often looks like. (Heck, that's what a lot of delinquents' homes look like!) The strong impose their will on the weak. One goal of socialization is to rear citizens who realise might does not make right. When we sentence 13 year olds as adults (the lower limit in the last big Federal crime bill), we go counter to that message. Additionally, if you put a child in an adult facility, you are almost certainly sentencing him to tuberculosis and gang rape. He WILL be somebody's b*tch. We have a tremendous problem with AIDS in our jails but a bigger problem is TB and sexual assault. The prison population also harbors a lot of the drug-resistant strains of TB. When the child gets out, he's now had years of socialization by the people society has deemed so dangerous that they can't be allowed among us; who taught him that the prison gang is the only reliable source of protection from bigger, meaner people; and who's been exposed to fatal diseases and values he'll bring home to our communities. It's criminally short sighted, IMHO.
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#39
09-01-1999, 12:33 AM
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Quote:
------------------ The overwhelming majority of people have more than the average (mean) number of legs. -- E. Grebenik
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#40
09-01-1999, 08:20 AM
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DianneCar - Good post, I'd love to see some recidivism stats for juveniles. I would think that rehabilitation is more effective in juveniles, but have never seen evidence to back that assumption.
Quote:
 ------------------ The overwhelming majority of people have more than the average (mean) number of legs. -- E. Grebenik
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#42
09-03-1999, 07:16 AM
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What about protecting society. We always talk about protecting the perpetrators. Why are we not allowed to get rid of dangerous people to protect the rest of us, for purposes of 'political correctness'. The people who die at the hands of these children are forgotten, and barely mentioned. The focus is on the girl who committed the act. When I was a kid, I knew that killing was wrong, even if I wasn't 'mature'. If I kill, I am ready to face the consequences.
And another thing, which may seem unrelated, but many groups other than 'white people' are extremely racist
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