I was reading the news today when I came across a sickening story of a 10 year old murdering a three year old. The 10 year old kidnapped, sexually abused and beat the child to death and threw his body in a ditch.
One would like to say that this is an isolated event, but more and more, children are killing younger children. The case of the two 10 year olds in Britian who did the same crime to another three year old. Their sentence, about 8 years in prison. During the “school shooting era” of the late 1990s, two inbred boys 11 and 12 killed a pregnant teacher and two students with a high powered rifle in Arkansas. They will be in prison until they are 21. A six year old animal in Michigan murders another child because “he doesn’t like her”.
Many states now try juvenile killers as adults. Kip Kinkel in Oregan who was 15 got 111 years for murdering his parents and some students in Oregan. In my city, a 15 year old is being charged as an adult for capital murder in the shooting death of a rival. I believe Vermont has a ststute that can try killers as young as 10 years old.
What to do? I say execute them. Really. A 10 year old killing another child? He is an animal, and he will grow fat in the justice system and come out a bigger animal. The fathers in England and Arkansas has already threatened revenge on those who stole their loved ones and I applaud them.
More and more? I’d really like to see a cite that shows that there is an overall increased rate of children killing other children. While the cases you noted have certainly aroused public contempt, it is perhaps that such events ARE so rare. I suspect that killings by children have been around forever, but maybe have historically been ‘covered up’ by communities to avoid the shame that would have eventuated.
Is your use of the word ‘inbred’ somehow significant, and what do you mean by it anyway?
Again, what do you mean by mutants?
Before I come in to such an argument, I want to know whether I am dealing with someone who really wants to debate what to do with children who kill, or someone who just wants to satisfy his/her own blood-lust. Thanks.
Like it or not, these are * children * who probably do not fully appreciate the enormity or consequences of their actions. A lot of kids simply don’t understand that “dead” means forever.
Revenge will not bring the dead back to life, nor will it prevent future incidents such as these. What we need to discover is what went wrong with these kids, and how we can keep things like this from happening in the future. These children need to be carefully studied by psychologists. If we can learn what “snapped” in these kids, maybe we can help others.
No kid is born “evil.” Along the way, something terrible and scarring happened to these children. Perhaps it was abuse or parental neglect. Perhaps they have a mental illness which could have been corrected if caught earlier. Whatever the cause, nothing is gained by dragging them out back and shooting them. The only possible good that can come from this is discovering what triggers kids to kill, and possibly preventing it in the future.
I could not imagine that a 10 year old would know how to commit a crime like this. It is beyond belief. My initial thought was that this boy was being sexually abused himself. That doesn’t excuse anything, of course, but it is a place to start.
While it may be necessary to lock away murderous children far longer than current juvenile sentencing permits, I concur with all previous posters who stress the importance of finding out why they are killing.
However appropriate dissection might seem, it will not reveal the motivational reasoning (or lack thereof) behind these loathesome crimes.
The problem is that, while a ten year old can grasp the mechanics of these acts, it’s doubtful that they understand the morality of them. Thus, the dilemma of how to punish them: treating them like adults assumes that they have an adult grasp of the consequences of their actions; treating them like children risks offending our sense of justice since their actions were so horrific.
I don’t think there’s a comfortable answer. Execute them, and you execute a child who almost certainly doesn’t have a mature responsibility for their actions. Hold them until they’re 18, and you’ve let someone demonstrably capable of murder get off light. Any attempt to propose a single solution on the problem will run afoul of one of these two very valid sides of the issue.
Also, don’t confuse increased and sensationalist media coverage with an increase in frequency.
Punish the parents. Charge them with capital murder, and put the kid in a psych ward for 15 years.
I don’t think people are born evil. I think stuff like this happens from gross neglect or mistreatment of a kid. If a kid purposely kills another kid it’s the parents who have skewed this kids mind.
I tend to agree with you Splanky, except that there may also be pathological reasons for a homicidal child. Such misconduct does not always have psychological roots.
At 10 years old, I made stupid decisions, but I knew better than to sexually assault or murder someone. I must say, I never even had that impulse. There is something seriously wrong with a child who wants to, and carries out, a rape or a murder. (Just as there is something seriously wrong with an adult who does so.) I think it’s almost worse when the perpretrator is a child because their mental health is already so twisted as to willingly commit those crimes so young.
I also believe they should be studied. But I must also admit I wouldn’t object if they ceased to exist afterwards. Not that I’m an advocate of the death penalty, but sometimes. . . Frankly, how well do you think a child rapist and/or murderer will reintegrate into society after serving time? If they wanted to rape and murder people at 10, what will they do at 40? A lot of adult offenders started out as children committing violence–like Jeffrey Dahlmer killing animals. Or pedophiles (I have no names offhand) who, as children or teens, are caught molesting others already, and by middle-age have left behind hundreds of molestation victims before moving on to murder?
I think we have to admit that sometimes, somebody is just too messed up to ever have a place in a (safe, working) society. Perhaps it’s something that one day we will have the knowledge to easily correct (for example, if it’s a gene or an imbalance of some sort), but for right now, we need to protect ourselves from dangerous predators.
I am 100% 50-50 on this one. I think that children are NOT as responsible for their actions as adults, which is why they can’t drive and vote, etc. I also think that a kid that rapes and kills another one is in the rapist/killer/child molester group of criminals that I really don’t want to risk ever seeing the light of day.
I remember when I was 11 or 12 a friend and I were going to drop stuff off the freeway over pass (not just eggs, but like house hold items) and we only didn’t because we were afraid to get caught. I would wager that we would have killed someone doing that. Granted that is not raping and killing, but it does speak to the lack of thought that goes through a young persons mind. On the other hand, as plain_jane and others point out, there has to be sort of a cut off point. Even if it is unfair to the kid who did the crime. The tough part is figuring out where that point is.
I think it depends on the kid and the psychological make up of the kid.
From what I have read, and I have read a reasonable amount about serial killers but I am not an expert in anyway, repeat killers are generally socio-pathic.
Killers like Dahlmer and Gacy do not have empathy. They just do what they want with no guilt.
From what I understand psychologists can spot these types pretty easily these days. If the kid falls into that catagory I say lock him up until he dies. On the other hand if he was abused and can be rehablitated then he should get out at some time.
It is sad that a kid so young would commit such a crime. If he commited the crime because he was abused that is even sadder.
