[TV theme song] Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the the time[/TVTS]
Repeatedly over three days? Fuck you kid, you lost your ticket to live in society.
Returning over three days to continue the beatings? This guy is a beast, and a pathetic loser at that. I’m as bleeding hearted as the next liberal, but enough is enough.
I don’t think for one minute that he feels a bit of regret for anything other than the fact that he got caught.
I’ve read a few more articles about this on Fark (which is a forum that lead me to this board).
In fact, the boy was complaining because he sits in a cell all day except when he attends classes. The most recent link I’ve seen on the other board mentions this in the article. He does attend classes.
I can see a dumb kid doing something really stupid spur-of-the-moment, but he and his buddies tortured a man to death over a period of three days. That’s pre-meditaed enough that a 15 year-old should definitely know better or at least have enough of a conscience about not to go back the second or third day.
I’m not in favor of kids getting locked away (I’m a bleedin’ liberal who wants to see rehabilitation), but I must confess that if this kid really doesn’t feel bad about what he did, perhaps he is really beyond rehab.
(yay, on preview I did all my Vb coding right)
Quick question… are we not allowed to edit here? I have a typo.
We agree the punishment is fair. I would just hold out hope that when this kid gets out at age 37 he has some hope of not returning to prison for the rest of his life. I did not see the articles you did, so could you please link to these articles. The Articles I read, made it sound like his classes were nowhere near the number a high school student should be attending.
We are not allowed to edit our posts on the SDMB. The Admins have decided editing would cause more problems than it solves.
Jim
Editing is verboten on the SDMB.
So, Preview, Preview, Preview.
No I don’t think he is taking anywhere near what a normal highschool kid takes. IIRC, they said “a few classes”. It was one of the ones that said the victim was crushed when they jumped on a log on his chest.
I’ll try to find you a better citation than just my memory. I’ll have to look for the links because they were linked to in different threads on the other board and I was sort of spidering through them.
But when he turns 18 he’ll be moved into an adult facility. Then he probably won’t get any kind of schooling in any case. He’s also not in regular juvie, but is with other kids who have been convicted of adult crimes – so he probably doesn’t get all the same services that they do.
CORRECTION: In my last post I mentioned “they” beat the guy over three days. Messner’s defense attourney claims he was only there for the last fatal beating.
I agree that he committed a terrible crime and society needs protection from him now.
But as others have said, if no attempt is made to reform him in the next 20 years, then it’s predictable that he will come out with a massive grudge, no idea of how to fit in to society, no job prospects and no hope.
Therefore he will commit further offences, and probably then be prepared to kill to avoid capture.
Agreed. Society needs protection from him now. We will really need protection from him in twenty years.
Related note:
Some prisons offer some courses and some basic vocational training, but is any of it mandatory?
In the UK, if you are on a life sentence, you can only be released, if at all, by undertaking work set out by the probation board they set out in your sentance plan.
In other words, if you are a lifer, and you do not cooperate in what you are told to do, you do not get out- until you ar ready to die in hosptal at some great age, and then not always.
This includes work, training, education etc
It’s the old eye for an eye justice versus what do we do with him.
Society keeps creating people (and I use the term loosely) like him - not individuals.
If we continue to lock up people like him for long periods of time, we will continually spend millions and millions on keeping people in prisons - our tax dollars.
We have to stop creating people like him both in and out of prison, the big question is how do we do that? I truely believe that this means those of us who are educated, intelligent, from more priviledged backgrounds participating in community. Look around at all the helping agencies, social workers, youth programmes etc - they are some of the most under resourced areas.
What does keeping him in jail for 22 years actually achieve other than eye for an eye justice?
While it would be great if society would produce no one like this, history shows every society always has. This is not a 20th/21st century problem. There have always been ‘busted’ people - there might always be ‘busted’ people.
Incarcerating him for 22 years means that for 22 years, he likely does not mercilessly beat a helpless man for 3 days straight (although the potential for violence in prison is always present).
There is an eye-for-an-eye element. There is also an element of protecting the general public.
It keeps him from beating any other derelicts to death for 22 years. It might discourage a few others from playing similar games.
While funding youth programs etc. has merit, Mel, there are also sociopaths who need to be locked up to keep them away from the rest of us.
It is truly a no-win situation. On the one hand, I think that someone so young still ought to be redeemable. On the other hand, I see an evil bully (he outweighed his victim by 200 lbs) who shows a distinct lack of remorse and personal accountability, I can not fathom letting him roam free, posing a danger to others. Yes, he will likely be a monster when he gets out, but he seems to be a monster presently. At least we’ll have 20 years without the monster roaming at large in the community.
I do not like the idea of locking up a minor. I really do not like the fact that in this case I can see no other reasonable alternative. However, as he is now effectively a ward of the state, it should be mandatory for him to have schooling and some form of psychotherapy until he is 18. However, I do not expect the over-burdened U.S. penal system can provide so much.
I do appreciate the idea that casdave described. A penal system that offers incentives for offenders to change their ways (get a GED, shave off some time, take “distance learning” courses through a college, shave off more time) would be preferable to the lock-'em-up-throw-away-the-key system. I’m not sure how feasible that would be today. (Who would pay?)
Ohio State Reformatory was the site of the film Shawshank Redemption. It was initially conceived as a reformatory for minors and it was indeed a facility that taught the young inmates useful trades so that when they left, they could integrate back into society with some kind of skill set. (No joke, they had a locksmithing course they had to abandon after they had “issues”). They had a woodshop and machine shop and inmates were taught various, useful job skills in hopes that it would cut down on their likelihood of re-offending upon release. Later the reformatory became an overcrowded adult jail.
I can’t imagine such an effort in the penal system today. But it’s nice to daydream about a system that would be able to accommodate such a program.
Agree - but we know that it doesn’t discourage people who have had incredibly shonky upbringings. We also know that we are producing more and more people inclined to do this. We also know that not everyone who murders is a sociopath.
We also know our prisons are getting bigger and bigger.
Why do we know the names of these kids if they are still juveniles?
Perhaps because they were tried and found guilty as adults. (Were they “John Does” before the guilty verdicts?)
My justification for this has been pointed out by some other posters; they returned over a three day period. That’s not one opportunistic joy ride, that’s repetitive cruelty to another human being. While Messner was only there for the actual death of their victim, he would have known about the awful things they put this guy through. Messner and his useless friends are getting off easy and if they’re ‘bored’, then tough shit. Prison isn’t a vacation, it’s a punishment. He did the crime, he can do the time. He’ll still have access to learning facilities if he behaves himself. In twenty years time, he may or may not emerge as an adjusted individual, hopefully there’s a chance for reform, but I gotta say; five years is a slap on the wrist for this kind of crime. He killed someone. Someone has lost their life because he and his toerag mates were bored.
Twenty two years is a fitting punishment, and like I said, if he behaves himself, he will have access to training and be able to emerge with skills. This is still a difficult topic because of his age; but he’s just a bully by most accounts. He’s committed a crime and been tried as an adult. He will take the rap like any other grown man.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there would be much hope for rehabilitating 15-year-old kids who beat, kick and stomp homeless people to death, over a three-day course no matter what society does.
There’s a story about a suspect in a Burger King killing in Chicago who was convicted of killing four people back in the early 80s, as a 17-year-old, but the conviction was overturned:
Certainly, nothing would have been done to help “rehibilitate” Ealy, since he was ruled not guilty, but unfortunatly, society doesn’t have good rehibilitation methods in place, either within prison or outside. Until someone comes along with a better idea, tough sentencing for monsters, such as these people will at least keep them from harming others for a while