Ok, I’m mad at so many different people over this case and have been at so many different stages…but come on:
REALLY
The punishment issued by this judge in the “Great Jackass Duplication Car Sequence” is crazy.
As a result of their videotaped, dangerous stuntman impression, these kids have to “read classic books and do book reports every two weeks” as punishment.
HEY! Nothing like instilling a love of reading and classic literature like telling a kid that it’s the equivalent of a jail sentence. I’m sure they’ll really give Tale of Two Cities a fair shake after this.
When I was an AmeriCorps*VISTA for NH Reads last year we occasionally ran into the opposite problems. We worked primarily with newborns-age five, and some parents would not read to their kids as a punishment. We tried to convince parents that reading is an inherently good thing, besides being entertaining to the child, so not doing it isn’t the best punishment…
I wonder if these kids are too stupid to know about Cliffs Notes.
Personally, I would have sentenced them to be locked in an empty room for 30 days with nothing but a TV running just 1 episode of Jackass over and over and over and over…
Not everything a judge does at sentencing is intended to be punishment. It looks to me like he is trying to get the kids to expand their horizons by making them read books. The judge isn’t saying “books are so horrible I’m going to punish you by making you read them” he’s saying “there’s a hell of a lot more out there than MTV. Read some books and maybe you’ll discover that.”
Maybe his approach will work, maybe it won’t but it’s important to realize the reasoning behind the sentence.
Zoff, regardless of what the JUDGE thinks it is…the KIDS will equate it with punishment. I went to court…the judge said I have to do this…THIS is my punishment for driving over somebody.
The story you linked to doesn’t say anything about what the judge told these kids when he assigned the reading. Given that he gave them a light sentence, I imagine he gave them a bit of a lecture on why they should be reading books, so they understand why he’s making them.
And, if they don’t comply with the terms of the original sentence, they risk being sent to prison for five years. Based on that, it seems to me the judge is trying to get them to appreciate more than MTV.
Again, I wasn’t there for the sentencing, so I don’t know what the judge said. But the terms of his sentence suggest to me that the kids understand that the reading isn’t to punish them as much as it is to educate them. Hey, the kids might still think it’s punishment, but that won’t be tht judge’s fault.
No. What WILL be the judges fault is trying to get in the news by being “creative” with his sentencing. These kids should have paid fines, had their licenses taken away and put on probation. Jail? I don’t think so…it wasn’t a hard crime.
And I don’t care how many lectures he gave these kids and for how long, when their friends call next Friday and say “Can you go out to the MXPX concert…” these kids will have to say,
“No, I have to read this Dickens novel. I WAS SENTENCED TO IT. If I DON’T read it and write a report, I HAVE TO GO TO JAIL.”
I doubt any of them left the court room saying “My love of books and literature will be renewed.”
Like I said earlier, I don’t know if it will work or not. I don’t really have a position on these “creative” sentences.
My point is that your OP seemed to me to assume that the kids will be instilled with a Clockwork Orange-like hatred of classic literature because of their sentence. Given the paucity of details about the kids involved in the sentencing and the sentencing hearing itself, I don’t think it’s a safe assumption to make.
You might very well end up being right, but I still think you (as well as other posters) are making broad assumption based on minimal information.
This pisses me off for a whole different reason. (Not that you don’t have a good point Jarbabyj, but you got your hot buttons and I got mine.
[flame on] I don’t think the government should be in the business of protecting it’s citizens from the consequences of their own stupidity. (caveat:) unless said stupidity will result in some cost to society at large. [flame off]
Now, to wander back to the OP, the judge probably isn’t going to change these kids’ opinions about reading anyway. If they already like good books, they’re probably feeling like B’rer Rabbit in the briar patch, and if they don’t, they still won’t. $.02
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Anybody remember when MTV used to actually involve music? :rolleyes:
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Yer both right. The judge is undoubtedly trying to turn their young minds to more constructive things, but unfortunately, the kids probably will associate it with court-ordered punishment. They know, in the back of what we assume passes for their minds, that the judge is trying to do something constructive, but they also “know” that they are just too cool for that.
After all, if so many normal schoolkids (who don’t drive over people) can’t stand reading Billy Budd… and they didn’t even do anything wrong to merit their “punishment”
Monstre <— didn’t care at all for Billy Budd, but does like many of the classics, as well as classical music
