The part that always gets me is the inevitable denial that one’s son could do that because he’s such a good boy. It’s become so predictable that it’s a cliché.
My teen-aged boy was in more than his share of problems with the police in the day. And I knew my kid. I didn’t know exactly how far he would go to get in trouble. But I knew that there was a period of a few years there where he’d find it if he could. I completely resisted every urge of this mother’s heart to shield him from the consequences of his behavior. He hated me for it.
I would be more interested in finding out all the details so I could better direct him and deliver consequences than to protect him from consequences. That was in the hope that he’d never get this far gone because it can happen to the best of people.
If I were a praying woman I’d say a prayer every night that every young boy could safely get through those ages from about 13 to about 27. And especially the Black kids because we are losing a whole generation of potential there.
I wonder what kind of sentences young accomplices are really getting. We hear on the news about teens being charged as adults, and we see on the cop shows that accomplices get stiff sentences, but is it really happening? A local kid was out after two years. He watched his buddy hit a disabled kid with a hatchet (tried to cut his head off). They left him to die and went home. Two years?
That mother also looks pretty white for a black woman (she’s the mother of the middle kid, not the oldest kid). Looks like a rough day for the OP and his thesis.
The point is there are still many things to talk about regarding this issue without it breaking down (almost immediately) into the usual, “Yeah, but what about you?” grade school crap.
Talking about race doesn’t automatically have to mean figuring out who’s the problem. Maybe I expect too much.
There’s also a lot of debate about the kids who are lifers in prison for crimes they committed when they were minors. One main argument is kids that are 15-17 are too young to fully understand the implications.
But this one was premeditated. I doubt the three kids even thought for one second how the victim’s mother/father/girlfriend/friends would feel when they decided to kill a random person. But that’s their effing problem. For this type of murder, I have no problem with them being tried as adults with the adult penalties on the table.
For me, even the driver should get 25 to life, the other two get 50 to life. Send a message on how “cool” murder is.
A friend of mine who moved from AR to OK made two pertinent observations. He saw virtually no African Americans, and thelegal system has weird shitgoing on.
This has been big in the news over here this week, but I’m honestly surprised it’s got this much press in the US. It’s pretty horrible, but … you’ve got a big country. Aren’t there lots of murders?
Anyway, you shouldn’t worry too much about Australian’s getting a bad impression of the US, no matter what Fisher might say. We have our own current brouhaha over a string of murders by parolees who didn’t get put back in the clink quick enough after exhibiting violent behaviour, so it’s not like we’re currently in a position to blame you guys for behaviour our own mob is exhibiting just as badly.
And parole problems. Consider Darrell Dennis, who murdered a kid while on parole when he should have been serving a great deal of time.
There was a great effort to clear out prisons in Arkansas, and it backfired.
Are there racial problems in Australia? All I know about it is from the film The Gods Must be Crazy.
My father was in your country during World War II, working on aircraft radios, and liked it enough that he considered emigrating when Australia was offering a good deal to technical people who would move there.
Upon reading your link, we have similar problems.
Do you guys have states? I thought they were territories.
As I wrote, I am ignorant of your country save that my Father liked it, and the Greville family sent Christmas card to my Grandmother with Spring scenes on them.
