Pjen, I think that almost everyone here would agree that prisons should offer a full range of educational and rehabilitative opportunities–both for youths and adults.
It’s amusing to me that posters here are saying that 12-year-olds know that death is permanent and forever. But we’ll turn around and say that kids older than 12 think they’re invisible, which is why they’re given to doing dumb shit like jaywalking across a six-lane highway or riding their skateboards down a flight of stairs.
I’m all for locking these children up for a long time, on the basis that they are psychopathic or emotional disturbed in some way. But we shouldn’t have to call them adults to do this.
I made the distinction between fiction and myth because I see this as important in evaluating the girls’ understanding of the character. There is cultural consensus that fiction is not true, whereas “myth” often means “someone else’s religion,” which many perceive to have a higher potential truth value.
Where did you get that idea. Most are human warehouses with minimal attempts at rehab.
I assume you mean “invincible”. There is a difference between thinking you can’t or won’t die and thinking that if you do, it won’t be permanent. When we say teens think they are invincible, we’re saying they think bad things won’t happen to them, even if they might happen to other people.
But what follows from their sense of invincibility is carelessness for other people. They jaywalk across a six-lane highway not only because they think they can dodge the cars, but because they aren’t thoughtful enough to consider that their actions could put people at risk for serious injury and death, rather than just an annoying dent in their bumper.
A kid may kill another kid knowing that dead = forever. But do they understand why losing someone forever is a bad thing? By the time they’ve reached adulthood, most people have experienced the loss of a loved one–whether treasured pet or parent. They’ve seen enough to know why a person’s life has value for family and friends and why being robbed of the pleasures of life is so horrible. How can we expect a kid to really know these things, when adults who have actually fallen in love, experienced the unconditional love of their children, and felt the pain of burying loved ones can’t manage to figure it out?
We don’t expect children to understand the value of things, which is why we don’t usually charge them as adults when they get caught shoplifting. Ask a 12-year-old if a thousand dollars is a lot of money, and they’ll say yes. But then they’ll turn around and ask for the $1000 plasma screen TV. They’ve never held a job or paid a bill, so they don’t really know what a thousand dollars represents. It’s an abstraction to them.
Why wouldn’t I assume that life and death aren’t as equally abstract to someone who believed in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy just a couple of years previously?
I’m honestly not getting what point you’re trying to make. I’ve not argued that 12 year olds should be treated as adults. Quite he contrary. I’m willing to accept that their concept of death isn’t “fully formed”. But I’m not willing to accept that most 12 year olds don’t realize that stabbing someone 19 times is wrong, and that if someone is dead, they aren’t coming back.
They may not think: Oh, this kid’s parents are going to be emotionally wrecked if she is killed. But then, do adult murderers think about that? I suspect that most murderers, even adults, do not fully think out the impact the murder is going to have on family and friends of the murdered victim.
Not if you’re talking about actual psychopathy, or rather sociopathy, which is generally considered to be a personality disorder. It can be treated (although not very successfully), but not cured. That doesn’t mean you just throw in the towel and lock them up, but generally, it’s just like other mental disorders, such as bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive, etc. (Except that it’s fairly rare, from what I gather)
However, as I said, I don’t necessarily believe this is the case here, although I do suspect there are probably some kind of mental disorders going on. I don’t think these girls should be tried as adults either, but should they automatically be let out at 18? That idea doesn’t sit well with me. There’s got to be some kind of happy medium.
As someone who doesn’t think they should be charged as adults, I’m not wishing for them to get off their hook either. I think they should be punished and kept away from the rest of us for long time. Longer than six years in juvie detention hall, at least. But I don’t think we have to charge these girls as adults to do this. If we’re in agreement over this, I’m glad.
I think an adult has a better shot of understanding than a child does, but I agree with you that there are adults for whom the consequences of death don’t register emotionally. If I had my way with the criminal justice system, I would treat people like this in a different fashion than I would people are well-aware of the consequences and yet still carry out their evil acts. I would tailor punishment and rehabilation measures to suit an individual’s mental capacity and potential for change, rather than using a lazy one size fits all approach.
It’s an American thing. We weren’t half drunk all the time like you French guys. 
Confinement until the age of 25 is the maximum sentence possible in the juvenile system in Wisconsin.
http://www.startribune.com/nation/261669391.html
That maximum sounds like a reasonable sentence to me.
I suggest that you read DSM IVR on Psycopathy/Sociopathy/Personality Disorder. Then consider that a baby has no social boundaries, is entirely self centred, does not value other people, is careless of risk, disinhibited, mean in terms of their 24 hour demands on others etc.
OK it is a bit of Hyperbole, but it is socialisation that orders, gives value to and constrains the baby as they become adult. Poor socialisation (especially feral children at the extreme) is the cause of Psychopathy when it exhibits in adulthood. There are many people who retain Psychopathic thought systems who do not act on them because of adequate socialisation.
In the cases of Mary Bell and the Bulger killers, no evidence of psychopathic tendencies or major mental illness was found to be the cause of the behaviour. DSM IVR Pschopathy cannot be diagnosed in childhood anyway.
These were children acting as unrestrained children will becasue of their developmental state, Think Lord of the Flies!
In the UK the bar now seems to be 18- the age of transfer to the main prison system- Youth Offender Institutions from 18-20 on the grounds that all the good work done in residential schools and such could be undone in a few months in those hell holes.
I know what you’re talking about. But then there are those who ARE born that way, (Bundy, Dahmer, etc), and no amount of socialization will change them. There’s usually more than one factor, but I think you know what I meant.
I would be interested to see the proof that any child was bound to be anything despite their upbringing other than serious impairments such as brain damage. Nothing I have read about the subject suggests that such people have gross brain damage. Unless you can prove otherwise.