In our news today in Australia, it is alleged that two kids (aged 14 and 15 respectively) were responsible for lighting fires on Black Saturday last year in Bendigo that resulted in the death of one man and the destruction of many houses and properties.
In total they have been charged with many hundreds of offences, and indeed they have been absolute arsewipes to start such a fire on such a day. But I’m curious as to what punishments should be meted out to these teenagers. On one hand, I’m happy to lock the little shits up for life so that they never have the opportunity to wreak such havoc again. But, given that they are still regarded as children, should they be locked up at all?
Putting them into a juvenile detention facility will guarantee that when they come out they’ll have chips on their shoulders the size of sequoia planks…and therefore end up far more dangerous to the community than previously. At this stage we don’t know whether they have previous convictions of any sort, so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and (for the purposes of this debate) assume that they were just a couple of really dickhead kids who lit a fire on a Total Fire Ban Day just for shits and giggles.
Obviously they did something really stupid, like REALLY stupid. But that’s not exactly shocking for a couple adolescent teenage boys. I’m not even clear on whether they accidentally set the fire via cigarette butt, set fires for fun without thinking of the consequences, or purposefully set fires with the intention of killing people. That last one seems rather unlikely.
I’m not even sure it’s fair to equate arson that kills people to murder or manslaughter. Yeah, it’s one causal link in a chain that resulted in something tragic. But so are lots of things. Global warming may have contributed to this, too–do we want to call owners of gas guzzlers murderers? That’s the kind of rhetoric that people justifiably consider crazy.
Calling the boys mass murderers might make for good politics for Kevin Rudd, but trying them as murderers doesn’t make for good law or justice.
No, I think deliberately setting a fire is a pretty good candidate for “reckless indifference to an unjustifiably high risk to human life”; also known as depraved indifference of depraved heart, that’s sufficient intent for a murder charge. As to whether these two deserve to be charged with murder, that rather depends on their demeanor – if their primary failing was a lack of imagination rather than malice, then I would say no.
It’s hard to tell with these two – they seem like a pair of dimwitted brutes, with little hope of making much of themselves. It seems clear that they set the fires and watched them spread as a form of entertainment, but started blaming each other when trouble loomed. They also had a habit of making “menacing” phone calls to emergency operators.
Your opinion flies in the face of reality. Explain the fairness that someone dies as a direct result of your illegal activity you should not be held accountable.
I did like the idea of burning them at the stake, but if we’re going to stick with reality . . . .
Juvenile detention and re-education are really the only “reasonable” options aren’t they? Unless you try them as adults due to the severity of the crime. Even then, I am not sure, but I don’t think (at least here in the US) you can house juveniles with adults in detention facilities.
Would making them work as nurses in a burn unit be a reasonable punishment? This way they can see first hand and up close the kind of physical pain and torment their victim experienced. And after the day of work at the facility is through, back to juvy for regular classes in the evening so that they still get a basic level of education.
This is an excellent idea. I work with a court-ordered Youth Diversion program, and this is exactly the type of punishment/restitution that is likely to succeed.
This case is a really tough call because they weren’t just setting small fires that got out of hand, if I’m reading the OP correctly, they were intending to cause wide destruction. Yet, simply punishing them may not have any long-term positive benefit. It’s the restitution that makes the difference. In addition to working in a burn unit, they could be made to help rebuild homes.
14- and 15-year-olds can be really stupid. Hopefully, when they reach adulthood, they will have grown and learned.
Why should the patients be forced to spend time with them? A few years ago an animal abuser was sentenced to spend time helping in a shelter or veterinarians office. Sentencing had to be changed when they could not find a shelter/veterinarian that wanted the abuser hanging around.
I hung out with a lot of fire bugs growing up and luckily the only major destruction that was caused was a kid who blew up his trailer when a valve malfunctioned and he back burned into a propane tank. We all turned out to be relatively productive members of society.
I think intent is what really matters in situations like this if the kids were just playing with matches of a dry day I think juvi or community service in a burn ward are in order if they were trying to see how much they could burn down before someone stopped it that I think they need to be charged with manslaughter and finally if they were intentionally putting people in danger then they need to be locked up forever.
Animal abuser is a very different case. No benefit is likely to come from having them around animals. That would be like having a sex abuser serve a sentence in a children’s home.
The teens don’t have to be one-on-one with the patients, but they can certainly be candy-striping, delivering reading materials, directing visitors, or some other low-level chores where the damage is driven home. I think patients would be amenable if they know why the teens are there.
I’n not surprised. Suggestions like the one above betray a fundamental misunderstanding of the psychological factors that lead to antisocial behavior. Seeing the pain and havoc that their behavior caused is not going to deter a 15 year old arsonist from re-offending; most likely it will have the opposite effect.
This is key. I know nothing of the situation – were the kids trying to start a massive wildfire? Were they amusing themselves and things got out of hand? Not that the latter excuses them from punishment, but there’s quite a gulf between the depravity of the former and the gross negligence of the latter (using the terms very informally here).
Like Oredigger I knew a lot of kids who would be sent up the river today. Never engaging in direct violence, but homemade pipe bombs and artful combination of fireworks made short work of innocent and not-so-innocent things (dirt piles, mailboxes, hearing). Check out the glee people still have for fireworks. Splody things is fun!
I assume a lot changed after Columbine tolerance-wise, and again I’m not tsk-tsking this off as a *boys will be boys *prank that got out of hand. But what and how it happened make a difference. Were they sprinting about trying to get as massive a blaze going as possible? Were they setting rabbits afire and letting them hop into the woods? 10-15; a lifetime at that age. Was it at the far end of the other spectrum – were they lighting each other’s farts and thought it would be funny to light a pinecone? 2-4 years. I’d be even be inclined towards probation if it was complete stupidity and *if *I was convinced there was an absolute lack of malfeasance, but that’s where the deterrent aspect of punishment comes into play.
I was specifically thinking about making them clean out bedpans and other unpleasant (but very necessary) activities.
Another community service could be assisting in cleaning up burned down houses etc.
Since I think a firebug has more interest in a fire than the aftermath, these seem like reasonable services to help them see the consequences. Therapy would probably be needed as well, depending on whether it was a case of dumb teenagers or true mental disorder.
For the record, the judicial system in Aus dictates that these kids will definitely be tried as minors, and if any custodial sentence is ordered, will be sent to a juvenile facility, not an adult one regardless of the nature of their crimes. Of course, depending on the length of their sentence/s, they might well be transferred to Big Boy prison when they turn 18/19.
My main concern is that the types of kids who end up in secure juvenile gaols are those who have very long histories of (often violent) offending. They are just breeding centres to provide future ‘clients’ for the adult system.
Because these boys have only just been charged, there is little information available as to whether they have criminal records and/or any history of other such sociopathic behaviour. While ‘locking them up’ will certainly punish them and protect the community (in the short term), I wonder whether it will be counterproductive in the longer term?
Of course, these were not just ‘kids playing with matches’. From the earliest age, every normal kid knows full well that when the temp is >35c, and there are gale-force northerly winds a’blowing, you do not fuck around with fire. So these teenagers are certainly not normal: either they are intellectually disabled, or they are profoundly psychologically disturbed.
And from either perspective, I wonder whether a regular gaol is going to achieve the desired outcomes.
That’s just not true. My friends and I played with fire in a lot of situations that looking back were obviously dangerous but they weren’t to us. We used to coat each other’s clothing in homemade napalm and light it on fire obviously that is asking for 3rd degree burns but we weren’t thinking about it we were thinking about how cool it looked trailing fire behind you as you ran.
I grew up in California a state in which huge areas are burned regularly and we never once worried about starting a fire we couldn’t control. Not thinking of consequences is a pretty normal teenaged thing to do.
I do agree with you to a pointOredigger77, but (and I know California is a high-risk fire area too) here in Australia Total Fire Ban Days are taken extremely seriously by even the youngest members of our community.
Also, these lads live in a rural area, and generally come January and February, everyone is hyper-alert to the risks and the weather conditions: it’s the main topic of concern and conversation, and even our two heroes couldn’t fail to be aware of the devastation they could cause by doing what they did. IOW, the consequences would have been amply evident.
Sure, if they had been five or six yrs old, I could accept that defence. At 14 and 15, not at all…UNLESS as I mentioned they are developmentally delayed or psychologically disabled.