fetch

I saw this documentry awhile ago and it has stayed with me since. The US is one of the only countries in the world that allows children under 8 to be tried as adults and sentenced to life without parole. Kids as young as 11 are housed in adult jails in America.

What are your thoughts about this? For or against?

I am against. A big reason is that first of all, 18 is considered the age of adults for a reason. Kids are more prone to influence. And many of these kids have been abused and are in jail for killing their abusers, usually a parent. There are cases where battered women have received easier sentances for killing their husbands, under the reason of abuse. If a woman living with someone who is abusive for several years can be understood by the justice system, how are children not? When they have been abused for up to 15 years? And how is it that adults that kill or abuse their children receive lighter sentences than abused children who kill their parents?

Links:

http://www.pendulumfoundation.com
Scars of abuse concealed - The Denver Post
Can Nate Ybanez Ever Be Forgiven? : Rolling Stone
The Killer and Mrs. Johnson - News - Westwordpage 1 - Westword

The killing of a parent by a child is a rare act in modern America--particularly when compared to the number of parents who kill their children. Yet parricide seems to strike a deep nerve in the public imagination. The kneejerk reaction is to suspect not abuse but ingratitude, as in the old joke about the spoiled brat who shoots his parents and then begs for mercy because he's an orphan.

TheAngel

Hmm, I have very mixed feelings about this because this is my field of study. I'm a senior criminal justice student and have looked at a lot of information about juvenile offenders. The problem is, most criminal justice systems around the world aren't set up for juvenile offenders because children have to be treated differently than adults when it comes to rehabilitation and trying to curve recidivism rates. The problem is, it's been shown, when it comes to kids it's hard to change their spots. Recidivism rates for juvenile offenders are huge. A lot of rapists start when they're under the age of 18 and continue to commit offenses. A lot of child molesters and pedophiles begin young as well because of sexual development issues. Most of this is a failing of the criminal justice system, whose focus should be on treatment instead of punishment when it comes to juvenile offenders. That being said, a number of serial killers have childhood identification characteristics that were ignored. A young child that does something as horrible as murder, if they did so without provocation, has very little potential to go out and live a normal life in society. However, I think that if children do have provocation because of abuse it should be treated as self-defense and they should not be punished for it.
The thing is, there are a number of extenuating circumstances when it comes to crime. I don't think children as young as eight should be tried as adults but, concerning children prone to influence, crimes like murder should really be looked at when you're talking about influence. I was a kid once, so where you, and while I may have been influenced to sneak a piece of candy out of the teacher's candy dish or engage in underage drinking at a party with friends, I was never influenced to commit murder. In that case, there are some pretty serious issues underlying the actual action besides influence that should be taken into consideration as to whether kids can be let back out onto the streets safely as adults.

sunnykerr

Yeah, it's a bit of a mixed bag for me as well.

I understand the need for guidelines, because leaving it entirely up to the discretion of judges or juries opens the whole system up to corruption and grievous human errors.

But, at the same time, I do think we lose out when we say things ought to be one way or another, so there needs to be an element of case-by-case analysis.

Putting little kids in prison for the rest of their lives with adult facilities seems completely wrong. But, then, the people who put them there aren't monsters either. If the law is shackling them and making them do things they wish they didn't have to, then something needs to be addressed.

But we need to take the personality of the youth offender into account. And we need to take into account the circumstances and severity of their crime.

A person doesn't suddenly become more responsible or mature when they turn 18.

vc318

I'm always hoping that a child will "grow out" of bad behavior but unfortunately some never break free from it. As someone who works with children, I think it's important that we look at counseling and even placing some of the responsibility on the parents as to why children commit certain types of actions.

fetch

The thing that bothers me, is that while a lot of these kids were abused as kids in one way or another, once they're in prison they're not offered theraphy or any sort of help. People just give up on them.

As for kids "not changing their spots", wouldn't it be harder for adults to change than children? Yet adults get smaller punishments for drowning babies than a kid killing a mother that molested him. And what can a baby do to a grown-up?

A person doesn't suddenly become more responsible or mature when they turn 18 - that's true, but they become adults in the eyes of a law. For a kid who is being abused, that's big news, because they can move out, get a higher paying job, they don't have to depend on their families as much.

Jen Jaree

In Canada we have the youth offenders act those under 12 aren't prosecuted those between 12 to 17 get a maximum of 3 years. I believe only those who commit major offenses like rape or murder should be tried as an adult.

TheAngel

What I meant by that was, statistically, children that offend at a young age will continue to offend throughout their lifetimes, though crime usually peaks from about 16-30 and then tapers off for most offenses, though there are some exceptions to that rule. And yes, the reasons behind most child offenders are very complex, from poverty to parents, school environment, bullying, peer pressure, but there's always some underlying cause that makes those kids offend, because there are a number of children in bad situations that don't offend. We need to find out what that thing is and deal with it. It's easy to say, we have to deal with each kid on an individual basis, but do you know the resources that would be required to do so. Cases would take years to get through the courts. It would waste time and money and would be a terrible drain. Let's be honest, the criminal justice system isn't set up to "prevent crimes" in its strictest sense of the term.
There are things that could be done but because of the limited resources alloted to the CJUS system it's just not feasible at this time to take a psychological approach to juvenile offenders.

vc318

And it's definitely going on that these adults are going through the system without the slightest ounce of therapy ever provided. Hell, even at the elementary level children who should be seeing the school counselor never get to because the counselor has been reassigned to do other things like lunch duty or deal with testing. Yes, this is going on. In thus, we have children who go through their young lives with all this anger and the parents are too busy beating each other up, doing drugs or just plain working 20 hours a day to make ends meet to even take a moment to notice that their child is going through these things.The attitude seems to be that it's easier to ignore the problem than to deal with it in this day and age.

sunnykerr

Well, obviously, at-risk youth should be given much better care than they are just about anywhere. To me, that's a given. And I don't mean to imply that a youth offender should be put away for the rest of their lives (in adult facilities no less) without exhausting every other alternative first.

I'm merely trying to point out that a 16-year-old can be just as criminally responsible for his actions than an 18-year-old. Sometimes, if we take into account mental illness, the 16-year-old may even be MORE responsible.

And I'm also trying to keep in mind (for myself, if no one else) that sociopaths and psychopaths are not born on their 18th birthday. And that there are many, many, many more children who may be victimized by their peers in the same manner that they could be victimized by adult sociopaths and psychopaths.

So I keep going back to the idea that I certainly hope we avail ourselves of a better system to deal with potential youth criminals. And I would rather keep a good separation between youth and adult offenders, especially in situations when institutionalizing criminals rather dooms them to worsening their criminal tendencies.

But I just think that it isn't that simple. Some youths exhibit a level of pathological criminality that has no place around other youths, even in juvie. And sociopaths and psychopaths should plain not be around other people, adult or minor, and they're born that way, so it's pointless to wait for them to turn 18.

fetch

I don't disagree. But I think the crime should be looked at. Kids who killed their parents who abused them, aren't very likely to just go around killing random people. They might be mentally unfit, but they should be looked at and if needed placed in a mental facility, not a jail.

vc318

Yes, it's definitely happening. Just like that Tate fellow who was jailed for bodyslamming his fellow neighbor and killing her. I think he was the youngest one ever sentenced at the age of 10. But then again, people like him come back 8 years later, hold up a pizza delivery guy even after being released on good behavior and are thrown back into jail. I think this sort of thing is going on no matter where you are.

sunnykerr

Well, it's happening. And it's happening in scary places, too. A twelve-year old killed someone up here at some point....

Yeah, I'm being way vague, but I just remember seeing it on the news recently.

The point is there actually was a debate as to whether the kid ought to be tried as an adult or not! As if a 12-year-old committing murder could ever be responsible for whatever it was that led him to commit that act!

Callace

This discussion reminds me of this article, AFP: 11-year-old faces life sentence for murder: report that we got a pretty lively debate out of at my board a few weeks ago. I should have known about this thread then, so that I could have posted it here too

You all make very good points. Sending children to prison for life is horrible, it is a declaration of failure by society IMO. A sign clearer than any on that we were unable to help these children, and really dont know what to do with them. Kids should be helped, and treated for their issues and problems whenver possible, not just locked up and stored away! But then there are those juvenile delinquents that are really hard to deal with, and where good options are hard to come by

TheAngel

I almost feel like, in this case, parents should be looked at. Most juvenile delinquents that act out and have poor family ties, poor parents, and feelings of isolation can be reformed simply by strengthening social ties (which is something our juvenile justice system should focus more on) but children that act out and have caring, involved parents and stronger community ties probably have something deeper going on.

Callace

ITA. When dealing with children, e should do what we can to help and protect them, rather than just convicting them and locking them up. That such cases can happen shows that we dont take care of all children well enough, dont register that they have bad family conditions and help them.