Am I the only one who looked at that and thought "what the fucking fuck?" when I saw that there's over 70thousandjuvenile facilities? Can that seriously be true? That's obscene. I already thought we had a ridiculous number of prisons (and that says about 2200), but to think we have 31 times that many for a segment of the population that's controlled by a small age range? Holy shit!
BoldW, your argument is fucking ridiculous. I hope you realize that. The accidental shooting of someone by a 4 year old is in no way comparable to 12 year olds plotting and attempted to carry out a murder.
I have absolutely no issues with trying them as adults. Fuck, I'd be ok with locking them up for life. The type of person that would do this is capable of doing it again. Just because our legal system deems 18 to be some magical age where you're suddenly an adult doesn't mean there's a switch that also gets turned on at that age. My 7 year old niece knows sure as fuck not to go murdering people, and you can be damn sure 12 year olds know what the fuck they're doing. It's psychopathic behavior and these girls are fucked in the head. Why can't we just accept that some people are monsters and purge them from our society?
I know the 4 year old example was ridiculous when speaking specifically about this case, but it was going against whoever said that anyone that kills another person should be killed/locked up,
period.
What I find interesting is the whole "some people are just monsters, get them away from society" argument. Historically speaking, many children around this age, and even sometimes older, do rehabilitate, do feel what the did was deplorable, and do lead productive lives within society. The older they are the more difficult it becomes, but this is the whole point behind the juvenile court system. All the armchair psychologist here saying yup, they're broken, get rid of them is still pretty frightening to me. How the fuck do YOU know they're capable of doing it again? They have no previous criminal history, doesn't seem like they were caught up in gangs or any other kind of socially deviant behavior, and apparently their home life wasn't abusive with a crackhead mom or alcoholic dad. If they had, then you'd have a case for trying them in the adult system.
We should be doing everything in our power to find out why (if) they're fucked in the head, and if they can be rehabilitated. They may be completely fucked in the head with no chance of ever being a normal part of society - but we just don't know that yet, and they are still
children. I guess I am part of the minority on this one, but I don't think any decent society can just go around "purging" 12 year-olds. If we think that's OK, we really have no business trying to tell other countries about human rights violations and the like. We also should be rethinking our entire idea of childhood, adulthood, guardianship, and human development.
