Do the crime, pay the time?

[Shadow Blade]

[SIZE=1][COLOR=SlateGray]
Is it just me, or is the crime offenders just seem to be getting younger and younger? I believe that the age rate of crimes committed are at the 8 year old level on up. This thread's origin was created by a news story about a teenager murdering his two sisters. I believe that there was a crime commited by a young girl (I don't know her age, except that she was young) who murdered her friend with knife. In this thread I ask you if you think the crime offenders are getting younger and what punishment should they recieve. Should they be tried as adults? Or should they just get a slap on the hand and sent to some juvenile detention center for aome amount of time?

Okay otakutians put on your little thinking caps.[/COLOR][/SIZE]

[Demoness Satoe]

[SIZE=1]Well, that's sort of hard to say. There could be various punishments for children who commit crimes. But if the gov. were to actually DO something about all this, it would most likely need to fit in with the crime.

So, lets say, for example, a child attempts to shoplift. Nothing serious would really have to be done about that. That's a given though. But, if they did something like push a person out a window, that would need much more serious consequences.

Well, what I'm trying to make out of my senseless drabble, is that it would take awhile for people to think up good punishments for the child's act. Yeah, I don't know what I'm saying either. :animesigh

But... you know what I mean, right? [COLOR=Navy][/COLOR][/size]

[DeadSeraphim]

[size=1][color=indigo][font=arial]They're children. By definition their minds aren't fully formed, and holding them up to the same standards as adults is unfair and also very cruel - while they may have fully intended to hurt and (possibly) kill someone, their reasoning wouldn't be the same as an adults and probably not thought through in the slightest. It would also reveal underlying problems and disorders that could be remedied with proper attention and care, something they wouldn't receive if they were just thrown into jail like an adult and left to rot for twenty years (not to mention such a situation would be inhumane on a child).

Children and teenagers shouldn't be tried as adults because they're not adults - they don't have the same ways of thinking and they don't have the same concept of the world as a mature adult who might do the same crime.[/font][/color][/size]

[Ol' Fighter]

I was about to completly disagree with you DeadSeraphim but I completly understand where your coming from...yes their minds are under-developed but I believe if anyone or anything has the brain capacity to plot out a slighly cunning or intelligent way of killing someone they should have to "sleep in the bed they made" but then again I would judge them apon the severity of their doings and what they personally had to say for themselves.

[DeadSeraphim]

[COLOR=Indigo][SIZE=1][FONT=Arial]They do. They get taken away from the family to juvenile detention and correctional centres, though their stays aren't nearly as severe as actual prison (and with good reason). They also receive a lot of psychiatric help and attention to find out why it happened, and make it so the kid doesn't want to go to that place again (because the child/teenage mind is still malleable, or to a point at least). Child murderers still get punished, but they get punished as children. As I said before, punishing a child the same way as an adult is just cruel and damaging.[/FONT][/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Chronus]

No kid ing when I was 16 I made some wrong decisions in my life and I got stuck in a HUGE drug bust luckley I got little time becuase they could not prove I had ties with the buyer.

I think that crime for kids has alout to do with if they have parents or not.

[Aberinkula]

Heard on the radio that 5 or 6, 12 year olds locked a person in a woodshed and set it on fire.

Is it me or are we in the twighlight zone? doo do doo do...

I mean really!

[Aaryanna]

[COLOR=DarkOrchid]I agree with what DeadSeraphim is saying. If kids who commit crimes aren?t allowed the same rights as adults because they aren?t considered mature enough, then why would we turn around and then prosecute them as if they were an adult? It?s a contradiction to say they aren?t mature and then turn around and say they are when it comes to punishing them for crimes.

The problem is that they aren?t adults and lack the necessary maturity and experience with life to make better choices. And as DeadSeraphim also pointed out, juvenile detention usually provides psychiatric help and at least attempt to find out why it happened and to help the kid. [/COLOR]