This keeps popping up every time we get into a crime and punishment discussion. The drug users that deal a little to support their habit, enable them to buy wholesale, or help out their friends. They clog the courts and the jails... they also complicate the decision of what's fair and practical.

wow.

nice edit.

Hime, I see a lot of what you are saying, but a couple points:

Stealing from a cookie jar, or smoking pot, are worlds apart in terms of criminality from brutal rape, attacking with chemicals, and forcing incest.

The incidents that occurred may or may not be a result of "bad parenting" (which itself even sounds too nice a term) but the offenses are atrocities.

Also, I would like to point out that the original question was "should these kiddies be tried as adults?" Though I think yes, and others think no...the actual punishment is not the debate. I've never been in a juvy or adult prison (except when I visited Paris) so I don't know how much difference, if any, there might be in rehabilitative actions between the two.

Also, does anyone know: if a juvy is tried as an adult, and convicted, do they serve their time in juvy or adult?

I would also like to say that this is the most conservative I have ever been. I'm very liberal, don't believe in CP (for many reasons, not just moral) but what happened in this crime goes way beyond a couple kids out for some kicks, and even my liberal heart finds it very difficult to wonder nature vs nurture, or if the poor kids just need some lovin' and understanding.

Just mho.

Oh, and amen Bruce for post 136. Very true.

3 teens indicted in gang rape, could face life prison terms
Avion Lawson, 13, Nathan Walker, 16, and Jakaris Taylor, 15, were indicted on charges that included masked, armed sexual battery by multiple perpetrators - eight counts - burglary with assault or battery, and kidnapping. Each of the eight sexual battery counts carries a life sentence. Four of the other 14 counts are first-degree felonies; the remaining two are felonies in the second and third degrees.

The defendants now will probably be booked into the county jail on Gun Club Road, the same as adults charged with crimes.

"That would be normal procedure. If they are charged as adults, they would be transferred to the main detention facility," said Paul Miller, a sheriff's office spokesman.

At the jail, they will be housed on the 12th-floor juvenile center, Miller said.

"There are always about 40 to 50 of them," he said. "They're kept away from adult prisoners."

If the three are convicted, they will likely be incarcerated at Indian River Correctional Institution in Vero Beach, where there is a "young adult offender" wing, said Florida Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger. That's where Nathaniel Brazill, convicted of shooting and killing Lake Worth Middle School teacher Barry Grunow, initially was sent.

When they turn 18, young felons are transferred to other prisons to serve out their sentences, Plessinger said.

Oh, yeah, never mind the question. ;) :blush:

Prisoners to teens: "That's not a rape...

http://videodetective.com/photos/518/021785_24.jpg

Just found that address kind of ironic.

even funnier is that there's a Donald Trump golf course on that same road - the connies can look out their cell windows and watch the old farts playing golf.

I think it should come up often. It is bottle-necking the whole system, and in effect, robbing your average Joe Shmo of due process.

What about Mr. No Insurance- is it really imperative that we stir him in the same pot with the murderers and rapists? Yeah, lots of little clogs, like repeat traffic violations. My friend's son got caught on a warrant and put in the can for a jay-walking ticket......
What about the uuuummm......unsolved recent murders that happened in the area at that time? Dunno
Duh.
The mass of jay-walking infractions and parking tickets must have been too overwhelming.

What about the people sentenced to life - those that have no chance of ever getting out - are they clogging the sytem too? Are they a drain on society? Are they the ones we should deal with to make room for those who should do time and may be deterred from repeating the same offenses against society? Are there enough of them to make a difference?

They're the ones we should be making room for.

Again, prison is not reformatory. Petit crimes punished with long sentences produce better criminals. I don't see the need to put the 18-year-old with a quarter of the icky sticky and a pipe in jail no matter how many times he gets caught.

People sentenced to life would be a drain on society when they are free to roam the streets and continue to carry out their acts of violence. I will gladly fork over my tax dollars to keep those sociopaths out of my life.


Another issue I wanted to address with this thread (but no one's really perked up about it thus far), is what you all think about the neighbors who HAD to have heard the attack, failed to call authorities before OR after the attack, and even though the victims laid on their bathroom floor for several hours before walking to the hospital, did not come over and offer any kind of assistance, like, say, oh, I don't know, a fucking ride to the hospital.

Other than perhaps a moral responsibility to your fellow human, what responsibility to you feel, if any, these people should have towards their neighbors?

I don't really see why a child stealing should be thought of as acting as a child, while a child doing something like this should be thought of as acting as an adult. While someone who takes something so they don't have to pay for it is acting on a rational, selfish impulse, someone who engages in this kind of behavior is showing a profound lack of empathy, or inability to distinguish reality from fantasy, or simply inability to think for himself and disobey whatever "leader" he is following. We like to think of "the children" as sweet and innocent, but the qualities I listed above are all distinctly childish ones.

The more I think about it, the more strongly I believe that this is a case of two or three mentally ill, disturbed "ringleaders" and seven or eight younger kids with no real role models or authority figures who got attached to this gang as a way of coping with life in a very dangerous neighborhood. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the kids who've been arrested so far are the followers, and the leaders are actually 18 or older -- the better to manipulate kids into doing something like this. :mad:

That has a horribly ring of truth to it Hime.

I reread my post and don't know if what I meant came through. I was questioning if we should remove the terminal criminals from the system making room in the prisons. Thus creating a situation where the prisons aren't overcrowded with scum that are never getting out. These people only create an environment that perpetuates crime - they, for all intents and purposes, run these places. Without them would our systems be better suited to rehabilitation, education and/or retraining - whatever positives we can.

Just thinkin and wonderin.