10-Year-Old Charged With Felony After Stealing Bicycle

reply to post by SoymilkAlaska


and stealing stuff which is illegal.

This world is f'd because of these random justifications.

Oh she is pretty so it is OK that she is ignorant to her surroundings.

Oh he is CEO of a multinational so it is OK that they leverage 3rd world oligarchies for low labor cost.

Oh we was black kid in a hoodie so it is OK that Rambo's #1 fan gunned him down because of his ignorant worldview.

Originally posted by zroth
reply to post by SoymilkAlaska

 

and stealing stuff which is illegal.

This world is f'd because of these random justifications.

Oh she is pretty so it is OK that she is ignorant to her surroundings.

Oh he is CEO of a multinational so it is OK that they leverage 3rd world oligarchies for low labor cost.

Oh we was black kid in a hoodie so it is OK that Rambo's #1 fan gunned him down because of his ignorant worldview.

i don't think that people should just get away with stuff like that, but seriously, the kid... is 10....

he is still a baby. what they did to him is insane, and its only the beginning of the way they will be treating everyone from now on.

reply to post by SoymilkAlaska


Where is the line?

Every person is capable of taking advantage of another.

This kid is not entitled to a pass just because he is a kid.

Age, sex and orientation are not get out of jail free cards but folks believe they are.

reply to post by SoymilkAlaska


Agreed, if stupidity were a felony most of our government would be on death row.

10 year olds are still growing and learning right from wrong.

All this will teach him is to never, ever get caught again and don't trust the government in any fashion.

Way to go knuckleheads!

reply to post by Aliensun


I'm not blaming the system. I'm just saying that levying a felony against a 10 year old is too stiff a penalty. If this kid was 16 or 17, it would be different.

You're insisting upon applying adult standards to a 10 year old child, which is unreasonable. Why? Because he is a child.

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
10 year olds are still growing and learning right from wrong.
All this will teach him is to never, ever get caught again and don't trust the government in any fashion.
Way to go knuckleheads!

I think a key question here is how do the courts treat such cases? In Canada, young offenders are not named, and their files are sealed...which is to say that only in the most extraordinary circumstances will a file follow a youth into adulthood.

Yes, 10 year olds are still growing, but the news piece seems to indicate the kid knew what he was doing was wrong. At any rate, he sure knows it now.

Second question...why should it follow that the kid will simply learn not to trust government, and not to get caught? Why not assume that he may well have learned, instead, that stealing is wrong and carries consequences?

I'd say that getting a complete pass would just encourage him.

reply to post by JohnnyCanuck


I'm not advocating for the kid going unpunished.
Reasonable punishment would be appropriate but certainly not a felony charge.
10 year olds have minds that are able to know right from wrong but often lack the control over impulse that makes one an adult.
Community service and restitution would be about right.
This is part of a government idea of turning everyone in to criminals, even children.
20 years ago people would have laughed at the idea of charging a 10 year old with any crime.

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
This is part of a government idea of turning everyone in to criminals, even children.
20 years ago people would have laughed at the idea of charging a 10 year old with any crime.

So what happens when a 10 year old is charged with a felony? That's kinda key to this discussion, isn't it?

Having read the article that was provided, the following can be stated:

Throw the book at this child, tan his backside and make sure he learns a hard lesson about obeying the law. What this child did, was more than just steal a bike, he went into a garage, not his own, stole an air rifle, and then stole a 400 dollar bike. So not only did he just steal a bike, he also committed burglary and is now armed. Do you not think that he should be punished to be scared straight? Do you want to see another child shot, all due to a misunderstanding? What do you think the police would have done if they pulled up and he was holding that rifle? Do you think that they were going to ask if it is an air rifle or a real weapon?

This child, the question now must be asked, where was his parents, and guardians? Where were they during this time frame, cause ultimately they will have to pay part of the burden and cost for this child’s actions. Children are not as they were 10 or even 20 years ago, many are doing things that most would not have dreamed of back then, and some of it is terrifying. Parents can punish a child, so the child runs amok, yet the question must be asked, who is ultimately responsible for the child’s actions, the parent or society?

The answer is much more complicated and far more tangled up, than it needs to be, but that is the world that we live in these days. Gone are the days when one parent can go and talk to another parent, now if you don’t get the police involved, you yourself can be charged with a crime, and accused of all sorts of things.

So the question is what happens now? Well there is a lesson to be learned, one is do not leave your doors open and unattended, and know where your children are at, in order to best protect them from their own impulses. Children are not so stupid, and will do what they want, if they believe that they can get away with such, including stealing and taking items that do not belong to them. If they have no consequences to their actions, would that not mean that in years to come they will gradually progress to doing far greater harm and more damage in the long run?

.Charge the child, as we have left the raising of such to the state, and thus the child needs to be punished.

I can't believe the hardness that comes from people's mouth. Charging him with a felony is like charging a 2 year old running around naked with public nudity.

I will go as far as to say that those who think the kid should get a felony, have no right being on this earth. You are effed up and ruining the world for everyone else.

Originally posted by sligtlyskeptical
I can't believe the hardness that comes from people's mouth. Charging him with a felony is like charging a 2 year old running around naked with public nudity.
I will go as far as to say that those who think the kid should get a felony, have no right being on this earth. You are effed up and ruining the world for everyone else.

Define the effects of a felony charge for a poor ignorant foreigner please...as I said:
"So what happens when a 10 year old is charged with a felony? That's kinda key to this discussion, isn't it?"

Got kids of your own? Stealing at 10 and nudity at 2 are not in quite the same bracket.

reply to post by sligtlyskeptical

You are stating not to charge this child with stealing a bike, so then what do you propose the punishment should be for him breaking the law?
Answer this question, and mind you that this puts you in the seat of both the child and the victim. What if this was your child, this 10 year old child, how would you propose to deal with a child that not only has stolen before, but did it again, and these items are not cheap, how do you make sure that he does not do it again? And can the community and neighborhood that you live in, can they trust your child, knowing that he has indeed broke the law?

What if this was not your child, but say your child’s bike that was stolen, then what? Would you be so content to let him off with a warning, on the basis that boys will be boys? Would you be so willing to forgive, if you saw your property or that of your loved ones taken without any thought or consequence of action?

And the community at large, do you not think that this is going to affect them? Do you think that they are going to be so forgiving or trusting of this family, knowing that now that they can not trust a person who stole from someone else? What then?

Kind of hard questions to answer, as it is easy as we are not there, nor is it our child or neighborhood. Many of us were not in the position to determine the way children are raised these days, nor did we have a say in the matter. Many of us were children ourselves, when the rules on how a family can and can not deal with a child in their home, from punishments to what is and is not appropriate for rearing of a child. One could say that many of the people on this board, all can remember when the greatest threat to our actions was not the law, rather the ultimate threat: Wait till your father gets home.

But those days are gone, and the question should be, is it better or worse off for society and the children these days, where the days of spankings and punishments having a sting, are no longer acceptable.

A popular entertainer, Whoopi Goldberg states on the following: “We said, we wanted a freer and more connective relationship with our kids; and they have raised barbarians.” www.allvoices.com...

Her point being, that there was a generation, some of whom are still around, that were very polite, manners around, and then slowly, how they decided how to raise children changed, and now days, such is gone as the way of the dodo, pretty much extinct.

Maybe we should forgive, yet at the same time, there is that nagging question and thought that comes up, what if this is just the beginning, what is next for this young child, if he receives no punishments, where does it lead to from there? After all, with the way things are going, would it be acceptable if he say got shot as he was breaking in, would that be alright? Or how about what if he kills someone in the course of a robbery? What then if he decided that a 400 dollar bike is no longer the thing and decides to take say a car, cause he thinks the car looks cool and wants it?

No, the problems with that child were set there long before he did these actions and we as a society now must think of solutions to try to set him straight and to try to help out, before it gets worse. After all there are a few mothers and families out there, that are starting to think as many who are hard on children are thinking.

Ask yourself this, if this child and his family does not get the attention it needs, would it matter if this child is just another statistic?