Prosecuting Children

10 year old charged with murder

What is our obsession with prosecuting children? Can justice ever be served by sentencing a 10 year old to life in prison? Why not execute him? If we want to treat him like an adult, is it still moral to condemn him to lethal injection? He's 10 years old. Whatever caused him to murder is not something he's intellectually developed enough to choose, and in another 10 years fate might render him into the type of soul that would never harm anyone. Would it be fair for him to spend another 60 years behind bars just because he killed someone before he hit puberty?

Maybe if we didn't have the type of society that isolated children, subjected them to forces like poverty and constant manipulation in the public school system, and exposed them to violence, insecurity and social competition on a daily basis, things like this would rarely or ever happen. When a child murders, it is more of an indictment against your entire society than it is against the viciousness of the child. That's my two cents on the matter.

Oh, is it strange to name a boy Tristen? In this new androgynous age can we just name anyone anything? Maybe I'll change my name to Isabella. I'm not transgendered, but since names no longer need to imply gender, I really like that name. ;p Isabella Benedicto, a nice balance of masculine and feminine forces plus a touch of megalomania just for flavor.

They brought charges to hold him for a while. He obviously has some mental problems and will not be found guilty of murder. He will be getting some long term therapy. This will be interesting to see how it turns out.
You could not just let him walk away like nothing happened. I don't think I would trust him to far though.

a reply to: Nechash

Overall it's a big problem.
Not sure what i would do.
a 10 year old, in prison? already? with so much time to "fix"him?

at the same time, as per your link:

Kurilla (the kid) is accused of using a walking stick to choke 90-year-old Helen Novak inside this home in Damascus Township Saturday.
The boy also allegedly punched the woman five times in the throat.
The boy has already spent two nights in jail.

he used a cane to choke someone and punched a woman 5 times in the throat?
can you call that accidental? or just a "boys will be boys" type thing?
a truth that is hard to accept, is that even a 10 year old can be a sick degenerate, unfit for society at such a young age.

Now to properly deal with him? who knows. my impulse would be to lock him up, the kid is obviously an animal, i don't care how much therapy he goes through, be it 10 or 20 years from now, i would not want him living close to me or dating my daughter.
but that's just me.

a reply to: Nechash

It's not like they're going to lock him down in the subbasement of a dungeon and feed him bread and water through a slot in the door.

Most consider 20-25 years life served. He will probably get some badly needed guidance and counseling in that time; and likely be let out even sooner. What's so wrong with that?

Or should we just say, "boys will be boys!" and turn him loose?

a reply to: Hoosierdaddy71

You could put him in a state facility for the mentally insane for awhile without any legal proceedings whatsoever. I'm sure they have some juvenile detention facilities that have mental health wards that could facilitate him. If a child is not legally capable of entering into an informed contract and offering consent, aren't they by definition technically insane?

a reply to: IShotMyLastMuse

No, we shouldn't say boys will just be boys, but there is no statute of limitations on murder. We could at least give him 10 years (his entire lifetime thus far) in a mental health facility to see if he reforms and if he doesn't, at the end of the ten years, then charges could be brought against him when he is actually an adult and can understand the gravity of his situation.

a reply to: Nechash


He didn't swipe a candy bar, he murdered a woman.
That's kind of serious. Besides I think your jumping the gun on this one. By the time the lawyers get done he might just end up in therapy.

a reply to: Hoosierdaddy71

We live in a civilization that believes in the pure machinery of our justice system way too much. From what I can see this system destroys lives, encourages petty criminals to become hardened criminals and reforms almost no one. Penitence is the failed philosophy of puritans and we shouldn't be automatically subjecting people, let alone children to this mechanism when we have other tools at our disposal that we have yet to even try let alone exhaust.

We have a thousand bureaucrats throwing their hands up in the air, creating one size fits all solutions to a dynamic problem and condemning children to a lifetime of agony and diminshment over a single incidence. The situation is a tragedy, there's no doubt about that. What the boy did was morally wrong and we can't reward that type of behavior, but there are other things we can do besides just throw him into the justice system straightaway and hope some judge and prosecutor can broker a deal that is somehow less destructive than a lifetime behind bars.

a reply to: Nechash

Oh, is it strange to name a boy Tristen? In this new androgynous age can we just name anyone anything?

No, it's not strange... because Tristan is a boy's name, afterall.

Are you not familiar with celtic/gaelic names ?

a reply to: Nechash

Aren't you kind of assuming that your feel good approach to justice would work better? I don't think I can emphasize enough that his one incident as you call it was murder. Steeling a car is a little more forgivable but this kid committed a capital crime. He obviously has a screwed up sense of right and wrong. I don't believe a slap on the wrist and stern talking to will be all it takes to help this kid.

On a side note for perspective, do you have kids?
I have a 12 yr old daughter and I can tell you that people tend to underestimate how much kids understand about the world around them. believe me when I say that a ten year old kid should understand murder and if they don't the problem with them runs deep. This kid will surely receive therapy for many years but I doubt will get prison.

a reply to: CranialSponge

No. I have a cousin Tristen, and she's a girl. Unfortunately, I was raised in the states where everyone is Bob, Henry, David, Joshua. There's not much ambiguous here. I met a male Leslie once. That's about as strange as I've seen.

I'm glad my parents went with Joshua: nice, boring, obviously male. It was the most popular boy's name at the time I was born, kind of like being name Muhammad in the middle east. There's nothing more absurd than being teased for your name. We don't get to pick them after all, although I have had mine legally changed a few times now, so there is that option. Judges always scratch their heads when a male changes their last name. "You're not trying to evade the law or any creditors?" "No, Sir." "Ok then, so ordered." *bang*

I am really considering that Isabella thing though. I'm inspired.

a reply to: Hoosierdaddy71

In my mind, it is superior to make the decision that can easily be changed when you can put a pin in the other decision that cannot be easily changed. The child can be removed from society protecting other people without being sentenced to a lifetime in prison... yet; however, if he is sentenced to a lifetime in prison now, that's almost irreversible once rendered into reality.

Also, if they hold a trial now and they make a wrong decision at trial and give him too little time behind bars, then that's also irreversible and he might end up getting out too soon and killing again. There's always that possibility.

originally posted by: CranialSponge
a reply to: Nechash

Oh, is it strange to name a boy Tristen? In this new androgynous age can we just name anyone anything?

No, it's not strange... because Tristan is a boy's name, afterall.

Are you not familiar with celtic/gaelic names ?

all the tristans I've ever heard of are girls.

originally posted by: CranialSponge
a reply to: Nechash

Oh, is it strange to name a boy Tristen? In this new androgynous age can we just name anyone anything?

No, it's not strange... because Tristan is a boy's name, afterall.

Are you not familiar with celtic/gaelic names ?

To begin with OP..Tristan is MY son's name. I do not appreciate it being painted with the wide brush you have chosen. Secondly, for a ten year old to commit murder in a such a way..one needs to examine everything, I mean EVERYTHING in this boy's life up until now. You cannot place blame on society, or the justice system, or the education system, or parental involvement or lack of it, or whether or not this child may be in dire need of a psych evaluation. Does that mean if found guilty he deserves to be treated like an adult? No, it doesn't. But this happens so rarely that the legal system doesn't have enough alternative measures in place to handle it, IMHO. Should he be locked up till 18? Perhaps yes...then re-evaluated to see if indeed his innocence of consequences or naivety were a factor. Too many unknown variables in your provided information to judge how it should be handled.

a reply to: AccessDenied

Sorry, did not mean to offend you or your son. Forgive my antiquated vision of gender culture. ;p

a reply to: Nechash

Beacuse its simply about the funds. Prosecute a young one so he can be a debt slave for a much longer time than if one prosecutes and older man or something. (Just my take on it)

a reply to: Nechash

If you travel across the pond, you'll be sitting in the pub sucking back a pint with lads named Shannon, Tracy, Leslie, Aubrey, Lacey, Lindsay, Tory, etc.

Just be careful not to crack any new-world jokes about old-world 'girly' names... you don't want to end up with a Scotsman's fist the size of a Mack truck in your face.

a reply to: CranialSponge

You know why men work so hard to overtly appear aggressively masculine? I wish I had a million bodies or was physically immortal. I'd love to get in a real Scottish fistfight without worrying about being impaled by something. I've fought with Scotch and Irish American people here, but I doubt it is the same. People here just don't hit hard. I think they are afraid of hurting one another. I did break four teeth once when I was a teenager. That was a fun day, got a concussion too, compressed some disks in my neck. Never take a full punch straight to the face, especially not from a kid who boxes for a living. It changes things forever, but the stars were nice while they lasted. I remember laughing until the air hit the nerve endings in my shattered smile.

My father always taught me to step into a punch and to hit behind the person. He's the kind of guy that puts you in the hospital with his left hand and kills you with his right. Luckily, I've never worked hard enough to have his strength. Up until now, my temper has been too short for that kind of power.

a reply to: Hoosierdaddy71

The new world americas took common boys' names and changed them to girls' names.

Hence the reason why so many Americans think that names like Shannon and Tristan are girl names, when in fact they were originally boys names for hundreds of years... and still are to this day.

a reply to: IShotMyLastMuse
by the time he gets released he will have been truly institutionalised and he will not be able to function in the real world .

the crime he committed was most barbaric in nature and even though i am against capital punishment i think there are times when it is required .