Gonna have to agree on this one. Our new pattern of trying juveniles like adults does not seem to be helping anything.
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2024
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Right. Like the whole point of treating juveniles differently is that they are incapable of understanding the magnitude of what they are doing. If anything, the argument for treating them differently is the strongest when applied to very serious crimes like murder.
I think it's the exact opposite.
Juveniles may not understand that jaywalking or trespassing or resisting arrest is wrong, especially if parents haven't explained those things to them.
But even a ten year old understands that murdering your classmates is very wrong. Just ask one if you don't believe me.
Yeah... I'm all for compassion and understanding, but if someone is missing the voice in their head that says "Hey, we shouldn't be killing people" then their circuitry is broken, no matter what age they are or what their circumstances are. And that broken circuitry poses a real and present danger to everyone in that person's orbit.
I don't support punitive incarceration, but the general public has the right to exist with a reasonable degree of certainty that they're not likely to encounter a cold blooded murderer on any given day, and part of ensuring that is to incarcerate people who are known to kill others, at least until such a time that we can have a high degree of confidence that they won't be doing that again.
The person being a child doesn't really change that part of the social contract. I promise you won't be any less upset if someone you love is murdered by a child than by an adult.
Has there ever been a repeat mass shooter? Is the risk of recidivism really the right theory for understanding the incarceration of mass shooters? Even if we broaden the question to whether juvenile mass shooters are likely to commit other crimes, is that even true?
Has there ever been a repeat mass shooter?
I don't have hard data, but probably not. Most probably don't get the chance. If they don't kill themselves and aren't killed by police, most of them are probably facing decades if not life in prison or even execution.
At least if we're talking about the sort of "classic" mass shooting scenario where a lone wolf type walks into a soft target like a school and opens fire indiscriminately.
If you open up the definition a bit, you might find some examples, though I don't really like doing that because they really seem like different kinds of scenarios to me.
You could probably find a couple gang or mafia types who have taken part in more than one incident where multiple people were shot. Same for certain terrorist/guerilla groups and such.
The beltway sniper attacks took place over about 6 months, though most of their attacks individually wouldn't count as mass shootings
After the Boston Marathon bombing the bombers shot an MIT police officer and then later had a shootout with police. Not mass shootings, and you could probably argue that everything that followed the bombing was just an extension of the original incident.
The shootings in Maine last year might count, since they took place at 2 different locations, but again you could probably argue that it was all part of the same incident.
That's what I can think of off the top of my head. Nothing that I'd personally feel comfortable labeling as "repeat mass shooter" but they are incidents that kind of lean in that direction that show that they may not be just one-off events and that the perpetrators may try to continue if not stopped immediately.
I feel like I've also seen a few cases where it was discovered that the shooters had plans to commit other attacks. We'll probably never be able to say conclusively if they actually would have followed through with those plans if given the opportunity.
Valid questions. Do we have firm answers to any of them? And absent firm answers, what kind of risks to the safety of the general public are we willing to accept in service of ideological values?
I also thought the entire reason for treating minors differently is because they're more likely to commit petty crimes and that shouldn't hurt their future.
A teenager who did a breaking and entering made a bad decision and should be given another chance. Their bad decision shouldn't haunt them for the rest of their life because that just ensures their only option is to continue committing crimes. A mass murder should not be given another chance. That's not a stupid decision a kid makes.
Yep the best recourse is to be harsher on the parents. Don't have the kids if you are not gonna take full responsibility for their actions until they are 18. The ole reverse "sins of the father".
I'm not sure that works either, when some do have legitimate mental health issues and our mental health infrastructure in the country is a little weak.
Ultimately I don't think a punishment-and-fear paradigm is really the solution. The fear part just doesn't work at the broader societal scale, and never really has.
But when the parents are giving minors guns or teaching them how to use them then the parents should be held 100% liable for everything that child does with their given gun or gun knowledge.
Yeah I can fully agree with that one.
The US "justice" system was never about justice, education and reinsertion.
It was about revenge, and it's always been.
The American prison system is absolutely counter productive, whether for adults or juveniles. When you throw people in a cage and treat them like animals for years, they are going to act like animals when you let them back out. The only difference between adult and juvenile prosecution is likely to be how long he's locked away before he's turned loose on society again.
Rather than deciding between adult and juvenile, we should be deciding whether or not we want to treat offenders like human beings and actually try to rehabilitate them if possible.
I agree, but I also think there ought to be a punitive aspect when dealing with murder. If you take someone out of society, I think you lose the right to participate in society. The truly difficult thing is getting fair trials. There are too many people bullied into accepting plea deals, innocents who are locked up to avoid the death penalty. But with an open and shut case like this? Lock him away. He stole four people from their families.
There's no evidence that what feels good to you actually reduces the odds of the perpetrator committing crimes again or reduces the rate of those crimes in society in general, and good evidence that what doesn't feel good to you does those things. So you will have to decide if you would rather feel good about how the person who did something wrong was punished or have less crime in your society.
For absolutely known murder with no possibility of mistaken identity (a school shooter caught on camera and captured on the scene, for example), I am ok with vindictive punishment. Kill multiple people, lose your freedom. Live in a cage for the next sixty years. That's the level of proof that I need for guilt-free incarceration.
A generation ago the U.S. latched onto a bogus notion that some adolescents are sub-human “superpredators” who must be treated only as if they are wild animals to be caged or put down.
This was a racist dog-whistle, repeated by Hillary (the shithead who gave us the orange bad), about crack-babies.
I do wonder if the reasoning behind trying teen shooters as adults is to ensure that their record sticks into adulthood. When you are charged as a juvenile your records are expunged upon turning 18. I certainly would want to make sure that this person could never legally own a gun again.
When you are charged as a juvenile your records are expunged upon turning 18
A lot of people think this but it isn't true. In Georgia (and most other states) you have to ask a judge to expunge your record and they have to give the prosecutor's office an opportunity to respond before the judge can decide if the person with the juvenile record has been rehabilitated and their record should be expunged. There's nothing automatic about the process.
Well that is certainly a comfort and gives more credit towards not trying and sentencing teens like they're adults.
I've always been under the impression that the juvenile justice system is not equipped to adjudicate murder charges.
Why not?
Even in regular court not every judge can preside over a murder case. Tales experience in the area of law.
Sadly, there wre plenty of juveniles who are tried for murder to create experienced judges and courts at every level.
Please define "plenty"
According to DoJ, juveniles account for about 10% of all homicide arrests.
That's the charge not where it's charged
Plenty means enough to serve a specific purpose, in this case enough to provide judges experience in juvenile murder trials.
Well if you have no empirical evidence we'll have to agree to disagree