14 years old too young for life in prison?

[cybrsage]

I still say a person who murders another (not accidently, but purposefully) should only spend as much time in prison as the person they murdered spends dead. Not a day longer, otherwise it is unjust.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

I still say a person who murders another (not accidently, but purposefully) should only spend as much time in prison as the person they murdered spends dead. Not a day longer, otherwise it is unjust.

From this perspective we should incarcerate people only for the extra-life taken. That is, they should be in jail for as many years as the person killed would reasonably be thought to have left.

 

[alkemyst]

From this perspective we should incarcerate people only for the extra-life taken. That is, they should be in jail for as many years as the person killed would reasonably be thought to have left.

you realize how hard this will be to determine and just insure someone never ends up sentenced.

 

[cybrsage]

From this perspective we should incarcerate people only for the extra-life taken. That is, they should be in jail for as many years as the person killed would reasonably be thought to have left.

Well, my personal view is that the government should simply do what is fair to make everyone equal. If you take a life on purpose, you now have two lives. Since you wanted the new life, you can keep it, but the government will take your original life from you (since everyone can only have one life at a time). You are allowed to leave once your original life is taken and you are reduced to having only one life.


However, if we are not going to execute all murderers, the next best thing is to leave them in prison until the dead person returns to life. It does not matter if they only had 2 years of life left or 122 years left. We have no idea how many years they had left, so we just keep the person in jail until the murdered person returns to life. At which point, they can go home.

 

[nCred]

I live in Sweden. When two 16-17 year old kids at my school murdered an old man with a hammer and afterwards mutilated his body, they got sentenced to 4 years (which is the max sentence for youths under 18) in juvinile prison. Prisoners are usually released after 2/3 of the time served if they behave, so they were probably locked up for less than 3 years. This was about 10 years ago and not much has changed in the Swedish judicial system since then, 17 year olds still get 3-4 years no matter how brutal the crime is. It's fucked up.

Kids under 15 can't be charged with crimes at all, they are just sent home if they kill someone.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

I live in Sweden. When two 16-17 year old kids at my school murdered an old man with a hammer and afterwards mutilated his body, they got sentenced to 4 years (which is the max sentence for youths under 18) in juvinile prison. Prisoners are usually released after 2/3 of the time served if they behave, so they were probably locked up for less than 3 years. This was about 10 years ago and not much has changed in the Swedish judicial system since then, 17 year olds still get 3-4 years no matter how brutal the crime is. It's fucked up.

Kids under 15 can't be charged with crimes at all, they are just sent home if they kill someone.

Sounds about right.

Though the parents should be liable for the behavior of their animals.

 

[ichy]

I live in Sweden. When two 16-17 year old kids at my school murdered an old man with a hammer and afterwards mutilated his body, they got sentenced to 4 years (which is the max sentence for youths under 18) in juvinile prison. Prisoners are usually released after 2/3 of the time served if they behave, so they were probably locked up for less than 3 years. This was about 10 years ago and not much has changed in the Swedish judicial system since then, 17 year olds still get 3-4 years no matter how brutal the crime is. It's fucked up.

Kids under 15 can't be charged with crimes at all, they are just sent home if they kill someone.

I make sure to remember stories like this when European countries criticize the US for the death penalty.

 

[Ninjahedge]

Ya, Sweden.

I mean, can you get a more rowdy, dangerous and outright savage nation?

I mean, crime there is RAMPANT!!!!

 

[werepossum]

I make sure to remember stories like this when European countries criticize the US for the death penalty.

Agreed. Though I suspect that when/if Sweden has the same crime problems we have, they will change their laws accordingly.

 

[ichy]

Agreed. Though I suspect that when/if Sweden has the same crime problems we have, they will change their laws accordingly.

What's interesting is that in a lot of European countries the vast majority of the population doesn't approve of the weak punishments for serious criminals but the politicians do it anyways. In Switzerland a few years back there was a referendum that would have required real life sentences (not this life but paroled in ten years crap you see in most places) for violent sexual offenders. Every major political party except for one was against it and all sorts of European human rights organizations opposed it. Thanks to direct democracy though it passed. You'd probably see similar results in other countries IF people were given the chance.

 

[werepossum]

What's interesting is that in a lot of European countries the vast majority of the population doesn't approve of the weak punishments for serious criminals but the politicians do it anyways. In Switzerland a few years back there was a referendum that would have required real life sentences (not this life but paroled in ten years crap you see in most places) for violent sexual offenders. Every major political party except for one was against it and all sorts of European human rights organizations opposed it. Thanks to direct democracy though it passed. You'd probably see similar results in other countries IF people were given the chance.

Well said.

 

[Ninjahedge]

The one thing to remember is that sometimes the popular choice is not the right one.

If 51% of the people voted to have the money of the other 49%, would that be right because "the people" wanted it that way?

 

[cybrsage]

Voting to put horrible people who prey on the weakest members of society into jail for a VERY VERY VERY long time is not the same as voting to take other people's money.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

agree, the kid that didn't actually shoot anyone shouldn't be held to the same standard as the shooters

Sure he should. He was a part of the crime. He made the decision to help with the robbery and knew someone had a gun.


People like this aren't going to be re-habilitated. Even getting out of prison at 21, they will be fully engaged in the gang/prison mentallity. It's the only thing they know.

 

[werepossum]

Sure he should. He was a part of the crime. He made the decision to help with the robbery and knew someone had a gun.


People like this aren't going to be re-habilitated. Even getting out of prison at 21, they will be fully engaged in the gang/prison mentallity. It's the only thing they know.

He was part of the crime and made the conscious decision to help with a crime in which certainly the potential for someone to be shot was there, so certainly he should be charged with Murder 1. However - he didn't necessarily agree to shoot someone. Certainly not every armed robbery results in a murder or shooting. So even though he should be charged for the same crime, he should not in my opinion get as severe a sentence as the shooter. (This might have been covered at trial, but I'm assuming there was no conspiracy to murder the clerk. Otherwise there would be no reason to warn him "We ain't playin'.")

For the other, statistically people like this certainly aren't going to be rehabilitated. However, some small percentage of them will turn their lives around. The question to me is whether we as a society have the right to assign an individual life without parole for an act committed at fourteen to protect ourselves from the group overall. To me, some crimes certainly do qualify for that, but killing someone in a scuffle, or being an unarmed part of an armed robbery/murder, don't raise to that level. I think that's an unacceptable price to make a fourteen year old pay for our security.

 

[ichy]

werepossum:

I mostly agree with your last paragraph. For a crime that involves real depravity and sadism I don't care how young a person is, lock them up forever (or even better execute them.) For participating in a robbery gone wrong at 14 there should be a stiff penalty but not necessarily life w/o parole.

 

[werepossum]

werepossum:

I mostly agree with your last paragraph. For a crime that involves real depravity and sadism I don't care how young a person is, lock them up forever (or even better execute them.) For participating in a robbery gone wrong at 14 there should be a stiff penalty but not necessarily life w/o parole.

Yeah, for some of those kids . . . Thank G-d we have prisons and SCOTUS hasn't (yet) prevented us from putting them there.