I don't care how "ill" they are/were, I don't want them in society (Young Offenders - What Should The Law Do With Them?)

Member Name: amonet

Product:	Young Offenders - What Should The Law Do With Them?
Date:	01/11/00 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: lock them up - safer for everyone

Disadvantages: their lives will be wasted - but they won't be able to reoffend

Young Offenders in general, the thieves and destructors of property:

Children learn from the adults they are surrounded by. They learn by example. If you don't live a law abiding life, then your children will probably grow up to some extent the same. If a child is hit at home, even as a toddler he's learned that that's how you deal with people. If a child is taught respect for other people, like most of us are, he grows up to maintain that and pass it on.

There have, however, always been people who grow up to be violent or perverted despite their upbringing. This has been so since the beginning of time. These people are ill and need to be treated medically, or at least put somewhere that stops them from being able to do their deeds in society.

What about the ones who are just bad?? They KNOW right and wrong but don't act upon it. Some of them are abused and filled with rage against the world. Some of them are not cared for and so don't care about other people. Where does this all take us to?

Parents. As a child, the phrase "Spare the rod, spoil the child" meant abuse to me. Nowadays though, I understand it. When my father was young, he got the odd whack with the cane, as did his peers. How much yobbing around happened 50 years ago? Far less than today. My father wasn't abused. He was taught The Rules and was disciplined to learn his place in life, after all, as a parent you are training your child for adult life. My father says that life was different back then too - kids didn't just roam the streets like they do now. If they stole, they got a nasty punishment from the law. They went mostly from school to job, they had to work as the benefits system didn't exist. Nowadays they don't have that. If you leave school without having a job, you can sign on the dole and scrounge money off the state (No, DON'T say that I'm criticising those that really do need financial help. I'm
not and that's not what this is about).

I seem to see Young Offenders being reported in the papers as coming from broken homes, poor homes and having grown up with nothing. Hardly surprising then that they turn out that way is it?? Single mothers especially can have a hard time with teenagers, and most of all with teenage boys. These boys need strong male role models and don't get them.

Family life has changed so much. Even the right to smack your child is up for debate. You'd smack your child or punish them appropriately in another manner if they ran into the road or insisted on trying to climb into the oven, so why do teenagers who offend get lovely rooms with tv in institutions?? Deny them their privileges, that's the point of putting them away. Don't make prison etc easy for them. Make the experience as horrible as possible and it will change their minds about crime. In the States, it's sometimes prison or the army - why don't we do that here??

On to what everyone else is talking about in this forum: Young Offenders who commit violent acts

When I was ten years old, I did things I knew I shouldn't have done. I wasn't quite as bad as a few friends who nicked rubbers and penny sweets, but I did beat my sister up and tease other kids.

However, I never EVER not once felt like REALLY hurting another child (no, not even my sister, she's a similar age to me and beat me up in return ... yet we never left marks, siblings DO that), animal, person, anyone. Even a poor friend who was beaten badly on a regular basis by her parents felt the same way. We both knew the difference between right and wrong.

Like everyone else in the country, I was appalled by what those two boys did to Jamie Bulger. What the hell happened??? Did they wake up that morning and decide to go out and torture a kid to death??? Or are they truly ill??

There are a lot of boys in my family and I have t
o say that half of the things they got up to were due to egging each other on, dares and trying to be "bigger" than each other. My brothers are a case in point - but while they enjoyed daring each other to jump out of massive trees with their hands in their pockets, it never occured to them at the age of ten to commit violence.

So is this what happened?? Were those 2 boys trying to out do each other? I just don't understand what was going through their minds. Their backgrounds weren't the best according to reports. Apparently they had it tough and didn't see Jamie as the little person he was, they saw him as an object. An argument for being desensitised by abuse within the home and from tv? What made them cross the line?

We could talk forever about why they committed murder. We could rationalise and pontificate all we want.

The question now is what to do with them.

They obviously aren't safe. We can all understand the feelings of the Bulger family, though not all of us would actually act upon them. I have a two year old and the thought of someone committing such a horrible violent act against an innocent baby fills me with rage so how would I react in the Bulger's position? I bet there isn't a mother on earth who wouldn't kill anyone trying to do to their child in front of them, what those boys did to Jamie. A mother would defend her children with her life.

The fact is that grown men who do these things already know right and wrong and commit these crimes anyway. How disturbed is a ten year old who does the same? Totally fubar is what these boys are and they should NEVER be allowed free. I don't care how ill they are or how hard their life has been OR what model prisoners they are. They should be locked up to keep our kids safe and that's that. Give them all the medical treatment you want, let their families visit them whenever they want, let them be educated and have lots o
f home comforts, I don't care. Just DO NOT let them out onto the streets where they will be able to commit these crimes again.

If this level of violence is festering in a ten year old boy, what kind of violence is in the mind of the grown man he becomes? They are men now and fully grown. They have more strength, mental abilities and cunning than they did at the age of ten. They can even pretend to be reformed characters (although they truly may well be) but the risk is too great for me.

Lock 'em up and don't let them out.

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