Comments on: Gang rape, frontal lobes, and adolescent restorative justice

By: mermade

mermade — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 00:18:45 +0000

Another case I heard about was regarding a guy in Florida. My memory of this story is very vague, but here is what I remember: some guy shot a little girl. He said it was an accident, so he only got five years in prison. I think he was a teenager, too. Anyway, when he got out after five years, he murdered someone again. I highly doubt his first crime was an accident. But again, I am not sure about the death penalty. I agree with your lesson in regards to the History 1B story.

By: mermade

mermade — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 00:13:49 +0000

I guess I just don’t lump getting the right to vote, drinking and buying cigarettes with rape and murder. The former are age-appropriate privilges, the latter are crimes no matter how old you are. When I was seventeen, I knew as much as any 40-year-old that killing someone on the basis of race is wrong. I don’t know how I feel about the death penalty — but I do think that the guys who gang raped that girl and the guys who murdered the guy on my street should be locked up for a very, very long time.

By: Hugo Schwyzer

Hugo Schwyzer — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 23:48:08 +0000

Mermade, as a thought experiment, explain this: Why try juveniles as adults for crimes while denying them access to alcohol, cigarettes, and the vote? If they are old enough to be held responsible in precisely the same way as adults for crime, aren’t they old enough to be allowed to drink? The age of majority has, traditionally, meant a threshold of responsibility.

This is why, as I always remind my History 1B students, Gavrilo Princip (age 19) did not get the death penalty for killing Franz Ferdinand in 1914. He wasn’t a legal adult yet under Austro-Hungarian law. 97 years ago, the Austrians had a consistency we don’t yet have — and we now know so much more about brain development.

Remember that leniency for the perpetrators should never be construed as lack of horror at the crime…

By: mermade

mermade — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 23:39:48 +0000

Nope. Sorry. I don’t agree. I think the boys who shot the black guy knew well what they were doing as much as any “adult” would and therefore should be tried as adults. The same goes for the gang rapists, IMHO.

I don’t know why, but your arguement on this one offends me a bit (as you suspected it might, for some of your readers). I guess we have to just agree to disagree.

By: Hugo Schwyzer

Hugo Schwyzer — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 19:35:20 +0000

Mermade, I think the drinking age should be 21 for a reason. For that very same reason, which has to do with issues of responsibility and decision-making, those who are not legally adult shouldn’t be punished as are adults.

Rights and responsibility exist in a healthy tension; those who do not have all of the former cannot be held fully to the standard of the latter.

By: mermade

mermade — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 19:07:37 +0000

I’m not sure if you know this, Hugo, but about two weeks ago, a 17-year-old boy (or maybe he was 18) was murdered in a drive-by shooting several blocks away from my house. My brother even knew the guy who was murdered. It was racial: the boy who was killed was black, and apparently the killers were white racists.

You can check out the full story here: http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/ci_6532038?source=most_viewed

I don’t know about you, but gang raping women and murdering people is wrong no matter how old you are. I want to see whoever killed the young man locked up for life.

By: mythago

mythago — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 18:07:47 +0000

Query whether, and to what extent, such Peter Pan-ism may be exacerbated by a policy that assumes lawbreakers weren’t old enough to know what they were doing, even if they were.

Query additionally whether statutory-rape laws, raising the drinking age to 21, and a mininum age for entering military service also exacerbates the problem. Suggestion that the answer to all is ‘probably not’.

(Myself, I think it has a lot more to do with Boomers refusing to realize the adult response to once having said “don’t trust anyone over thirty!” is not to fight being over thirty tooth and nail.)

By: Dawn

Dawn — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 11:10:49 +0000

What is happening to our kids.And when will we see that this is a really huge problem.What are we going to do?. I feel very compelled to do something because we are loosing our youth to a lot of senseless killing and things. What ever happened to just fighting it out where did all the gangs and ideas to kill a person. I insist that congress and the other law maker take a look at the crime rate all over and come up with other solutions. Like the person who killed another person father has to pay that family for the rest of his life. SO his little job in prison money will go to the family of the person they killed.They will never forget that family becayse he will be paying them all his life. Something has got to give.

By: DJW

DJW — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 16:49:51 +0000

Hugo–*great* post. Best thing I’ve read here since I started reading you a few months ago.

One argument you hear in favor of trying children as adults is that if the crime is bad enough, it’s an “adult crime” and they should be treated as such.

To which I respond–if a 50 year old spraypaints “Class of 72 rules” on the side of the high-school gymnasium, should they be tried as a juvenile because of the nature of the crime?

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 16:18:24 +0000

Good point. Query whether, and to what extent, such Peter Pan-ism may be exacerbated by a policy that assumes lawbreakers weren’t old enough to know what they were doing, even if they were.