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The title is a little more clickbaty than what it is. It's an ankle monitor for when kids are on house arrest for juvenile crimes. > On March 29, court officia

The title is a little more clickbaty than what it is. It's an ankle monitor for when kids are on house arrest for juvenile crimes. > On March 29, court officials in Chicago strapped an ankle monitor onto Shawn, a 15-year-old awaiting trial on charges of armed robbery. They explained that the device would need to be charged for two hours a day and that it would track his movements using GPS technology. He was told he would have to be given permission to leave his house, even to go to school. But he found out that through his monitor, officers wouldn’t just be able to track his location, as most electronic monitors do. They would also be able to speak—and listen—to him. and > In January, Cook County, home of Chicago, awarded a contract to the electronic monitoring company Track Group, which will lease 275 ankle monitors to keep tabs on children awaiting trial.

djtriptych 8y ago
Not clickbaity enough. Chicago is tracking kids and listening to potentially anyone in the city without consent.
- rayiner 8y ago
  “Kids” awaiting trial for armed robbery. (The infantilization of teenagers is ridiculous. For most of human history, young men at 15 were fighting wars. If you’re old enough to rob someone with a gun, you’re not a “kid.” Under certain circumstances it also may not be reasonable to treat you like an adult for purposes of the law, but calling the accused a “kid” is a disingenuous way to try to downplay the seriousness of his conduct.)
  - crooked-v 8y ago
    Using scare quotes doesn't change the fact that these are children.
    - monksy 8y ago
      > these are children. that were old enough to hold up a gun/knife to someone and make a demand.
      - IBCNU 8y ago
        I am a former high school teacher working with Chicago kids age 15-22 (yes). I don't know about you, but they're children to me. They are simply not equipped with enough information to make rational choices in a system that has either by design or evolution _completely failed them_.
        rayiner 8y ago
        A child is someone who is not cognitively capable of distinguishing right from wrong. A 15-22 year old is fully capable of doing that. They may have a hard time fighting various pressures and doing the right thing, but that's a qualitatively different issue. (And in fact, most adolescents are perfectly capable of doing that too.)
        crooked-v 8y ago
        > A 15-22 year old is fully capable of doing that. Actually, the brain is still a work in progress until age 25. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=141164708 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=141164... > So the changes that happen between 18 and 25 are a continuation of the process that starts around puberty, and 18 year olds are about halfway through that process. Their prefrontal cortex is not yet fully developed. That's the part of the brain that helps you to inhibit impulses and to plan and organize your behavior to reach a goal. > And the other part of the brain that is different in adolescence is that the brain's reward system becomes highly active right around the time of puberty and then gradually goes back to an adult level, which it reaches around age 25 and that makes adolescents and young adults more interested in entering uncertain situations to seek out and try to find whether there might be a possibility of gaining something from those situations.
        8y ago
    - rayiner 8y ago
      15 year olds are not, and never have been, "children." They're adolescents. We have long recognized that people of that age are distinct from both children and adults in that they're capable of a wide variety of (often destructive) adult behaviors, but aren't put together enough to be fully accountable for that. That's fine--that's why the law tackles culpability for adolescents on a case-by-case basis. Calling them "children" is both inaccurate, and a rhetorically sneaky way to mitigate culpability, responsibility, and agency. Controlling adolescents is one of society's most important functions, precisely because of the mismatch between destructive potential and impulse control. Society thus expects adolescents to control their behavior. It might give them more leeway in that regard, but they are not (and should not be) treated like children, who generally are held harmless for their misconduct.
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > 15 year olds are not, and never have been, "children." They're adolescents. “Children” does not now generally exclude adolescents, but extends to all pre-adults. We have terms that are more specific that do exclude adolescents, but “children” isn't generally one of them (though in certainly contexts the term might have special definitions.) (Historically, it may havenexclude some or all adolescents, but that's because in most cultures, adult included some or all adolescents.) > Controlling adolescents is one of society's most important functions,precisely because of the mismatch between destructive potential and impulse control. Arguably, but then directly contradicted by: > Society thus expects adolescents to control their behavior Does society deem control of adolescents an important social function because it expects that adolescents lack adequate impulse control given their destructive potential or does it not see such a gap and expect that they have adequate impulse control for self-containment? Your second statement cannot be a consequence of the first, it is an incompatible expectation.
        rayiner 8y ago
        "Children" including adolescents is a very new (and very pernicious) idea. > Does society deem control of adolescents an important social function because it expects that adolescents lack adequate impulse control given their destructive potential or does it not see such a gap and expect that they have adequate impulse control for self-containment? There is nothing contradictory. Society holds children harmless because they're not generally cognitively capable of distinguishing right from wrong. Adolescents are, and are expected to behave. Society acknowledges that adolescents often have problems actually doing the right thing, but doesn't treat that as an excuse that mitigates culpability, as for children. Instead, they tailor punishment on a case-by-case basis to accommodate that fact. (Also, historically, they put adolescents to work, to reduce the avenues for misbehavior. Idle hands and whatnot.)
  - djtriptych 8y ago
    "trial" a.k.a. not guilty yet. Yes, listen all you want in a detention center. Also the "most of human history" argument is reductive and regressive. We can and should improve on our history.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      There is a difference between improving on our history, and denying the underlying facts of the universe that led people in history to adopt certain customs. The former might be not sending 15-year olds off to fight the neighboring tribe. That is progress. The latter would be denying that a 15-year old is fully capable of horrific violence, and deeming him a "child." That is foolish.
  - moate 8y ago
    Where's the line for you? Who is or isn't a "kid"? Is it just criminals that lose their kid status? Is it because they used a gun? What about an 8 year old that kills someone with a gun (either on purpose or accidentally) are they kids? I think, as someone in my 30's, that pointing at a group of humans who are somewhere between middle school and college age and saying "those kids over there" makes sense. Ask any developmental psychologist and they'll tell you: the brain is still developing, and 15 year olds are fucking idiots when it comes to long term consequences factoring into their decision making. "For most of human history" is a useless example because of all the other terribly stupid shit we did "for most of human history". FOH with this "I decide who is a kid" nonsense, as if a bunch of law-abiding white kids of the same age wouldn't be called kids by most sane people.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      > FOH with this "I decide who is a kid" nonsense, as if a bunch of law-abiding white kids of the same age wouldn't be called kids by most sane people. I'm pretty sure flipped out when a judge treated Ethan Couch as a "kid" (and rightfully so).
  - droithomme 8y ago
    > For most of human history, young men at 15 were fighting wars. Are you saying most 15 yr olds were fighting wars? Or that there might have been one or two somewhere that therefore makes your statement nominally correct? What is your source and data? I'd like to review it. Thanks.
    - harryh 8y ago
      Just one example: "It is estimated that at least 100,000 Union soldiers were boys under 15 years old and about 20 percent of all Civil War soldiers were under 18." http://civilwarsaga.com/child-soldiers-in-the-civil-war/ http://civilwarsaga.com/child-soldiers-in-the-civil-war/
    - detaro 8y ago
      It's pretty disingenuous to pretend the parents statement is a choice between the two extremes you've picked.
  - tptacek 8y ago
    12-year-olds stick people up. Young teenagers don't have fully-developed brains; it's probably "easier" for them to do this stuff, not harder. I have a hard time with the idea that you really think someone stops being a "kid" just because they commit a crime. Recruiting a 15-year-old to fight in an armed conflict, by the way, is an action that has a name: "war crime".
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > Young teenagers don't have fully-developed brains Neither do old teenagers; executive function isn't fully developed, IIRC, until the early-to-mid 20s.
    - rayiner 8y ago
      I don't think anyone past the age of puberty is a "kid." It may not be fair in any given circumstance to treat them like adults, but they're not children either. Societies have long recognized that fact. (There is a reason in Judiasm the Bar Mitzvah is at age 13.)
      - tptacek 8y ago
        Plenty of 12 year olds aren't past puberty, but by you're logic, they're not "kids".
      - pcwalton 8y ago
        Life expectancy was also a lot lower when these rites were introduced.
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > For most of human history, young men at 15 were fighting wars. If you’re old enough to rob someone with a gun, you’re not a “kid.” The hormonal peaks and incompletely developed executive function that made male adolescents excellent pawns in violent policy (and also contributes to their engagement in violent crime, often as similar pawns) is exactly part of them substantively being a kid.
    - RandomInteger4 8y ago
      I'm sure the relatives of people murdered by incompletely developed executive functions understand completely ...
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        > I'm sure the relatives of people murdered by incompletely developed executive functions understand completely ... Lex talionis, one of the oldest principals of justice, came about as a limitation on retribution specifically because giving “relatives of people murdered” an excessive role in deciding the application of justice was recognized millennia ago as a fatal mistake for any kind of orderly society.
        RandomInteger4 8y ago
        I'm not saying that the relatives of those murdered should have a role in deciding anything. I'm reminding the people commenting here that these "children" are being punished specifically because they have done things of real consequence that have negatively impacted society. That apparently seems lost on every one of you here. These ankle bracelets are the best things that we can do for them, not the worst. The alternative is juvenile detention. That's not a tropical vacation getaway. That's potentially much worse for them on multiple levels. But no, keep going on with the out of touch "awww, those poor innocent angels" crap.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        > I'm reminding the people commenting here that these "children" are being punished specifically because they have done things of real consequence that have negatively impacted society. If this was a punishment for an offense, it would be unconstitutional as a violation of the right to trial. If it is a condition of pre-trial release, it is would appear to be unconstitutional as a violation of due process, because this appears to be an arbitrary executive substitution of equipment with substantially different function, not part of the terms imposed by the court. > The alternative is juvenile detention. No, the alternative is pretrial release with GPS monitoring without audio surveillance as they were apparently actually assigned and as was done before the switch of equipment. > But no, keep going on with the out of touch "awww, those poor innocent angels" crap. I don't think anyone here has suggested that the children involved are categorically substantively innocent, though as this is pretrial monitoring they are categorically legally presumed innocent.
  - amatecha 8y ago
    Yeah for "most of human history" you were lucky to live past 20 or 30... Of course people approaching their later years were fighting wars. :P
    - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
      But if you lived past 20, median life expectancy was in the 60's or 70's, clear back to the Neolithic. About like today!
  - spraak 8y ago
    Kids do things all the time that they're not ready for, or are above their maturity. They lack full control, context and understanding of their environment and direction, so they shouldn't be seen as adults just because they're emulating adult actions.
mandelbrotwurst 8y ago
In what way is that not what the title says?
deleted 8y ago
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deleted 8y ago
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djtriptych 8y ago

Not clickbaity enough. Chicago is tracking kids and listening to potentially anyone in the city without consent.

rayiner 8y ago
“Kids” awaiting trial for armed robbery. (The infantilization of teenagers is ridiculous. For most of human history, young men at 15 were fighting wars. If you’re old enough to rob someone with a gun, you’re not a “kid.” Under certain circumstances it also may not be reasonable to treat you like an adult for purposes of the law, but calling the accused a “kid” is a disingenuous way to try to downplay the seriousness of his conduct.)
- crooked-v 8y ago
  Using scare quotes doesn't change the fact that these are children.
  - monksy 8y ago
    > these are children. that were old enough to hold up a gun/knife to someone and make a demand.
    - IBCNU 8y ago
      I am a former high school teacher working with Chicago kids age 15-22 (yes). I don't know about you, but they're children to me. They are simply not equipped with enough information to make rational choices in a system that has either by design or evolution _completely failed them_.
      - rayiner 8y ago
        A child is someone who is not cognitively capable of distinguishing right from wrong. A 15-22 year old is fully capable of doing that. They may have a hard time fighting various pressures and doing the right thing, but that's a qualitatively different issue. (And in fact, most adolescents are perfectly capable of doing that too.)
        crooked-v 8y ago
        > A 15-22 year old is fully capable of doing that. Actually, the brain is still a work in progress until age 25. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=141164708 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=141164... > So the changes that happen between 18 and 25 are a continuation of the process that starts around puberty, and 18 year olds are about halfway through that process. Their prefrontal cortex is not yet fully developed. That's the part of the brain that helps you to inhibit impulses and to plan and organize your behavior to reach a goal. > And the other part of the brain that is different in adolescence is that the brain's reward system becomes highly active right around the time of puberty and then gradually goes back to an adult level, which it reaches around age 25 and that makes adolescents and young adults more interested in entering uncertain situations to seek out and try to find whether there might be a possibility of gaining something from those situations.
        8y ago
  - rayiner 8y ago
    15 year olds are not, and never have been, "children." They're adolescents. We have long recognized that people of that age are distinct from both children and adults in that they're capable of a wide variety of (often destructive) adult behaviors, but aren't put together enough to be fully accountable for that. That's fine--that's why the law tackles culpability for adolescents on a case-by-case basis. Calling them "children" is both inaccurate, and a rhetorically sneaky way to mitigate culpability, responsibility, and agency. Controlling adolescents is one of society's most important functions, precisely because of the mismatch between destructive potential and impulse control. Society thus expects adolescents to control their behavior. It might give them more leeway in that regard, but they are not (and should not be) treated like children, who generally are held harmless for their misconduct.
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > 15 year olds are not, and never have been, "children." They're adolescents. “Children” does not now generally exclude adolescents, but extends to all pre-adults. We have terms that are more specific that do exclude adolescents, but “children” isn't generally one of them (though in certainly contexts the term might have special definitions.) (Historically, it may havenexclude some or all adolescents, but that's because in most cultures, adult included some or all adolescents.) > Controlling adolescents is one of society's most important functions,precisely because of the mismatch between destructive potential and impulse control. Arguably, but then directly contradicted by: > Society thus expects adolescents to control their behavior Does society deem control of adolescents an important social function because it expects that adolescents lack adequate impulse control given their destructive potential or does it not see such a gap and expect that they have adequate impulse control for self-containment? Your second statement cannot be a consequence of the first, it is an incompatible expectation.
      - rayiner 8y ago
        "Children" including adolescents is a very new (and very pernicious) idea. > Does society deem control of adolescents an important social function because it expects that adolescents lack adequate impulse control given their destructive potential or does it not see such a gap and expect that they have adequate impulse control for self-containment? There is nothing contradictory. Society holds children harmless because they're not generally cognitively capable of distinguishing right from wrong. Adolescents are, and are expected to behave. Society acknowledges that adolescents often have problems actually doing the right thing, but doesn't treat that as an excuse that mitigates culpability, as for children. Instead, they tailor punishment on a case-by-case basis to accommodate that fact. (Also, historically, they put adolescents to work, to reduce the avenues for misbehavior. Idle hands and whatnot.)
- djtriptych 8y ago
  "trial" a.k.a. not guilty yet. Yes, listen all you want in a detention center. Also the "most of human history" argument is reductive and regressive. We can and should improve on our history.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    There is a difference between improving on our history, and denying the underlying facts of the universe that led people in history to adopt certain customs. The former might be not sending 15-year olds off to fight the neighboring tribe. That is progress. The latter would be denying that a 15-year old is fully capable of horrific violence, and deeming him a "child." That is foolish.
- moate 8y ago
  Where's the line for you? Who is or isn't a "kid"? Is it just criminals that lose their kid status? Is it because they used a gun? What about an 8 year old that kills someone with a gun (either on purpose or accidentally) are they kids? I think, as someone in my 30's, that pointing at a group of humans who are somewhere between middle school and college age and saying "those kids over there" makes sense. Ask any developmental psychologist and they'll tell you: the brain is still developing, and 15 year olds are fucking idiots when it comes to long term consequences factoring into their decision making. "For most of human history" is a useless example because of all the other terribly stupid shit we did "for most of human history". FOH with this "I decide who is a kid" nonsense, as if a bunch of law-abiding white kids of the same age wouldn't be called kids by most sane people.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    > FOH with this "I decide who is a kid" nonsense, as if a bunch of law-abiding white kids of the same age wouldn't be called kids by most sane people. I'm pretty sure flipped out when a judge treated Ethan Couch as a "kid" (and rightfully so).
- droithomme 8y ago
  > For most of human history, young men at 15 were fighting wars. Are you saying most 15 yr olds were fighting wars? Or that there might have been one or two somewhere that therefore makes your statement nominally correct? What is your source and data? I'd like to review it. Thanks.
  - harryh 8y ago
    Just one example: "It is estimated that at least 100,000 Union soldiers were boys under 15 years old and about 20 percent of all Civil War soldiers were under 18." http://civilwarsaga.com/child-soldiers-in-the-civil-war/ http://civilwarsaga.com/child-soldiers-in-the-civil-war/
  - detaro 8y ago
    It's pretty disingenuous to pretend the parents statement is a choice between the two extremes you've picked.
- tptacek 8y ago
  12-year-olds stick people up. Young teenagers don't have fully-developed brains; it's probably "easier" for them to do this stuff, not harder. I have a hard time with the idea that you really think someone stops being a "kid" just because they commit a crime. Recruiting a 15-year-old to fight in an armed conflict, by the way, is an action that has a name: "war crime".
  - dragonwriter 8y ago
    > Young teenagers don't have fully-developed brains Neither do old teenagers; executive function isn't fully developed, IIRC, until the early-to-mid 20s.
  - rayiner 8y ago
    I don't think anyone past the age of puberty is a "kid." It may not be fair in any given circumstance to treat them like adults, but they're not children either. Societies have long recognized that fact. (There is a reason in Judiasm the Bar Mitzvah is at age 13.)
    - tptacek 8y ago
      Plenty of 12 year olds aren't past puberty, but by you're logic, they're not "kids".
    - pcwalton 8y ago
      Life expectancy was also a lot lower when these rites were introduced.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > For most of human history, young men at 15 were fighting wars. If you’re old enough to rob someone with a gun, you’re not a “kid.” The hormonal peaks and incompletely developed executive function that made male adolescents excellent pawns in violent policy (and also contributes to their engagement in violent crime, often as similar pawns) is exactly part of them substantively being a kid.
  - RandomInteger4 8y ago
    I'm sure the relatives of people murdered by incompletely developed executive functions understand completely ...
    - dragonwriter 8y ago
      > I'm sure the relatives of people murdered by incompletely developed executive functions understand completely ... Lex talionis, one of the oldest principals of justice, came about as a limitation on retribution specifically because giving “relatives of people murdered” an excessive role in deciding the application of justice was recognized millennia ago as a fatal mistake for any kind of orderly society.
      - RandomInteger4 8y ago
        I'm not saying that the relatives of those murdered should have a role in deciding anything. I'm reminding the people commenting here that these "children" are being punished specifically because they have done things of real consequence that have negatively impacted society. That apparently seems lost on every one of you here. These ankle bracelets are the best things that we can do for them, not the worst. The alternative is juvenile detention. That's not a tropical vacation getaway. That's potentially much worse for them on multiple levels. But no, keep going on with the out of touch "awww, those poor innocent angels" crap.
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        > I'm reminding the people commenting here that these "children" are being punished specifically because they have done things of real consequence that have negatively impacted society. If this was a punishment for an offense, it would be unconstitutional as a violation of the right to trial. If it is a condition of pre-trial release, it is would appear to be unconstitutional as a violation of due process, because this appears to be an arbitrary executive substitution of equipment with substantially different function, not part of the terms imposed by the court. > The alternative is juvenile detention. No, the alternative is pretrial release with GPS monitoring without audio surveillance as they were apparently actually assigned and as was done before the switch of equipment. > But no, keep going on with the out of touch "awww, those poor innocent angels" crap. I don't think anyone here has suggested that the children involved are categorically substantively innocent, though as this is pretrial monitoring they are categorically legally presumed innocent.
- amatecha 8y ago
  Yeah for "most of human history" you were lucky to live past 20 or 30... Of course people approaching their later years were fighting wars. :P
  - JoeAltmaier 8y ago
    But if you lived past 20, median life expectancy was in the 60's or 70's, clear back to the Neolithic. About like today!
- spraak 8y ago
  Kids do things all the time that they're not ready for, or are above their maturity. They lack full control, context and understanding of their environment and direction, so they shouldn't be seen as adults just because they're emulating adult actions.

mandelbrotwurst 8y ago

In what way is that not what the title says?

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