4 ms·

I'm now nearly 25, and the amount I have changed since I was 16 borders on the immeasurable. Teenagers are glorified children. We seem to forget how little refl

I'm now nearly 25, and the amount I have changed since I was 16 borders on the immeasurable. Teenagers are glorified children. We seem to forget how little reflective capacity we all had when we were teenagers. If I were 16 and hacking some stupid website, I would think, sure this is "wrong", and I might get in trouble, but I probably wouldn't think that it would matter 5 years from then, or 20. Truth is, a criminal infraction can fuck your life up worse than is deserved. You could be forbidden to immigrate to your wife's home country, denied any worthwhile job you can find, or spend a sizable portion of your life in a smaller cage than they house animals in. There's a reason juvenile law exists, but we forget it. We charge 12 year olds as adults. This isn't that different. Hell, where I live, a lot of employers will check the sheriff's website for public arrest records. These aren't convictions, they're arrests. People are being denied jobs based on accusations. I've never gotten so much as a speeding ticket, but even I realize what a load of shit this all is.

dspillett 16y ago
I see your point, but not all teenages would do this even if they thought they would not get caught. While I agree that the full force of adult law is probably inappropriate, some punishment should be exacted. Perhaps some sort of injunction regarding limited access to the Internet for a time (to be enforced by their parents, and to include replaying any fancy 'net capable phones with a good old not-even-got-GRPS mini-brick phone for the duration). If I left my front door open and some kids came in, raided the fridge, broke the TV and ran up a huge phone bill, I would not expect them to get away completely unpunished. I'd not want them put away, and I wouldn't want it on their permanent record unless something particularly immoral was done (harming the cat, for instance), but I would want something to be seen to be done to educate them on right/wrong and act as a deterrent to others. I would also expect to be laughed at for being daft enough to leave my front door open!
billybob 16y ago
So when they turn 21, a "be responsible" switch will magically flip in their minds? The job of parents and society is to teach children responsibility. That means having consequences for your actions. And the closer you get to adulthood, the more adult those consequences should get. When I was a teen, some real estate developers tore down a bunch of woods where I had always played and started building a house. I was ticked and I vandalized the construction site. But my crime was discovered, and I had to work carrying lumber in the hot sun and scraping glue off windows to pay back the damage. Why did I have to do this? Because the developer talked to my parents. And my parents made me do it. This was light punishment - I wasn't taken to court, and I didn't get a criminal record. But parents are to children as legal system is to adults: they set the rules and enact the punishments. If they don't, someday the legal system will have to address their failure to do so by locking up their grown children who never learned right from wrong. I'm not sure what the consequences here should be, but the argument "they're kids, they can't be held responsible" is silly. If they're not expected to be responsible, they won't learn to be responsible.
- intended 16y ago
  What you're saying is fine. Its probably the better adult way to handle it - talk to the parents. Other people are suggesting FBI/Criminal law. How would you have fared/grown up if they sent you to court? Do note that since he is tech oriented, he probably now knows what a S* storm he has kicked up - the blog response pretty much ensures that he is aware. I assume you would be sweating bricks if you knew that the FBI was coming after you AND that you had hand delivered a bullet point confession. I assume thats a pretty strong deterrent (in his specific case) (Incidentally fighting to stick up for your woods was a kinda nice thing to do, modulo the amount of vandalism you pulled off.)

dspillett 16y ago

I see your point, but not all teenages would do this even if they thought they would not get caught. While I agree that the full force of adult law is probably inappropriate, some punishment should be exacted. Perhaps some sort of injunction regarding limited access to the Internet for a time (to be enforced by their parents, and to include replaying any fancy 'net capable phones with a good old not-even-got-GRPS mini-brick phone for the duration). If I left my front door open and some kids came in, raided the fridge, broke the TV and ran up a huge phone bill, I would not expect them to get away completely unpunished. I'd not want them put away, and I wouldn't want it on their permanent record unless something particularly immoral was done (harming the cat, for instance), but I would want something to be seen to be done to educate them on right/wrong and act as a deterrent to others. I would also expect to be laughed at for being daft enough to leave my front door open!

billybob 16y ago

So when they turn 21, a "be responsible" switch will magically flip in their minds? The job of parents and society is to teach children responsibility. That means having consequences for your actions. And the closer you get to adulthood, the more adult those consequences should get. When I was a teen, some real estate developers tore down a bunch of woods where I had always played and started building a house. I was ticked and I vandalized the construction site. But my crime was discovered, and I had to work carrying lumber in the hot sun and scraping glue off windows to pay back the damage. Why did I have to do this? Because the developer talked to my parents. And my parents made me do it. This was light punishment - I wasn't taken to court, and I didn't get a criminal record. But parents are to children as legal system is to adults: they set the rules and enact the punishments. If they don't, someday the legal system will have to address their failure to do so by locking up their grown children who never learned right from wrong. I'm not sure what the consequences here should be, but the argument "they're kids, they can't be held responsible" is silly. If they're not expected to be responsible, they won't learn to be responsible.

intended 16y ago
What you're saying is fine. Its probably the better adult way to handle it - talk to the parents. Other people are suggesting FBI/Criminal law. How would you have fared/grown up if they sent you to court? Do note that since he is tech oriented, he probably now knows what a S* storm he has kicked up - the blog response pretty much ensures that he is aware. I assume you would be sweating bricks if you knew that the FBI was coming after you AND that you had hand delivered a bullet point confession. I assume thats a pretty strong deterrent (in his specific case) (Incidentally fighting to stick up for your woods was a kinda nice thing to do, modulo the amount of vandalism you pulled off.)