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The flip-side of an aging society with declining fertility is that older people, with fewer children are likely to be less sympathetic to children, and you coul

The flip-side of an aging society with declining fertility is that older people, with fewer children are likely to be less sympathetic to children, and you could see the incarceration rates increase, or remain steady, as less severe infractions are punished more harshly. We recently saw this play out in the Queensland, Australia, state election where the opposition party, which was pretty much out of ideas, ran a scare campaign about youth crime in regional areas. Neighbourhood Facebook Groups where CCTV footage of "suspicious youth" are a mainstay and an aging population did the rest of the job and they won the election and passed "adult time for adult crime" laws: whether you agree with these or not, "adult time" in Australia means that the youth incarcerated will be adults in their 20s and 30s when they get out. The Australian state of New South Wales routinely strip-searches young children, but again, there isn't much outcry. It will be interesting to see how this plays out elsewhere. The worst case scenario is that kids will be politically scapegoated ("why should childless and aging taxpayers fund education?"), and it leads to a further decline in fertility rates.

lazyasciiart 1y ago
Australia has had pretty terrible “jail children like adults” opinions for a long time. Politics in Melbourne constantly turns on fears of youth [black immigrant] crime waves that are making people afraid to leave the house. https://raisetheage.org.au/ https://raisetheage.org.au/
- Nursie 1y ago
  Queensland seems to be making a lot of noise about that at the moment as well. Seems to be this weird reasoning (and I know it has cropped up in the US too) that - if they did an 'adult' crime they should be tried as an adult. It totally ignores what we know about developing brains - they are not fully developed, they don't consider consequences the same way as older people. That's not to say they should be allowed to 'get away with it', but we need to take into account that it's not really the same thing as adults doing it.
  - worthless-trash 1y ago
    > That's not to say they should be allowed to 'get away with it', but we need to take into account that it's not really the same thing as adults doing it. However, they -clearly- do get away with it, continually the current method of punishment is not deterring them from crime. These are not 'oh he made poor decisions style crimes', you're not paying attention or are not living in this area if you think so. I wish i could dig up the study from Townsville crime statistics (this is the closest i could find https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/101697 https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/101697 ) The key takeway is: “The residents living in these areas have been let down for too long under the former Government who allowed serious repeat youth offenders to avoid adequate punishment and let them continue to terrorise these communities,” Current deterrents clearly are not working. There are only so many levers the government can pull. Children learn poor lessons and inadequate supervision from their families, but if they are taken from their home the media screams 'stolen generation' so in the end individuals terrorised by them have to deal with the burden of their continued long term criminal behavior. You may believe that children can be rehabilitated, I'd dearly love this to be the truth, however my observations show that its not a reflection of reality.
    - Nursie 1y ago
      I’m not trying to play down any problems or say nothing should be done. In fact I’m not expressing any beliefs other than the (very well supported) notion that children’s brains are not fully developed and therefore they shouldn’t be dealt with in the same way as adults because that’s just dumb and is likely not to help.
      - jlawson 1y ago
        Can you expand on "that's just dumb"? I don't understand what argument this is trying to make. All people have different brains; some are very low-intelligence and impulsive by nature and training, and this can apply at any age. The point of this punishment is not to apply a sort of cosmic morality according to the true culpability of a soul. Abstract principles about whether the person 'deserves' a punishment aren't actually relevant regardless of what shape their brain is. The point is the real-life consequence of their criminality on others, and how to stop them hurting people. We must stop them hurting people; let's figure out how. This dedication to abstracted principles and cosmic morality over fixing the actual issue is really problematic; I see this more and more these days.
thmsths 1y ago
I am very conflicted on this. On one hand I absolutely despise that hating the children attitude and I believe we are reaping what we are sowing. On the other hand there are serial offenders that are not being dealt appropriately. My naive solution is to keep the current, more permissive system for first offenders and then treat repeat offenders as adults. I mean if you are a teen, succumb to peer pressure and do something stupid like stealing a car, I fully believe that we should not throw the book at you. We need to dispel you of the notion that this is not a big deal and that you will get away with it, while ensuring that we do not harm your future prospects. But if being arrested, handcuffed and taken in front of a judge is not enough to make you understand that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated, and you do steal a car again a few weeks later, then yes, we will have to escalate instead of saying "nothing we can do, it's just a kid". Otherwise we are literally sending the message that they can act with impunity.

lazyasciiart 1y ago

Australia has had pretty terrible “jail children like adults” opinions for a long time. Politics in Melbourne constantly turns on fears of youth [black immigrant] crime waves that are making people afraid to leave the house. https://raisetheage.org.au/ https://raisetheage.org.au/

Nursie 1y ago
Queensland seems to be making a lot of noise about that at the moment as well. Seems to be this weird reasoning (and I know it has cropped up in the US too) that - if they did an 'adult' crime they should be tried as an adult. It totally ignores what we know about developing brains - they are not fully developed, they don't consider consequences the same way as older people. That's not to say they should be allowed to 'get away with it', but we need to take into account that it's not really the same thing as adults doing it.
- worthless-trash 1y ago
  > That's not to say they should be allowed to 'get away with it', but we need to take into account that it's not really the same thing as adults doing it. However, they -clearly- do get away with it, continually the current method of punishment is not deterring them from crime. These are not 'oh he made poor decisions style crimes', you're not paying attention or are not living in this area if you think so. I wish i could dig up the study from Townsville crime statistics (this is the closest i could find https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/101697 https://statements.qld.gov.au/statements/101697 ) The key takeway is: “The residents living in these areas have been let down for too long under the former Government who allowed serious repeat youth offenders to avoid adequate punishment and let them continue to terrorise these communities,” Current deterrents clearly are not working. There are only so many levers the government can pull. Children learn poor lessons and inadequate supervision from their families, but if they are taken from their home the media screams 'stolen generation' so in the end individuals terrorised by them have to deal with the burden of their continued long term criminal behavior. You may believe that children can be rehabilitated, I'd dearly love this to be the truth, however my observations show that its not a reflection of reality.
  - Nursie 1y ago
    I’m not trying to play down any problems or say nothing should be done. In fact I’m not expressing any beliefs other than the (very well supported) notion that children’s brains are not fully developed and therefore they shouldn’t be dealt with in the same way as adults because that’s just dumb and is likely not to help.
    - jlawson 1y ago
      Can you expand on "that's just dumb"? I don't understand what argument this is trying to make. All people have different brains; some are very low-intelligence and impulsive by nature and training, and this can apply at any age. The point of this punishment is not to apply a sort of cosmic morality according to the true culpability of a soul. Abstract principles about whether the person 'deserves' a punishment aren't actually relevant regardless of what shape their brain is. The point is the real-life consequence of their criminality on others, and how to stop them hurting people. We must stop them hurting people; let's figure out how. This dedication to abstracted principles and cosmic morality over fixing the actual issue is really problematic; I see this more and more these days.

thmsths 1y ago

I am very conflicted on this. On one hand I absolutely despise that hating the children attitude and I believe we are reaping what we are sowing. On the other hand there are serial offenders that are not being dealt appropriately. My naive solution is to keep the current, more permissive system for first offenders and then treat repeat offenders as adults. I mean if you are a teen, succumb to peer pressure and do something stupid like stealing a car, I fully believe that we should not throw the book at you. We need to dispel you of the notion that this is not a big deal and that you will get away with it, while ensuring that we do not harm your future prospects. But if being arrested, handcuffed and taken in front of a judge is not enough to make you understand that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated, and you do steal a car again a few weeks later, then yes, we will have to escalate instead of saying "nothing we can do, it's just a kid". Otherwise we are literally sending the message that they can act with impunity.