4 ms·
A crime doesn't make a child an adult
- deleted 5mo ago[deleted]
- casey2 5mo agoA minor is a legal fiction it can and will be discarded when convenient. Many people either don't understand or pretend not to understand that order is the only thing preventing so called children from killing and eating you.
- paulryanrogers 5mo agoDoes sentencing children as adults actually deter other children from committing crimes?
- warumdarum 5mo agoThe experimental data from Salvadore and now its neighbors says yes.
- bell-cot 5mo agoSome, somewhat, depending on circumstances. But that doesn't much matter - because deterring other children is not a major motivation for the "sentence 'em as adults!" crowd.
- chucksmash 5mo agoWhat if there is value to society in removing antisocial individuals from the social compact, whether others are deterred or not?
- paulryanrogers 5mo agoIsn't that what juvenile halls are for?
- bsder 5mo agoNo. For both children and adults, sentencing strictness only deters a SINGLE category of crime--white collar. Most other forms of crime, especially violent, are almost completely insensitive to the harshness of any possible punishment sentence. If a brain is sufficiently broken that it no longer has the limiter against harming another human being, prison sentences won't do anything to fix that.
- warumdarum 5mo agoNo true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_El_Salvador https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_El_Salvador Turns out it works.
- bsder 5mo agoFlagged as AI Slop Bot. Wikipedia article makes no obvious mention of correlation between sentencing and deterrence. Linked article, in fact, demonstrates that alternative programs provided almost all the improvement.
- aaron695 5mo ago[dead]
- tormeh 5mo agoCriminal gangs specifically recruit legal minors because they are able to do things legal adults can't: Repeatedly and with impunity violate the law. Whether it's smuggling or assassinations, using legal minors make it all a lot less risky. Would it stop stupid kids from doing stupid kid stuff? No. Would it make minors less attractive to organized crime? Yes.
- atoav 5mo agoMany people understand that criminal law is like a bandaid. You apply it after the bad thing happened. Sure, it may be a common believe that the punishment formulated within it also scares away new or repeated criminals, but that is way worse at getting the job done than common sense measures that prevent people to slip into crimes to begin with. I can't remember seeing countries with stronger protections for minors collapsing into a perfect spherical body of criminal children. Good juvenile justice systems are not about the absence of consequences, they usually are about age-appropriate consequences instead. In short: supervision, intervention, and rehabilitation instead of pretending a child is simply a small adult. The idea that only the threat of adult punishment prevents children from “killing and eating you” is so simplistic it is an insult to everybody forced to read it. If a kid becomes violent usually you have a long history of publicly visible and known smaller, less dramatic events leading up to that. Good social work and educational systems are able to pull children and teenagers out of that spiral, by for example isolating them from destructive family dynamics. All tried and tested, papers written about it, statistics and studies published about the effectiveness. Countries having problems with criminal minors are usually countries who try to not spend any money on social measures and education. Or put guns into the hands of kids. There aren't many such countries.
- newsicanuse 5mo agoWriters like the author should go through the trauma of being a victim of juvenile crimes, only then will they stop writing such rubbish.
- paulryanrogers 5mo agoThe brains of young humans aren't fully developed. That shouldn't be a get out of jail free card. Though it must be considered when deciding the fate of a person's entire life. It doesn't help that even just be charged with a crime is now a permanent scarlet letter, even if the person is clearly innocent and charges are dropped.
- HDBaseT 5mo agoIt is hard for me to feel sympathy for under18s when they go around in gangs and groups stabbing random people. [0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-17/teens-charged-with-murder-sunshine-coast-stabbing/105540716 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-17/teens-charged-with-mu... [1] https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/crime/shocking-footage-shows-teens-stab-homeless-man-in-unprovoked-attack/news-story/5fe12ac4e83f79e45d422278a08a21ef https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/crime/shocking-foo... [2] https://www.nine.com.au/australia-news/brisbane-man-stabbed-to-death-teen-in-custody-20250627-p5zetj.html https://www.nine.com.au/australia-news/brisbane-man-stabbed-... [3] https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/three-teens-accused-of-killing-canberra-man-after-luring-him-via-grindr-police-say-20200220-p542uh.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/three-teens-accused-of-k... [4] https://thenightly.com.au/australia/victoria/melbourne-teenagers-horrific-crime-spree-left-boy-dead-and-man-disabled-c-22356375 https://thenightly.com.au/australia/victoria/melbourne-teena... I find it hard to believe they don't know what they are doing when they brutally murder someone. They know they are protected in society and the repercussions are always minor. I don't know what the solution is, but forming a gang to steal cars, kill people, just doesn't sit right with me without severe punishment.
- SilverElfin 5mo agoYoung brains may have trouble in nuanced situations but stabbing someone or whatever can be unacceptable regardless of their stage of biological maturity
- ipsento606 5mo agoAfter finishing the article, I am left with a much deeper suspicion of the felony murder rule, and of plea deals in general, than I am of giving minors the same sentences as adults. That's not to say that I agree with giving minors adult sentences. But it doesn't seem the worst thing about the cases discussed here.
- dani__german 5mo agoThese young offenders are not blank slates whose future actions depend entirely upon how the state treats them. Rhetoric like the Author's has lead to disastrous soft on crime policies that have a death toll associated. Every year that a criminal is incarcerated is a year that they CANNOT kill an innocent citizen, rob a home or store, desecrate or vandalize the community, shoot up fentanyl in the streets, or do any number of things. Every year we refuse to incarcerate criminals, is another year that regular citizens are forced to live in prison like conditions. Just like we see people "tribing up" by race in prison, forcing the youth to live in an open air prison is one of the direct causes of the rise in racism in today's youth.
- soulbadguy 5mo ago> Every year that a criminal is incarcerated is a year that they CANNOT kill an innocent citizen, rob a home or store, desecrate or vandalize the community, shoot up fentanyl in the streets, or do any number of things. Why stop at criminal, this also true for non-criminal; Let's just jail everyone, then we will all be safer.
- dani__german 5mo agoCECOT is an excellent example of why common sense, and necessarily heavy handed policing is a requirement for a society to not be a prison itself. If you remove the prison, the prisoners just move into the country and make it a prison too. Except we all get to live next to them.
- henry2023 5mo ago[dead]
- n4r9 5mo agoThis argument fails if you consider that incarceration makes people more likely to commit crimes when they get out, not less
- dani__german 5mo ago
- rayiner 5mo agoI wish people would stop using the word “child” in an effort to minimize criminal behavior by young adults. A 16 or 17 year old isn’t a “child.” The Marquis de Lafayette and James Manor were just 18 when the revolutionary war started. Societies going back to ancient times ascribed significant responsibility to teenagers. And in modern times, there is a scientific basis for distinguishing between adolescents and children when it comes to brain development. Historically, adolescents were treated like adults. The article’s focus on moral culpability also overlooks the key purpose of the justice system: protecting society from criminals. In that respect, the age actually creates a bigger risk. People who start engaging in criminal conduct at an earlier age more likely to engage in criminal behavior as adults: https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/youth-justice-involvement-young-adult-offending https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/youth-justice-involvemen... (“Continuity of offending from the juvenile into the adult years is higher for people who start offending at an early age, chronic delinquents, and young people who commit violent offenses.”). If you look at the curve of when violent conduct occurs, it peaks from ages 13-25. And it’s actually about as high at age 13 as it is at age 25, with the peak around 18-19. A more rational and less emotional sentencing system would be harsher on teenage offenders while reducing sentences overall. If someone is committing violent crimes at age 15, that signals an increased risk of violent criminality for the next decade. Short sentences will mean that person will keep victimizing society repeatedly over that period. On the other hand, multi-decade sentences are counter productive. Violent criminality drops sharply after age 40.
- bsder 5mo ago> The article’s focus on moral culpability also overlooks the key purpose of the justice system: protecting society from criminals. I do NOT concede that as the KEY purpose. And when you call "protecting society from criminals" the key purpose of the justice system you wind up with the horribly broken mess that is the US justice system. Yes, A purpose of the justice system is to remove from society those who cannot be trusted. But another purpose of the justice system should be to rehabilitate those who can be. And the US justice system is HORRIFIC at that. If anything, the US justice system is a net negative on rehabilitation. The way the US system throws everybody together does more to let old criminals teach new ones their tricks than any improvement from any rehabilitation program can counteract.
- chucksmash 5mo agoThe article is so facile. > Yet crime-data analysts have noted that Louisiana’s crime wave was in keeping with a national trend This is meant to be mitigating? What is this thought process? Who in their right mind is like "okay, a group of people broke into your home at night but your state shouldn't have been so hard on them for what ensued because akshually it was part of a whole nationwide trend at the time." The modern right absolutely thrives on the fact that so many mostly reasonable people can't see that "play stupid games win stupid prizes" is just another side of the "tolerate anything but intolerance" coin. You can be in favor of showing leniency to kids for dumb, youthful mistakes without taking the doe-eyed approach that every dumb thing someone does in their youth is nothing more than a mistake. And the fact that you yourself made some poor decisions as a youth doesn't mean you have to look at a group burglarizing a house as "well, kids will be kids."
- bluefirebrand 5mo ago> The modern right absolutely thrives on the fact that so many mostly reasonable people can't see that "play stupid games win stupid prizes" is just another side of the "tolerate anything but intolerance" coin This is something that drives me up the wall. I'm a pretty lefty guy, mostly, but I am very irritated by "my side" being so weak on crime. I get it, we don't want to ruin people's lives for being a stupid kid doing a stupid crime, but there has to be some kind of middle ground between "ruin their life forever" and "teach them there are no consequences" It's ridiculous
- soulbadguy 5mo ago> but I am very irritated by "my side" being so weak on crime. Weakness on crime is not a left vs right thing.It's mostly about which kind of crime each side is soft on.
- watwut 5mo agoAmerica is the country with boner for lengthy incarceration, staggering incarceration rates, long punishments and as difficult return to society as can be. And it is never enough. Also, importantly, when I look at the right wing conservatives I see criminals in leadership and I see violent criminals down. And whole party supporting them and enabling them.
- warumdarum 5mo agoWhat about cultures that see children as throw away tools and cannonfood for crime? Like sending thrm forth to throw stones, chant racist slogans on demos, etc?
- dgellow 5mo agoWhat are you talking about?
- silexia 5mo agoTotally wrong. Hammurabi's moral code overall was superior to the soft in crime approach we have today.