Planetarion Forums

Nadar · 3 Aug 2005, 19:12

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/08/0....ap/index.html

An 11 year old girl gets harrased by a boy and she throws a small stone at him. Every kid happens to hurt another kid one time or another because children don't know the difference between right and wrong. This is a normal thing for kids to do around the world, but apparantly not in the US. If she's found guilty she might face 4 years in jail. How come some countries laws are too utterly stupid? She even have to wear an alarm-belt on her foot..

In Norway i.e the police wouldn't even bother wasting time and money on such a case. The only reaction she would have gotten would be a lecture about "right-and wrong" from her parents.

Ärketrollmannen · 3 Aug 2005, 20:16

In Sweden you can't even go to jail if you are under fifteen, no matter what hideous crime you commit. If a 11-yaer old girl killed my family and torched my apartement, killing hundreds of the people living in the other apartements, she would be put in some kind of hospital etc. But she would never go to jail. Never.

Deepflow · 3 Aug 2005, 20:21

when you are 10 you have to take responsibility for your actions. The little bitch deserves to rot in jail.

Tactitus · 3 Aug 2005, 20:33

I wouldn't call a two pound rock a small stone. And sending someone to the hospital for stitches probably makes it a police matter. Resisting arrest was a nice touch.

In any event, the trial has now been dropped.

Deepflow · 3 Aug 2005, 20:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deepflow

when you are 10 you have to take responsibility for your actions. The little bitch deserves to rot in jail.

I got a neg rep for this saying it wasnt even remotely funny, what they don't realise is that i was deadly serious

oh woe

Ste · 3 Aug 2005, 20:43

I love the way Tacticus always sticks up for the US no matter what the topic.

mrmao · 3 Aug 2005, 20:46

I personaly thin it is rather insane, but hay probably because of overprotective mothers who are way to serious. Hell kids throw rocks of all various sizes at eachother, and a fair amount from anger.

Nadar · 3 Aug 2005, 22:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrmao

I personaly thin it is rather insane, but hay probably because of overprotective mothers who are way to serious. Hell kids throw rocks of all various sizes at eachother, and a fair amount from anger.

Yes! Even me and a m8 threw rocks at eachother in a "rock-war" when we were small kids, we had NO idea that we could actually get hurt by it. Although my m8 started to bleed from the head for some reason

Yahwe · 4 Aug 2005, 01:04

the age of criminal responsibility in england was dropped from 14 to 10 purely so politicians could tell people they were tough on crime.

A direct result of this is the criminalisation of lower class children (the police wouldn't dare victimise middle or uppper class children.). If children are criminalised there are the following effects:
a) schooling chances are lost
b) university is out of the question
c) they are barred from most reasonable or good jobs.

The net effect is that we set these children up for an appalling and wasted life. I can not abide such waste.

As a defence lawyer i find Youth Courts genuinely depressing. I have actually been moved to tears (when i got home). Children are perhaps unsurprisingly very bad witnesses even in their own defence. I have no doubts that this leads to wrongful convictions. Policemen have a remarkable ability to convince themselves that it was definately this specific child and a policeman's word is always believed over a child.

A particular absurdity of british sentencing is that while an adult can be sent to prison for anything between 1 day to life (thus allowing ounishment to be specific to the crime) children can not be sent to a young offenders institution for less than 6 months. I have seen 15 year old boys get 6 months for crimes they would get a week for if they had been 18.

There is also a question of bail. all those charged with a criminal offence are entitled to bail unless the prosecution can show grounds for refusing. one of these grounds includes the likelihood of turning up to court on the next date. Children very often do not turn up for court dates. once they fail to do so, they never get bail again. bear in mind that if you do not get bail it's off to the young offenders institution. Now consider the (not less than 6 months rule) adults if found guilty can subtract the amount of time they were in prison (because they weren't granted bail) off their sentence. BUT children can't do this.

Not only do we criminalise children, but we also treat them far worse than we treat adult criminals.

Some of these children get more affection from cell staff in courts than they have had their whole life and we victimise them. I saw one girl of 14 up for shop lifting. Now she was bright and beautiful. she'd been on the streets for years, had a heroine problem and was pimped as a prostitute. what did the state do to help? rehab for the heroine? no. that is run by charities not the state. offer her a home and cash? schooling? no.
they prosecuted her for shop lifting (i talked the court into a fine and paid it myself - i have never been so angry at a bench of magistrates at one point i was talking through my teeth at the chairwoman)

It is appalling that we should do such things. It is appalling that politicians create these laws on the basis that the people they are marginalising probably won't vote anyway

dda · 4 Aug 2005, 01:39

In California, it is highly unusual for an 11 year old, boy or girl, to be detained if his parents are willing to take custody of him and assure his appearance at future court dates. The fact that it took 5 days for the girl to be released to her parents indicates that there was probably some problem with contacting her parents or with getting them to take responsibility for her. I have seen parents choose to leave their children in custody for a few days because they felt that it would be "a good lesson for them."

The disposition does not seem unreasonable. She will not have a record. Though, for the most part, juvenile records are sealed and are not used against a child later. Throwing a rock capable of cracking someone's skull, however well intentioned, is a serious matter and the child needs to see that it is being treated as such. I once had a 16 year old defendant who through a 2 pound rock through the window of a truck and put the truck driver into a coma from which the truck driver will never recover. This was 6 years ago.

furball · 4 Aug 2005, 01:52

dda, there's a big difference between the strength of an 11 year old and a 16 year old, both physically and emotionally. You cannot treat them the same. Also, she was being prosecuted for a felony, not a misdemeanour. I've gathered from spending too much time on the Internet that this is quite a big issue when seeking employment in the USA.

Yahwe, I can only praise your post. You deserve a considerable amount of praise for paying the fine on behalf of that girl. Our country's treatment of people in her situation is appalling, and I would do anything I could to change that.

Dace · 4 Aug 2005, 02:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by furball

Yahwe, I can only praise your post. You deserve a considerable amount of praise for paying the fine on behalf of that girl. Our country's treatment of people in her situation is appalling, and I would do anything I could to change that.

Didn't you read the post?

The girl was a prostitue.

Steven paid the fine but the girl paid Steven "in kind".

furball · 4 Aug 2005, 02:21

Sending her to a Youth Detention Centre would have ruined one of her few chances of getting back into society. Let's cut out all the pointless jokes (even though I'm not suprised to see you posting in a thread titled "Children playing"...).

Every day society's most wretched people appear in our courts. Yet the system is so often biased in favour of punishment rather than rehabilitation, that we create vicious circles repeatedly. We force people with no money to pay fines which they have to commit crimes in order to afford. When they get caught, they have to pay fines...and so on. Eventually, they are sent to prison, where they are forced even further into the criminal world by association with career criminals. They become unemployable in many decent jobs. The potential of their lives is destroyed by sending them to prison - just look at re-offending rates.

dda · 4 Aug 2005, 04:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by furball

dda, there's a big difference between the strength of an 11 year old and a 16 year old, both physically and emotionally. You cannot treat them the same. Also, she was being prosecuted for a felony, not a misdemeanour. I've gathered from spending too much time on the Internet that this is quite a big issue when seeking employment in the USA.

Yahwe, I can only praise your post. You deserve a considerable amount of praise for paying the fine on behalf of that girl. Our country's treatment of people in her situation is appalling, and I would do anything I could to change that.

IF she had been prosecuted for a misdemeanor or a felony, her record would have been sealed. It would take a court order to gain access to it and an employer would have no chance of ever gaining access to it. She would not have been required to list it. Children in Califronia are not convicted of crimes. Petitions are filed requesting that the child be made a ward of the court. The petitions are based on acts which if committed by an adult would be considered a crime. The court either sustains the petition or fails to sustain the petition. The object of the juvenile justice system is primarily rehabilitative in nature. Most kids, including this young girl, are released to their parents or another family member. If the child is viewed as a particular danger to himself or others (children who assault outhers with deadly weapons might or might not qualify) may be kept in the juvenile facility awaiting his hearing. The child is put on probation and given a probation officer. They may be given drug treatment programs, etc. as a condition of their probation. If a child fails on probation several times or commits a particularly aggregious crime, they may get some time in the juvinile hall. This is usually short in duration. If a child proves over and over again that they are a threat to the welfare of others are then committed to the California Youth Authority. Wards of these institutions are usually hardcore gang members or murderers or both. They are among the most violent members of society but even here, while trying to keep them from killing each other, they are provided with educational opportunities, in many cases the only school they have actually attended in years. They have vocational education, phsychological counseling available. What they do for the most part is gang up and try to figure out ways to gain status within the gangs. You are not going to find 11 year olds in the California Youth Authority.

dda · 4 Aug 2005, 04:19

Quote:

Originally Posted by Yahwe

I saw one girl of 14 up for shop lifting. Now she was bright and beautiful. she'd been on the streets for years, had a heroine problem and was pimped as a prostitute. what did the state do to help? rehab for the heroine? no. that is run by charities not the state. offer her a home and cash? schooling? no.

In California, 14 year olds are not sent to facilities for shop lifting, heroine addiction and/or prostitution. However, we could not and would not just release her back to the streets either. She would be offered schooling, treatment. She would not be given money so she could continue her life on the street at government expense. If she did not have a parent or relative who was willing or able to take her home and see that she went to school, she would be sent to a group home. Group homes are not ideal but they are at least as beneficial as living on the street doing drugs and prostituting herself. Group homes are not locked facilities and quite often the children run away and return to the street because they don't want to go to school and they don't want to stop using drugs. When they are caught, they are returned to yet a different group home or program. However, if the girl turns from shop lifting to pistol whipping clerks at convenience stores and stealing the money from the till, she will probably go to CYA after 2 or 3 such crimes.