Since the place is so dead after so much drama ... What are your thoughts on prison sentences for 18(ish) year old gang members - kids raised in adverse environments vs kids raised in middle class america with all the advantages that goes with it? For everything from vandelism to armed robbery.
18 year old kids? Kids who only know what they've been taught? You don't think they can be rehabilitated?
Your tragic upbringing should have no bearing on your responsibility for your actions. The punishment should still fit the crime, and your victims are no less victimized because you had a difficult childhood where the best way to fit in and make decent money was to join a gang.
Most of these people cannot be rehabilitated no matter what. Keep them away from society. If they killed, execute them.
Rapists and murderers don't deserve a chance at rehabilitation. Vice crimes should be wiped from the books. That leaves non-lethal violence and/or theft, and I would say experiencing some unpleasantness should be enough to serve as a deterrant to recidivism. Still don't know that I would even give them 3 strikes, though.
We learn morality, it isn't something bound up in your DNA. Boot camp style discipline camps with some skills training and some self-respect exercises are the way to go. You need to get these kids productive and return them back to their communities. I'm ok with gunning down recidivists though.
So, you've been told all your life that blue is blue and red is red. But, what if, one day you're living your life and get put in jail because blue is, in fact, not blue, but really red. Yes, it's a poor analogy, but, I'm a firm believer in 'a child only knows what it's taught'. and if you teach a child a particular way of life, is it really the child's fault? Don't you think they deserve the opportunity for rehabilitation?
At some point it's my responsibility to apply some critical reasoning, listen to my conscience, and recognize right and wrong. Don't fucking tell me it never occurs to the average 18 year old that killing, raping, and stealing is wrong. They're just surrounded by people who encourage and reinforce the weakness and bad behavior. They're just taking the easier path. It depends on what they have done. If you hand me the gavel, murderers and rapists will be at minimum locked away for the rest of their lives, and that's only if I'm not allowed to execute them.
That is why I said "For everything from vandelism to armed robbery." I didn't figure rape or murder fell into that category. And, depending on the age and circumstances, it may or may not fall into the "the child only knows what it's taught" category. For example, a child growing up in an extremely abusive situation kills his/her abuser - do we give that child a bit of leeway, even if that child is now 18.
To UA obviously: What about the ones rounded up in drug smuggling? The ones sitting in the back seat while someone else did a crime? The ones in for intra-gang assault? Murders and Rapes aren't the only crimes kids commit, if you want to take the stance that anything that is against the law can't be rehabilitated you know where that argument will lead.
In truth I'm not a big fan of the idea of "rehabilitation". I prefer a much simpler exposure to the concept of action and consequence. For things falling short of murder and rape, I'd like to see a punishment so severe that the kid won't consider doing it again, then give him one more chance to prove he can live like a civilized human being. After that he can live in a fucking cage until he rots.
Ya know, I've never seen a gang banger sent to jail who didn't KNOW what he was doing was against the law and considered to be wrong by society at large. They don't care, however. Fuck em.
You've just doubled your workload. People don't work that way - behaviors have to be reinforced, as much as we want to think we're logical rational beings, we're still driven by the animals in our heads. Gotta train that animal in order to have morality in the first place. One good beating doesn't keep a dog from shitting on the floor, nor would it make a citizen out of a criminal.
Of course that is not the same kind of execution that the rest of us are talking about, but we know it makes you feel better.
Even if I accepted that even the most basic idea of right and wrong was never made available to him (which I don't), ignorance doesn't absolve you of responsibility for your actions. I hold people to a higher standard than animals. Even inner-city teenagers. Some of them do manage to somehow learn civilized behavior given the same environment. I say we have no use for the rest. Lock 'em the fuck away and let it serve as a lesson to the next generation. Right now, the "revolving door" justice system for that kind of criminal is serving as encouragement.
Yeah, I know, Wyatt Earp. But not all of us want to turn the clock back to a time that never quite existed the way you imagine it did. Whatever nurture any of us receive in the first few years of life will always have a greater ingrained effect on our thinking than any outside law. Gang-bangers, Mafioso, Scientologists, whatever, the narrower the village you live in, the more difficult not to see the world through the filter of that early experience.
Which has nothing to do with what we do with them now. They were able to make choices, KNOWING that their actions could have consequences, and they chose to do wrong. It's irrelevant what happened in the past, the only thing that matters is the choices they make now.
if prisons themselves weren't pretty well run by gangs, I'd be more in favor of trying to rehabilitate. But the fact of the matter is that putting a gangster in jail only makes a better gangster, not a good citizen. So Life, no parole.
Find me an adolescent who doesn't believe that (A) he's immortal and (B) the rules apply to the Other Guy. So you start with faulty nurture and you add hormones plus (A) and (B) and you see the end result. In an ideal world, you do an intervention with these kids before they start school and nip the problem in the bud. Boys and Girls Clubs, for example, but on a much wider scale.
Which has not a damned thing with what to do with em after they decide to be a fuckup. Once they decide they're going to cross the line, they get to take the consequences.
Restitution first, rehabilitation second (if possible), punishment if rehabilitation fails. But restitution should be the highest priority.
So I should get my car stolen because some thug never learned "right from wrong?" Screw that. Why should I pay for his mistakes? And that "adverse environment" shit doesn't fly most of the time. I know way, way, too many kids from well-to-do (or at least upper middle class) stable families that got involved in crime.
Oh, I'm certain that s/he knows his actions are wrong and illegal. But, if that's the only life s/he knows, i.e. doesn't understand the basics of living in society - going to work everyday, paying rent and bills, buying food. If s/he doesn't know how to do those things, s/he will fall back on the only thing they do know. What if we changed the system so it wasn't run by gangs? What if we changed it to where they could actually learn to live within society - not against it? What do you mean by "restitutution"? Like, they have to work off their debts? I like the way you're thinking. There is another point. The kids who do know how to live within society vs those who don't. Why are we more lenient to the ones who know how to be "civilized" and harsher on the ones who don't?
$2 worth of rope will cure the problem. Hell tie it to thier neck and do some nascar boogie till thier freakin head pops off. Make it a new sport.
I'll go one further... Why wait for at risk youth to commit crimes only to introduce them the penal system and become an even bigger tax burden? Why not invest a portion of the money we'll spend on incarceration on some outreach programs aimed at youth to nurture them into becoming tax paying, contributing members of society? For boys, it's really quite simple... Football, Basketball, and Boxing leagues in inner cities will attract most of them. Couple it with academic support and even a jobs/community service program for kids... and I think we can make a sizable and measurable dent in the number of incarcerations in poor communities.
