Should children be legally responsible for their actions?

[Gigabitch]

Okay, say you're little Brian's dad. Brian has been strangled and mutilated by Mary Bell. What do you think should be done with her? I ask because I've found that my opinions changed and became a lot more harsh after i had a child of my own I wanted to keep safe.

[VincenzoG91]

Lecture her on how murder is bad and then send her to bed without dinner, I guess.

[girl68]

EVERYTHING changes when you're the victim. If your adult child was murdered by another adult you'd want that person to burn on a stake. But that's why we need impartial people deciding these things...

[IndiReloaded]

Mary's parents are incarcerated for life. Unless they murdered too, in which case they are given the death penalty.

Mary is either given the death penalty as well, or a lobotomy if the DP isn't stomached. Important point is that her violent behaviour is removed and she can live a productive life doing some menial labour for the government. She becomes a ward of the state for the rest of her life. At 10, she was well aware what she was doing was murder. In fact, sociopaths are almost always above average intelligence.

If I understood the specifics of her case (and was convinced she was a sociopath), I would have no problem signing the second order in particular.

[CAM]

Whether every soul is worth saving is subject to theological debate; but certainly not every life is worth preserving. Social Darwinism is a good thing. Screw up significantly and the person should be removed from the living portion of the biosphere.

[Lipp]

Okay, say you're little Brian's dad. Brian has been strangled and mutilated by Mary Bell. What do you think should be done with her? I ask because I've found that my opinions changed and became a lot more harsh after i had a child of my own I wanted to keep safe.

If pursuing that route, what if you were Mary Bell's parent?

[Gigabitch]

****, if I were Mary Bell's parent, I'd jump off a building. I can't imagine how that woman could live with herself.

[VincenzoG91]

She probably did some retail therapy after getting paid for her story by reporters.

[doppelgaenger]

Once we get people living on the moon, we can start penal colonies there.

When that happens, we can all bicker about how awful the judicial process is and decide how to reform it.

Until then, 18 years as the legal age seems pretty legit to me.

[bluesummer]

The sad part is, a lot of kids committing crimes these days are aware they're too young to go to jail.

I swear to god, I would call the cops on my own kids if they did anything criminal, just to scare the crap out of them.

[Lipp]

So what happened to juvenile halls anyways?

[vashti]

So what happened to juvenile halls anyways?

We still have them in California. They are every bit as brutal as prisons.

[qwertz]

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger]Murder of James Bulger - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/url]

Those two committed the most vile and evil crime imaginable. They were 10 years old..old enough to know they shouldnt be abducting, assaulting and beating to death a toddler(and putting him on a railway line to make it look like an accident), therefore old enough to be given a life sentence like an adult would have, instead, they served 8 years, were given anonymity and a new identity, apparently having reformed and were know longer a risk to society.

A few months ago, one of the evil scumbags was arrested and has gone back to jail, yet the government refuses to officially reveal what he has done, though press reports say it is paedophilia charges.

Things like this make me want the death penalty, even for children.

[Gigabitch]

I've been thinking about that story since this thread started, qwerty. One of the most awful things I've ever heard. I'm not reading it again- the details are still too fresh from reading it years ago.

I always thought those boys weren't dealt with appropriately. The argument that they were only children themselves didn't fly with me. I'm not surprised by the continuance of evil behavior. The way I see it, some places are so dark, you can't really come back from them. You might be able to keep the beast on a leash, as Mary Bell apparently did (as far as we know, anyway), but it's still a huge, slavering monster living inside you. I certainly wouldn't want to live in the same neighborhood as Mary Bell with my three-year-old son, that's for sure.

[lastwish]

I am not in favour of the death penalty. After all the judicial system isn't perfect. There are numerous cases of wrong charges.