I'm really interested in Jack the Ripper and i like to read about historic murders, there's a facebook page i'm a member of that posts two a day. Its really interesting.
Not exactly the same but i also like reading MyDeathSpace.com kinda morbid but oh well
What do you think the cut off age for children being tried as an adult should be? A couple years ago an 11 or 12 year old killed shot and killed a pregnant woman and her baby. It caused a whole lot of controversy on if he should be tried as an adult or child. Any thoughts. If he should have then at what age is old enough to know better? 6, 8, 10?
I would say you know better as soon as you know that death is a thing that happens, but I don't necessarily agree that knowing better means a child should be tried as an adult.
Knowing that something is wrong and bad is emphatically not the same as understanding the consequences of your actions. Can a 10 year old or whatever really wrap their head around the realities of what ending a human life entails? Can they comprehend how much they have destroyed? I doubt it.
Also if you're going to push the age of trying someone as an adult lower and lower whenever you get outraged by a crime, what's the point? The whole idea of the child/adult thing is that below a certain age you don't understand fully what you have done; that limit may be an arbitrary one but it doesn't magically move around based on how angry the public is about a given crime. If you just shift it around as you feel like, then forget the whole thing.
I'd just set 18 for everything. When you hit 18, you exist completely in your own right and should be treated as such. I disapprove of systems in which being 16 means you're an adult in terms of one thing, being 18 makes you an adult in terms of another, and being 21 makes you an adult in yet another category. It's just silly.
there was a picture here
While I think it is wrong to lower the age if a new evil act against another surfaces from an even younger person, I think it should be settled by a case by case basis. Everyone grows up slightly different and on different levels and time frames, so use doctors and psychologists. There were a couple of 9/10 year old boys that kidnapped and tortured a random child until he died, and they received all of 8 years. One of the children suffered from PTSD and guilt. The other did not seem to ever care, and once released he was caught and taken back to prison for something to do with child molesting and kiddie porn. This was predicted early on while their sentence was still being decided.
I think having to wait until the age of 18 to get in serious trouble would be a real bad idea. Kill some at 14 and get out at 18? Teenagers can be pretty evil, but removing the possibility of serious trouble would be like giving them a ticket to fulfill any sick or terrible crime with not, but a slap on the wrist. Maybe school shooter won't feel the need to commit suicide afterward. " She was being a bitch, and I'm jealous of her so I taught her a lesson." "Well, he was a bully so he got what he deserved."
I do agree that having a ton of separate ages for adulthood is silly in some ways. It might work if they went in a revamped the entire and tweaked up the crime/punishment and how the system works for someone under the age of 18. I'd be for the removal of having to be 21 to drink....that is stupid.
I just don't think the severity of the crime or the emotional pain that the act causes should be the basis of whether or not a minor should be tried as an adult. "Are they mentally an adult?" should be the only question there. I may even one day go as far to say that children should never be tried as adults, but I don't quite have a fully formed opinion on that yet.
Casey Anthony will always stick with me. How the bloody hell she got off of that.... It makes me sick.
Along with the injustice done to Amanda Knox in Italy... Yes, I know Meredith Kercher was the one who was tragically murdered, but the whole case was handled improperly and only served as an injustice to both Meredith and Amanda.
There's also Natalee Holloway. Yeah, Joran Van Der Sloot was finally arrested for murdering a Peruvian girl in his hotel room, but from what I last read, he still hadn't been charged for the disappearance and death of Natalee.
I was laughing so hard while reading this.Originally Posted by Spuuky
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