The American prison system is absolutely counter productive, whether for adults or juveniles. When you throw people in a cage and treat them like animals for years, they are going to act like animals when you let them back out. The only difference between adult and juvenile prosecution is likely to be how long he’s locked away before he’s turned loose on society again.
Rather than deciding between adult and juvenile, we should be deciding whether or not we want to treat offenders like human beings and actually try to rehabilitate them if possible.
I agree, but I also think there ought to be a punitive aspect when dealing with murder. If you take someone out of society, I think you lose the right to participate in society. The truly difficult thing is getting fair trials. There are too many people bullied into accepting plea deals, innocents who are locked up to avoid the death penalty. But with an open and shut case like this? Lock him away. He stole four people from their families.
There’s no evidence that what feels good to you actually reduces the odds of the perpetrator committing crimes again or reduces the rate of those crimes in society in general, and good evidence that what doesn’t feel good to you does those things. So you will have to decide if you would rather feel good about how the person who did something wrong was punished or have less crime in your society.
For absolutely known murder with no possibility of mistaken identity (a school shooter caught on camera and captured on the scene, for example), I am ok with vindictive punishment. Kill multiple people, lose your freedom. Live in a cage for the next sixty years. That’s the level of proof that I need for guilt-free incarceration.
The American prison system is absolutely counter productive, whether for adults or juveniles. When you throw people in a cage and treat them like animals for years, they are going to act like animals when you let them back out. The only difference between adult and juvenile prosecution is likely to be how long he’s locked away before he’s turned loose on society again.
Rather than deciding between adult and juvenile, we should be deciding whether or not we want to treat offenders like human beings and actually try to rehabilitate them if possible.
Oh, this kid needs to get shot. Same with his father. We can skip the “rehabilitation” for mass murderers and the people who made/support them.
I agree, but I also think there ought to be a punitive aspect when dealing with murder. If you take someone out of society, I think you lose the right to participate in society. The truly difficult thing is getting fair trials. There are too many people bullied into accepting plea deals, innocents who are locked up to avoid the death penalty. But with an open and shut case like this? Lock him away. He stole four people from their families.
There’s no evidence that what feels good to you actually reduces the odds of the perpetrator committing crimes again or reduces the rate of those crimes in society in general, and good evidence that what doesn’t feel good to you does those things. So you will have to decide if you would rather feel good about how the person who did something wrong was punished or have less crime in your society.
For absolutely known murder with no possibility of mistaken identity (a school shooter caught on camera and captured on the scene, for example), I am ok with vindictive punishment. Kill multiple people, lose your freedom. Live in a cage for the next sixty years. That’s the level of proof that I need for guilt-free incarceration.