Crimes and Punishment

What punishment do you think is appropriate for a child who commits a crime?

Involuntary manslaughter?
Murder?

At what age do you think a child should be tried as an adult if at all?

Here are the links to a couple of scenarios. Feel free to comment on others you know of as well.

http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/wireStory?id=6627788

http://www.courttv.com/trials/wrestling/030901_sentence_ctv.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1999/07/02/archive/main52853.shtml

Http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/usa/news/article_1460837.php/Jealous_Pennsylvannia_11_year-old_kills_Dads_pregnant_fiancee

I like some of the points Norhan made, and am mostly in agreement.

'The truth is, I think, parents should be responsible, as Britt mentioned above ''I knew it was wrong to shoot someone when I was a small, small child. '' well, that's the parent's role, those children who commit crimes lack such, their must be something terribly wrong somewhere, no one is born a criminal,'

^Some great ideas there. I've always been on the same side having studied a lot of developmental psychology. It's actually mind boggling how much a child's behaviour is determined by how they were reared (usually by biological parents).

This isn't totally the case though, obviously there are biological/physiological arguments in that some people are born in a certain way, with regards to brain and hormonal structure, e.g. lower levels of seratonin.

I don't agree with Britt though:

'If you kill at 11, the odds are good you'll do it again. Thats my assumption anyway.'

That's a bit of a silly statement without having consulted facts, not least to forego mentioning what 'good odds' are.

My personal opinion is that you have to take a Piagetian approach. Children of certain ages (on average) lack certain cognitive skills. For instance according to Piaget a child of seven years old does not have the ability to conserve (although from recent research actual ages are thought to be lower).

Now consider bad parental rearing - such children simply may not have the cognitive ability to understand what they have done.

Of course this is not the case for all children, but I think 15+ is a good starting point. I would perhaps lower that still by a couple of years but take it by a case by case basis. You'd have to see how self-aware the child was, how much he knows what he has done and accepts his responsibility, which of course is impossible to do objectively and consistently across different cases.

I don't think use can use a deontological philosophy for children, so much as you do with adults.

In certain situations people of any age who may not have violent tendencies, may be put in a situation where they hurt or kill someone to protect their family or themselves which doesn't mean they are likely to do it again. That of course doesnt apply to any of the situations in the links above though. I think you all have some excellent points on the subject.

Do you think that music, movies and video games can influence someone to kill?

In response to Rachel. Yes, I do. I also agree with an earlier post though, that we should monitor what our children watch, play, and do. However, with that said, even those of us who do watch and monitor, there is no guarantee that they are not still able to access it from outside sources.
The whole topic makes me sad. That a child of a young age feels the need to kill. That our judicial system feels (however rightly) the need to incarcerate for life instead of for rehabilitation.. However you look at it, it is a deterioration of our human foundation. Sad. But life.

I think it all depends on intent.

The first story focused a lot on the game aspect, when really I think that was only a small part of it. How does the game come to play such a pivotal role in someone's life? We are all kids at some point, my parents stripped my room of everything but my clothes and bed, I never thought of killing them.

A 6 or 7 year old unsupervised and maybe even uninformed, wrestling around, someone seriously gets hurt, should you lock them up and charge them as an adult? No. In this scenario I think parents have to take some responsibility.

I am personally not a gun person, I would never own one, I wouldn't trust myself with one, never mind my child, accidents happen or tempers flare and stupidity takes over.

''Do you think that music, movies and video games can influence someone to kill?''

(i know this isn't really what the whole discussion is about but i wanted to comment on this.)

i definitely think music, video games etc. can influence people, espically children.
example: my aunt and uncle choose to not allow violent video games, movies, music etc. in their home. their son is allowed to play video games but they are games such as baseball or bowling. he isn't allowed to have toy guns or anything of that sort. he has been raised this way his whole life. He just turned 11 and a couple months ago he went over to one of his friends' house. at his friends house they were playing with toy guns and now that my cousin knows what guns do (toys or not) he'll walk around with his fingers shaped like a gun pretending to shoot people.
i truly believe he wouldn't have started this had he not seen his friends play with toy guns.
eventually, yes, he would learn what a gun does. but by that point he wouldn't treat it as a toy or find it as a game.

so yes, i do believe things that you hear or see are going to affect you.

now does this mean my cousin is going to go around killing people because a couple kids played with toy guns? most likely no.
but since playing with those toy guns doesn't cause any harm to a child physically, my cousin up until a certain age, will believe that guns don't cause physical harm. and he can go around pretending to shoot people with these toys.

i guess i should probably mention something about the point of this post.

in my opinion, the child shouldn't be charged as an adult from the get go.
i think that they should be in a juvenile hall until they reach adult age. i don't think they should just be let off at that point though, because they could very easily commit the same crime again.
i think once they are an adult they can be tried as an adult.

i don't think the goverment, or the law, should be able to say at what age you are truly an adult. but then change it around when you do something wrong, if you are not an adult you should not be tried as if you are an adult.

Well Rachel it depends on the case, childhood is a huge concept which cannot be easily detailed as common among all children...

The first case for example, the judge ruled before hand that this was done without premeditation, however, from the father's testimony we'd see that the boy did intend to kill his parents, using their trust against them...

It was fair that the boy recieved life without parole...

I think the cases should be looked at throughly, and if the child did maliciously murder an innocent... Then he/she deserves the same punishment as an adult would

That One Guy -
i understand exactly what your saying, and i respect your opinion.
but in my experience there is only so much a parent can teach them, though they can teach them a great deal, some of what a child learns will be by their friends or other influences.

"you can't blame television or video games for the actions of people. People control there own mines. the tvi is juat a square form of entertainment."

i agree, i wasn't trying to blame tv in anyway. i was more so refering to other people affecting you not what you see on television.
sorry if that point was misunderstood.

then towards the first thing you said; i guess in every case its different, each one would be unique.
but i'd think that most kids don't know exactly what harm a gun can do if they are not put in any situation where i gun is doing harm. but i also don't think we should purposefully put a child in that situation.
granted yes, my cousin probably won't try to shoot his parents with a real gun only because he likes to pretend to shoot things with his finger.
but what says another kid won't try the same thing?

It depends what age you believe a child knows the difference between right and wrong.

I know upbringing and parental attitude, TV, video games etc can distort the right and wrong, but i think pretty much any sane person knows that killing another human fits into the wrong catagory.

In which case, they should be treated like adults under the law.

If it's a petty crime with a lot of grey area (theft etc) then perhaps not.