Wow, 12 year old kills playmate and gets 26 years.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by Winston
Lorizael,

You speak as if we owe it to murderers to turn their lives around and provide them new opportunities to lead harmonious lives.

First, I don't think we owe them anything. Second, it is an irrelevant consideration in the context of meting out the appropriate punishment for their crimes.

If "we" is the government, which is made up of we the people, then yes, I do feel we owe it to them. Everyone is supposed to be granted an equal opportunity in our society.

Also, I feel that the justice system should be more geared towards righting a wrong than simply punishing the wrong. It's a difference of opinion about the meaning of justice. I could get probably get all philosophical on you, but as I already said, I'm pretty lazy.

[Lorizael]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
The NIH says that up to 20% of kids have this "disorder"

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001537.htm

So if your child does any of the following:

* arguing with adults
* loss of temper
* angry and resentful of others
* actively defies adults' requests
* spiteful or vindictive behavior
* blames others for their own mistakes
* is touchy or easily annoyed
* few or no friends or loss of previous friends
* constant trouble in school

There is something wrong with him and he needs immediate medication.

...on a continuous basis for six months or more. Omitting things in order to prove your point

Nevertheless, your argument is a slippery slope one. Any technology used irresponsibly is bad. Any extreme is harmful. That's not an argument against the technology or the type of society or whatever, it's an argument against being stupid. Star Trek

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
The NIH says that up to 20% of kids have this "disorder"

http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/001537.htm

So if your child does any of the following:

* arguing with adults
* loss of temper
* angry and resentful of others
* actively defies adults' requests
* spiteful or vindictive behavior
* blames others for their own mistakes
* is touchy or easily annoyed
* few or no friends or loss of previous friends
* constant trouble in school

There is something wrong with him and he needs immediate medication.

Actually, the NIH says that the 20% figure is from some studies and most experts feel it is inflated. It further says that "The pattern of behaviors must be distinguished from what is commonly observed in other children of similar age and developmental level, and must result in significant social or academic problems."

But thanks for playing all the same.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Lorizael -

I agree with you on the arbitrary sentences, but for whatever reason, 26 was the max under Washington law for the killer - I don't know how their sentencing system works, but if the two had been tried as juveniles, they could only have been confined until the age of 21. (which is another BS subject unto itself).

You're right that there are no guarantees, but I don't think there ever will be. I don't believe in the star trek universe of everything being fixable - physics doesn't necessarily present a barrier, because biological processes are too large scale for quantum effects to be significant, but intractibility is a real problem.

Even the best understood mental conditions are still fairly poorly understood - most depression is treatable, but not all patients respond to all treatments, some don't respond, or respond only to a certain degree. Regardless of whether treatment is therapeutic, pharmacological, or both, treatments have variable and not entirely predictable degrees of effectiveness for each patient. There are no guarantees.

When you get into personality disorders which are more conditioning and environment than neurochemical, then you have even more problems. With sociopathic behaviors (whether that's the diagnosis or not), we're barely at the beginning stage of understanding how that works, and the possible contributing factors, between genetics, conditioning, and other factors, could be almost infinite.

The problems with the "cure" goal are different if you're dealing with someone who is a major risk to the life or safety of others - if you've got someone miserable with avoidant personality disorder or depression, you can try multiple treatments and therapy and be content with a good probability of at least partial success, if the patient is willing to cooperate.

With a sociopathic killer, to justify release into the community, you have to have a virtual 100% assurance of successful treatment (which doesn't exist with any mental or emotional disorder), and be assured that the patient is genuinely responding to treatment, not merely providing the responses you expect, in order to obtain freedom.

In an ideal world, you could identify risk factors and find means (consistent with patient rights and civil liberties) to treat high-risk individuals before they go off and destroy themselves or someone else. Research, and more of it, is certainly justifiable and needed, so that we can understand and treat the whole range of mental and emotional disorders.

However, I don't think there will ever be a sufficient guarantee of successful treatment such that it would be justified to release a killer like this back into society. It's not the killer who is at risk, it is innocent third parties who are placed at risk. I think that a significant number of "average" killers (including lesser degrees of homicide such as voluntary manslaughter could be rehabilitated, with a reasonably safe likelihood that the killer would not reoffend with other violent crimes. I believe that is a current possibility with a significant percentage of killers. I do not believe it will ever be a possibility for certain killers who commit especially heinous murders like this one.

[OzzyKP]

If the NIH thought the 20% figure is faulty why did they put it on their website? Either they are purposely trying to mislead people or they think it isn't all that far off. Either option isn't very promising.

And no doubt they issue similar caveats about ADD and Ritilan perscriptions, but we all know how common ADD diagnosis are and how often ritilan is overperscribed.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
That kind of Star Trek world where every thought is reduced to a chemical reaction that can be controled scares me more than anything, and scares me 100 times more than an army of homocidal 12-year-olds with knifes.

Never bring a knife to a gunfight.

Once we have reduced every decision and behavior to a controllable physical symptom we will start "curing" people who go over the speed limit, "curing" homosexuals, "curing" people who speak ill of the government, "curing" smokers & drinkers & drug users, "curing" those who don't vote 'properly'. Our democracy and freedom will inevitablly be ruined by such a system.

That's a nice fallacy. Having the technology to fully understand mental processes (not that I believe it will ever happen) does not in the least equate to an Orwellian subjugation of individual rights by some outside force.

This isn't paranoia either. Have you heard of "Oppositional Defiant Disorder"? This "disease" is applied to kids that don't do everything they are told. I can think of no more fascist concept than to say that those who follow orders unquestioningly are healthy and normal, and everyone else has a disease that needs to be cured.

It helps to read what you cite.

From your own link:

***********************

The pattern must persist for at least 6 months and must go beyond the bounds of normal childhood misbehavior.

Some studies have shown that 20% of the school-age population is affected, but most experts believe this figure is inflated due to changing cultural definitions of normal childhood behavior and other possible racial, cultural, and gender biases

The pattern of behaviors must be distinguished from what is commonly observed in other children of similar age and developmental level, and must result in significant social or academic problems.

The best treatment for the child is individual psychotherapy. The parents should also learn behavioral management skills.

Consistency in rules and fair consequences should be practiced in the child's home. Punishments should not be overly harsh or inconsistently applied. Appropriate behaviors should be modeled by the adults in the household. Abuse and neglect increase the chances that this condition will occur.

********************

Your post is a perfect example of why we shouldn't let youth make your own decisions like adults. You're simply not capable of understanding information given to you.

[Arrian]

Consistency in rules and fair consequences should be practiced in the child's home. Punishments should not be overly harsh or inconsistently applied.

-Arrian

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by OzzyKP
If the NIH thought the 20% figure is faulty why did they put it on their website? Either they are purposely trying to mislead people or they think it isn't all that far off. Either option isn't very promising.

Since they put the disclaimer that "most experts" think that's too high in the same ****ing sentence they could probably only mislead know-it-all teens who read the first five or ten words then figure that they know enough, so why bother reading the rest.

You're obviously too busy looking for an excuse to rant over a non-issue to employ standard reading comprehension. There's nothing either "misleading" or endorsing about stating that "most experts" feel the cited range is too high.

It is also common practice in scientific and technical reporting to state a range of incidence from the highest estimate to the lowest, or the lowest to the highest. It doesn't matter what direction you go, but you identify the range and appropriately disclaim the limits or conditions for the minimum or maximum. That's not misleading to anyone, unless they're "challenged" or simply too lazy to read or think.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by OzzyKP

This isn't paranoia either. Have you heard of "Oppositional Defiant Disorder"? This "disease" is applied to kids that don't do everything they are told. I can think of no more fascist concept than to say that those who follow orders unquestioningly are healthy and normal, and everyone else has a disease that needs to be cured.

But yea, this is an off-topic rant now.

It's better than what we had in my day, which was a carte blanche to "break the spirit" of kids who didn't do what they were told. There really was a book called "As the Twig is Bent", and there really was a time when child "psychologists" could instruct parents and teachers on a veritable armory of different corporal techniques intended to elicit co-operation from children.

OTOH, have you ever had much dealing with kids given this diagnosis? Do you think that it is possible that there is a degree of defiant behavior that might be pathological?

[Meticulous Man]

Every human being is unique. Diagnoses are labels we attach to people for the reason that it appears to us they have shown some kind of deviant behavior which fits certain diagnostic criteria. Actually, the interesting question is which factors led them to exhibit this behavior that was by us considered pathological.

Nobody of us knows what propelled the children to commit this murder. It could well be that upon examination by experts, the boy who inflicted the stab wounds might be found not to fit any diagnostic criteria. Also, as we probably know, the thought processes of a child who is 12 years old are qualitatively different from ours. That's why people under the age of 18 rarely, if ever, are diagnosed with personality disorders.

Because of the age of the perpetrators, the thought comes naturally to many that these children simply are "evil". A sociopath is, as the personification of evil, the perfect enemy within. A sociopath, incapable of experiencing human emotions, preys upon his victims in impunity under the guise of a well-functioning individual. According to the popular conception of a sociopath, the person with this disorder comes close to being a demonic being in human disguise.

There is a Finnish discussion forum on the Internet where people who think they have been harassed by a person with "narcissistic personality disorder" discuss their experiences. What is common to the participants is that none of them actually seems to know whether the person they have been in contact with has been diagnosed with a personality disorder. Also, the character traits attributed to these people suspected of being sociopaths vary. One comes to the conclusion that "narcissistic personality disorder" is, for these people, a convenient explanation for the emotional pain that undoubtedly has been caused.

I'm not trying to claim that sociopathic behavior doesn't exist or that these people haven't committed injustifiable acts, but in these matters, people should give some thought to what a diagnosis actually is and why whoever shouldn't sling diagnoses around on the basis of incomplete information.

[TCO]

Hang him.

[Qwertqwert]

Re: Re: Wow, 12 year old kills playmate and gets 26 years.

Originally posted by Tim_Augustus
[q=CNN]

A boy convicted as an adult of stabbing a playmate to death when he was 12 years old was sentenced Monday to the maximum 26 years in prison.

[/q]

A 12yo offender tried as an adult??

What if he was 10? 8? 6?

There are minimum ages to be allowed to be tried as an adult.