Kids Serving Life

[Jon Miller]

But they often have no hope for a better life.

JM

[Mr. Harley]

Actually, as in the case Jacob Ind - a supermax prison is a better life than he was living. IMHO that is why it took him several years to realize what a life sentence really meant - he was actually much safer than he had ever been in his life. But he had a chance to leave the abusive life in the near future if he had not snapped - but he will never leave the Supermax prison alive. Now he realizes how bad his choice, if you can call it that, was. I want to know where all the teachers/social workers were, because I guarantee there were signs.

The problem is that clever abusers slip up very rarely, and if the adults involved miss the signs - you get this case. I walked into school with both cheeks solid bruises (middle school grade) and told people I had walked into a door. However, since my father was a member in very good standing in our parrish - it was ignored and the abuse continued. I believe that was the only time he slipped up with five kids - he almost did one other time, and I remember styptic pencil being used to stop the bleeding on a three inch gash in my sister's scalp on the top of her head - it seemed normal then, now I know it was to avoid an emergency room. Kismet.

To repeat, was this stepfather and the mother so brilliant they NEVER made a mistake. I doubt it.
Which means the kid was let down by his mother, his stepfather, his teachers, his defense attorney, the prosecuting attorney (he has wide latitude on how he prosecutes a case), mental health specialists hire by the prosecuting attornies office, et al. Does he bear responsibility - well, he's serving life in prison. Do any of the others - well, the mother certainly was forced to accept responsibility - permanently, one might say. For the rest - no pain. That is why cases like this are doubly a tragedy.

[thesilentone]

Another part of the problem which is understandable is that any false postives from a perceived overbearing nanny state "stealing" their children would be a huge PR disaster... I get the impression that that at least moderates what procedures govt's are willing to put in place.

[chequita guevara]

They make a point in the documentary that parents who kill their children, on average, get the lightest sentences. Children who kill their parents get the stiffest. That's frikkin' backwards.

[Patroklos]

All the ones I have read about recently got life, and only avoided the death penalty due to insanity.

[Mr. Harley]

Chegitz, I believe Patrolklos is closer on this one. At least here in Central Kentucky, cases of parents violently killing their children are pretty harshly prosecuted. Appropriately so, IMHO. The problem is that I see what makes the newspapers, so I do not see a statistical sample. But at least among the more public cases, the killer receives 40 plus to life to the DP, with the other parent typically receiving around 20 years.

[Bugs ****ing Bunny]

A bit of a chilling Guardian article here. It's long, but a good read-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2140431,00.html

Key sections-


quote:

She is one of 2,270 juveniles across the United States who were sentenced to life without parole, a punishment second only in severity to the death penalty. All were under 18 when they committed the crimes. Six of them were 13, and 50 of them were 14 - an age at which US law forbids them to drive a car, give medical consent, vote, leave school, sign a contract, drink alcohol in a bar, serve on a jury, be drafted in the army, live away from home. Yet they were tried as adults in an adult court and given no possibility of a second chance.

***********

Michigan is one of 41 states in America that allows children under 18 to be imprisoned for the rest of their lives. The US is among a tiny minority of countries (Somalia is another) that have refused to sign up to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that expressly forbids the practice. According to Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, only three other countries - Israel, South Africa and Tanzania - mete out the sentence and they have collectively just 12 prisoners serving it.

Technically, a child of any age could be incarcerated for life in Michigan for first-degree murder. Above the age of 14, suspects can be placed directly into the adult court system. At that point, even the judges' hands are tied. If a child is convicted in an adult court of a range of serious offences - taking part in a robbery that leads to murder, say - they must automatically be given life without parole, even where the judge feels that is inappropriate.




Unicef's summary of the UN Convention can be found here- http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk...90EEC4E6602.pdf

So is it time the US signed up?

[DinoDoc]

Laz: The only person in your article who doesn't seem like he's where he belongs is Kevin Boyd.

[DaShi]

Didn't we just have a thread about this?

[East Street Trader]

The US seems to have more faith in locking people up than anyone else (judging by the numbers you imprison).

You would do well to examine exactly why that is.

When it gets as far as locking up children it becomes really barbaric.

It must, I think, be something to do with fear.

[Spec]

Originally posted by Japher
or are we just more heartless?
or have better legal systems?
or better policemen?

lol,


LOL


And


ROFLMAO!

Spec.