Child Murderer Tried as Adult by canttakesky

Case needs more details. Depends on how solid the prosecutions case is. I am guessing it's probably rock solid, but they have to make the case.

That said, remember 12 year old Lionel Tate? He was moved from child court to adult court, where his recommended sentence was life without the possibility of parole, then moved back to juvenile court where it was reduced to "time served in juvi." immediately, he tried again and again, and kept committing acts of violence until eventually he was 18 and doing it, and then he was sentenced to life.

Is it really useful to society to have a psychopath on the loose for 6 or 7 years?

The notion we really need to lose here is child. IMHO. The fact is that eleven and twelve year olds are not mentally incompetent semi-humans, and are fully capable responsible humans. That means, as Frem says, they should have all the rights of adults, but also it means that they have to accept responsibility for their actions. I'm guessing the kid knew what he was doing.

I don't like shifting the blame here, because even though I agree, I don't like the laws that would be necessary to control it. I'd rather just get rid of guns.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011 5:14 AM

HERO

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
This is not just a simple case to me. If a child is guilty of using a gun to kill someone, should the child be tried as an adult who is fully responsible--or should the actual adult charged with keeping guns away from this child absorb some legal responsibility from said child?

Perhaps some combination. Tried as an adult, but sentenced as a child. In other words, give the child an enhanced sentencing phase to determine what the best combination of punishment and rehabilitation would be. And keep sentencing open for review until the child becomes an adult with a final disposition on their 18th (or 21st depending on the case) birthday.

So a child of 11 could be sentenced 25 to life, but still get out at 18 (or sooner) if they turn their life around such that this would not happen again.

While I believe some teen offenders are beyond redemption, I cannot believe an 11 year old cannot be turned into a productive member of society.

And we should not discount the idea of sending the kid to a secret govt facility and turning him into an assassin or some kind of super soldier. When you think about it...this may be the best option.

H

"Hero. I have come to respect you." "I am forced to agree with Hero here."- Chrisisall, 2009.
"I would rather not ignore your contributions." Niki2, 2010.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011 5:35 AM

HARDWARE

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:

This is not just a simple case to me. If a child is guilty of using a gun to kill someone, should the child be tried as an adult who is fully responsible--or should the actual adult charged with keeping guns away from this child absorb some legal responsibility from said child?

Trying the adult who owned the guns sets a very bad precedent. For example, if the child obtained the guns from the father, would you still feel that way if the child got them from a locked gun safe? The child may live in the same residence as the father and have access to the location of the keys or know the combination to the safe. Further, it opens the door to legal prosecution to a third party who has his guns stolen by someone who uses them to kill. If I live in a home without children, why do I need to pay for the additional security of a gun safe when I already maintain the security of my residence? Doesn't that come back to the parents being responsible for the actions of their children?

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

I don't like shifting the blame here, because even though I agree, I don't like the laws that would be necessary to control it. I'd rather just get rid of guns.

Method, motive and opportunity are needed for a crime. You're suggesting we remove the method. The perpetrator will find another method. Insufficient, and fails a simple test of logic.

The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.

...and he that has no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one. Luke 22:36

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011 5:47 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hardware:
Trying the adult who owned the guns sets a very bad precedent.

Agreed. However, this was not a case of the child stealing someone else's weapon. It appears the child was the owner of the rifle he used. I question the judgment of the adult who gave it to him.

Quote:
You're suggesting we remove the method. The perpetrator will find another method.

True, but other methods may not be nearly as successful for an 11 year old kid. If he had tried to stab her with a knife, for example, she would have had a chance to fight back. And she probably would have won.

-------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011 5:48 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Hero:
So a child of 11 could be sentenced 25 to life, but still get out at 18 (or sooner) if they turn their life around such that this would not happen again.

Hero, this makes a lot of sense.

-------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:14 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
The notion we really need to lose here is child. IMHO. The fact is that eleven and twelve year olds are not mentally incompetent semi-humans, and are fully capable responsible humans. That means, as Frem says, they should have all the rights of adults, but also it means that they have to accept responsibility for their actions. I'm guessing the kid knew what he was doing.

That is where it begins and ends, for me.

If we are unwilling to give them the same rights as an adult, we have NO MORAL RIGHT to hold them to the same legal punitive standard, period.

End-of-the-fucking-story, you understand ?

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
If we are unwilling to give them the same rights as an adult, we have NO MORAL RIGHT to hold them to the same legal punitive standard, period.

I'm not trying to be wishy washy. But this makes a lot of sense too.

-------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011 3:58 PM

Frem,

I guess you favor the solution of those tools and rights which he did apparently possess and use, since it was, if I understand correctly, his own gun.

Ergo, someone should shoot the little bugger.

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Thursday, January 27, 2011 2:08 AM

Nope.

Look, if we did not, at ANY time prior to this, sociall or legally consider him an adult, officially grant him any of the rights, responsibilities and privledges....

Then we got no goddamn call to all of the sudden when it is most CONVENIENT to do so, in clear violation of established social convention and law, however repulsive *I* happen to find it, consider him of a different status simply because it allows us to be more vicious in our punishment, oh hell no, fuck that noise.

You can't change the rules in the middle of the game, go treating them as something less than housepets and then hold them to a standard of justice we never once fucking offered them prior to that point.

That is bullshit, any way you slice it.
Period.

-Frem

PS. I am utterly, abso-fuckin-lutely immobile on this one, in case ya hadn't noticed.

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Thursday, January 27, 2011 10:52 AM

Frem,

I posted a long response to you here, but it was lost in the glitch.

The gist of it was this:

This is your issue, so give me your model for rules for a society using how you would treat both this case and the case of Lionel Tate.

Here are my preconceptions:
1) Democracy and the right to vote are illusions, because I cannot personally change the laws I live under, and I never accepted them, I have no control over them, so I don't accept this so called vote as my willing acceptance of this legal code. Rather, it is forced on me by the threat of violence inherent in the system.

2) Some people are de facto adults. Lionel Tate was in all regards a man, at 12 years old, and a large and physically powerful one.

3) This society has no mental screening for membership. Lionel Tate and this British boy undoubtedly are well above what would be considered "functional" by the courts, were that test to be done.

4) If you knowingly willingly become a gun owner, you are enacting an adult behavior, and requesting adult status.

That said, take it away. Construct a society that does not allow de facto adults to murder children* without any consequences.

* The boy in the UK murder his mother in law to be but also his brother to be, and that late in pregnancy, the boy would have survived forced labor if it had been induced the previous day, but almost certainly died of the lack of oxygen in the womb of a dead woman.

Also, Tate knowingly murdered a 6 year old girl, and his eventual sentence was one year house arrest, which did not deter his recidivism. A decent model should in some way deter crime, without changing people, because Robespierre was wrong, you have to go with the people you have. Passed that, anything goes, there doesn't have to be a punishment mechanism, it just has to work.

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Thursday, January 27, 2011 2:47 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

The notion we really need to lose here is child. IMHO. The fact is that eleven and twelve year olds are not mentally incompetent semi-humans, and are fully capable responsible humans. That means, as Frem says, they should have all the rights of adults, but also it means that they have to accept responsibility for their actions. I'm guessing the kid knew what he was doing.

I don't like shifting the blame here, because even though I agree, I don't like the laws that would be necessary to control it. I'd rather just get rid of guns.

The notion that an 11 or 12 year old child has the same mental capabilities as an adult is completely wrong. The 11 year old brain is very different to an adult brain, it just functions differently in a number of areas, including having less ability to foresea consequences, less organisational ability, less use of the parts of the brain that produce empathy and guilt. The brain does not become fully adult until we are about 25 in fact.

A child is an underdeveloped adult, and society recognises that by not allowing children the same rights as adults. Therefore children should not be subject to the same punishments.

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Thursday, January 27, 2011 4:33 PM

Magon

Not than an *average* adult. Relative to what is considered a *competent* adult, which means they can stand trial. The test generally aims for an understanding roughly equivalent to that of a seven year old, though it can vary from state to state. A twelve year old would pass the test is any state I figure, unless for some reason they were a mentally deficient 12 year old. The point of this policy is not to execute people with downes syndrome for doing things which they did not understand the consequences of, such as picking up a gun. If they can't understand the concept of gun, they're more surprised than anyone when it fires a bullet.

IIRC, in IQ terms the breakoff was originally around 75, but now it's more like 60. I could be off, this is from memory, but the general concept is pretty clear. There's no question that Lionel Tate would pass a competency test to stand trial, but no one gave one to him, because it never occurred to them that it would be needed, legally, because he seemed of normal intelligence, and not deficient. Since he was not an adult, to try him as an adult, it was a legal requirement, a technicality upon which the appeal which got him released was based. That does not mean that anyone thought he was not competent to stand trial, just that it was a procedural screw up.

I think you're talking about the mind, and this is some psychological theory?

I'm very familiar with the brain. If you want to talk physically? The 12 year old brain is fully formed. The brain reaches its peak development at seven, and then it scales back until 12, and then it holds that for basically the rest of your life. It's people who have that pre-seven brain who have to be taken out of the system. The 7-12 is more of a grey area.

Case in point. I was at a party where a child who was age 6 or 7 but developmentally behind, probably around 4 or 5, picked up a handgun which was on the mantle. To do this, he climbed up on a chair, took down the gun, which was loaded. He ran around the house with it, yelling bang, bang, you're dead. Eventually stopping at his mother, pointed the gun at her head and pulling the trigger.

Or trying to. It was an antique gun, and the trigger was a physical mechanism, not a hairline or whatever it is, I'm not very familiar with guns, but it was an old one where you're actually moving the inner workings of the gun, so he did not possess enough strength to pull it back far enough to fire.

I felt confident he had no idea what the consequences would be.

Our identification of 12 as a child is a social construct. In many muslim nations he would be considered an adult, as he would in a number of african cultures, or indeed in most of our own history.

At any rate, this was not Frem's argument. I'm sure Frem accepts that Lionel Tate is a sentient being capable of his own thoughts and actions. His argument was based on rights. I was asking for a delineation of that structural view.

I've known lots of kids, I have no doubt that a physcially adult 12 year old is a mentally adult at least passed the level which is necessary to stand trial, which was the question on that front. We weren't asking if he was Einstein or even college material.

I suspect if kids were incapable of empathy, the world would be chaos.

Frem,

I refer you to my last post.

Oh, and don't sweat that we disagree about abortion. 1/2 the planet disagrees with the other half, and gets very emotional about it. My detailing my logic was solely for Niki's benefit, so she could understand the right wing position, and not an attempt to persuade anyone.

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Thursday, January 27, 2011 4:35 PM

Except for a prescription drug period between 10-14 and a fallout period between 14-18 where I was delusionally cheerful and manic, neither my behaviour patterns nor my political beliefs have changed since I was a young girl. My knowledge hasn't increased much either.

When I talk to kids, they're pretty put together on what they think, their personalities, and their decision making skills. The only time they are uncertain is when encountering a new concept, but they make up their minds about it pretty fast.

If you're referring to hormones and puberty, you have a point, and that can affect decision making to a degree, but they ARE still functionally capable of MAKING decisions. And they are from a pretty young age.

That said, I hate the ghoulish sons of bitches that salivate over putting another "problem child" away for life. This is another problem inherent in the justice system that is a product of complete disrespect between generations, and thinking each new generation is a bunch of irredeemable hooligans. And it needs to go.

Putting a person away for life, unless it can be proven they are psychologically disturbed and dangerous to everyone else, is as much of a waste of life as killing them. Think of the economics, won't someone please think of the economics?

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Thursday, January 27, 2011 4:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Frem,
...Oh, and don't sweat that we disagree about abortion.

LOL. I cannot, CANNOT, imagine Frem sweating over a disagreement with anyone on RWED.

Does Frem even sweat?

-------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Thursday, January 27, 2011 8:23 PM

Quote:
I'm very familiar with the brain. If you want to talk physically? The 12 year old brain is fully formed. The brain reaches its peak development at seven, and then it scales back until 12, and then it holds that for basically the rest of your life. It's people who have that pre-seven brain who have to be taken out of the system. The 7-12 is more of a grey area.

This is not supported by any recent research into brain development, which is clear that a child and an adolescent brain functions very differently from an adult brain, in particular the frontal lobe, the part which controls cognitive responses, advanced thought and impulse control. Even up to around 25 a person has less capacity to make sound judgement calls, hence why young adults take such stupid risks. The brain of a 12 year old may be a similar size to that of an adults, but is still not anywhere close to being fully matured.

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Thursday, January 27, 2011 9:23 PM

CTS

He called me Rappy

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=18&t=47332

Magon,

You and I are clearly different species

The human brain reaches its maximum number of synapses at age 7, whereupon it undergoes a selected reduction, which I like to think of as the "is there an easter bunny phase" and by age 12 it stabilizes and remains relatively unchanged for the rest of the life of the human.

Information is gathered over those additional years, but no real structural changes. Sorry, and thanks for playing

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Thursday, January 27, 2011 9:35 PM

Magon: This still sounds hormonal. At those ages, kids are going to be more impulsive. Before the hormones, though? I suspect they're actually more cautious, because they encounter a lot more foreign situations. It would be evolutionarily advantageous.

Kids are actually very good at spotting obvious things adults miss, and also more likely to reject nonsensical ideas introduced as part of upbringing, such as racism. Past a certain point, however, upbringing bias becomes ingrained.

Be careful about citing psychology studies: you could find many many arguing the exact opposite point, and most psychology studies are out to serve an agenda.

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Thursday, January 27, 2011 9:47 PM

No Byte, it's not about child psychology studies. They've done lots of research into the brain in recent years, fascinating stuff that is being observed through scans. It's fairly conclusive that the brain does not reach maturity until quite late, some studies have suggested as late as 30. It's the immaturity of the brain, particularly the frontal lobe that produces poor impulse control.

The adolescent brain changes at an enormous rate, if you've heard about all synaptic stripping or pruning that takes place as it readies itself for adulthood. It explains a lot of adolescent behaviour.

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Thursday, January 27, 2011 9:48 PM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
Quote:
I'm very familiar with the brain. If you want to talk physically? The 12 year old brain is fully formed. The brain reaches its peak development at seven, and then it scales back until 12, and then it holds that for basically the rest of your life. It's people who have that pre-seven brain who have to be taken out of the system. The 7-12 is more of a grey area.

This is not supported by any recent research into brain development, which is clear that a child and an adolescent brain functions very differently from an adult brain, in particular the frontal lobe, the part which controls cognitive responses, advanced thought and impulse control. Even up to around 25 a person has less capacity to make sound judgement calls, hence why young adults take such stupid risks. The brain of a 12 year old may be a similar size to that of an adults, but is still not anywhere close to being fully matured.

Hello,

That there is a change of function and priorities over time can cause a young brain to be construed as 'not yet fully matured.' It could also cause an older brain to be construed as stagnant.

I would be interested in seeing studies comparing the behavior of young people in societies where they are considered an adult at a young age.

I suspect the propensity for 'stupid risks' in youth has more to do with a person governing themselves for the first time, and going through the process of learning to do so, finding their limits, preferences, learning from experience, etc.

I might wonder if maturity (equilibrium?) of decision-making might not be reached earlier if a person was self-governing sooner.

That having been said, I agree with Frem on this point: It's not fair to change the rules in the middle of the game. If you are going to crap on children because they are irresponsible, then you can't declare them responsible when it is convenient to your wrath.

Our laws need an overhaul, and sentencing needs to be a more fluid and customizable thing that can be tailored to suit the situation and the ultimate question: When will this person be safe in society, and how can we make that happen?

I'll add that once we declare someone fit for society, then the punishment needs to end.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Thursday, January 27, 2011 10:00 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT

Hello,

That there is a change of function and priorities over time can cause a young brain to be construed as 'not yet fully matured.' It could also cause an older brain to be construed as stagnant.

I would be interested in seeing studies comparing the behavior of young people in societies where they are considered an adult at a young age.

I suspect the propensity for 'stupid risks' in youth has more to do with a person governing themselves for the first time, and going through the process of learning to do so, finding their limits, preferences, learning from experience, etc.

http://www.sfn.org/index.aspx?pagename=brainBriefings_Adolescent_brain

Scientists once thought the brain's key development ended within the first few years of life. Now, thanks to advanced brain imaging technology and adolescent research, scientists are learning more about the teenage brain both in health and in disease. They know now that the brain continues to develop at least into a person's twenties.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/teenage-brain-a-work-in-pr
ogress-fact-sheet/index.shtml

Worth looking into this type of research and its very interesting conclusions.

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Thursday, January 27, 2011 10:13 PM

I see a blatant agenda in the links (not your fault, theirs), intended to deny a significant portion of a population the right to a say in their government and treatment at the hands of caretakers and the justice system.

Of course, these will also have the best data reporting because they have the most funding backing them. They might have some interesting results and I should look at them, but I also can't shake my initial impression that they're publishing data that supports only their conclusions.

This happens a lot with government agencies. Administration sets the policy more than do scientists.

The brain would seem to me to go through changes throughout the entire lifespan of a person. Though synaptic growth slows in adulthood, people are still capable of learning and forging new pathways. A damaged brain will open up new pathways to take over some of the previous functionality that was lost. To put a moment on any of it, "this is when a person is mature and responsible for their decisions" seems arbitrary to me. I don't think we understand any of the processes well enough yet.

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Thursday, January 27, 2011 10:31 PM

Anthony

Then take the challenge I posted to Frem here that he is ignoring.

I say if a child takes a gun as his own, and learns how to use it, and knows what it does, he is not free to murder his family. He is under the same rules as everyone else. I didn't make the rules, I can't change them, so why do I have to follow them? Because I'm over 18?

Society treats children badly, but adults possibly worse.

Magon.

Intersting brain picture. My understanding is the brain is always making connections. I'd have to go with Byte on experience, I'm who I was when I was 12.

The text of the Society for Neuroscience article was very disappointing. This isn't neuroscience. It's the same old psychiatric fantasy stuff, not how the mind works, social constructs to explain what is really going on, as Byte said: Hormones.

Here's the illusion. They have an image of a changing brain map, and then tell you the changes, and you're supposed to follow that these things are related. What's to tell me that the blue isn't just the kid learning? I can certainly explain everything that they mention without using cognitive structure modeling, so I don't think it's necessarily relevant.

The second was more interesting.

Still, the last major change is sex, and how to use this new information, and learning about this new interest.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 12:07 AM

Not ignoring it, I was friggin busy, and my personally directed insult was in response to you making a flat statement so tremendously in complete opposition to every scrap of evidence regarding it.
Something which I'll insult anyone for, at any time, especially when it falls within the realm of my specialty field, as it were.

And according to Wendy I sweat Ethylene Glycol... *rimshot*.

I notice no one has posted anything from CITIVAS or Doctor Bruce D Perry's research team at the childtrauma academy, despite them being lightyears ahead on this topic.
http://www.childtrauma.org/

Prolly cause most of their excellent studies get in the way of that long held social viewpoint that children are completely inferior, born bad, or need to be battered into submission socially, emotionally, psychologically, and physically.

But this was never my argument, still isn't, within this case.

*IF*, we as a civilisation and society, choose NOT to grant any of the rights, privledges or responsibilities to a "child", *EVER*, under any motherfuckin circumstance whatever, no matter how mature they are, no matter how desperately in some cases they NEED THEM (do not get me started on emancipation, just don't), even when their very life may be in danger for the lack...

Then when it comes to cases in court, there's no way in hell and hereafter you could POSSIBLY justify THEN classifying the "child" as an "adult" - BEFORE the trial, simply because it allows a more vicious punishment.

That's like considering a dog a human being and trying it for murder, because your locality doesn't allow you to kill the dog that "won" a disputed fight....

Was the dog ever considered a human being before that ?
Ever treated as one, acknowledged as one ?
Ever enjoyed any of the rights or privledges ?

No, it's a FICTION, it's a LIE - a tissue thin transparent joke status you're ONLY handing out cause you want blood and you mean to get it even if you have to break the rules.

And no, I don't care what this persons parents thought, what they thought, or even what YOU think...

The point I am making is that our society and our law, is undeniably damned clear on every single fucking point of this you could care to ever imagine that this person is NOT an adult - and the prosecution wishes to IGNORE those things out of spite, ignore the LAW, despite supposedly being the ones to uphold it ?

And lemme ask you THIS, to make damn sure I hammer the point home with a twenty pound sledge.

IF, and lets just presume IF - they try him as an adult, AND HE IS THEN AQUITTED...
Would he be free to consume alcohol ?
Own and operate a car ?
Vote ?
Own and carry a gun ?
Cause, yanno, we *DID* class him as an "adult", right ?

No, he would not - so lets not bullshit ourselves here, this is a pathetic excuse and nothing more, "granting" a status we have utterly no intention of ever offering in truth in a fashion that strikes me as knowingly passing a bad check, if we did not consider him an "adult" BEFORE the fact, we have no moral right what-so-ever to consider him one AFTER the fact, in defiance of custom and the law for the sole purpose of revenge.

Or, how bout this one, how would you like your employer considering YOUR status to be "not employed" for five minutes on payday so he doesn't have to pay you, but "employed" all the rest of the time - cause that's also morally equivalent here.

NOW do you understand my argument ?

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 12:11 AM

Oh and just in case the correllation isn't abundantly obvious enough already...

Part of why I am so damn vicious about this is due to being more or less on my own, a fully sentient, self-aware, and self-reliant being so much as society allowed and often far more in defiance of it, from a single digit age.

And never recieving not one whit of respect regarding that for a decade more.

That said I *do* think young people need emotional support, cause being a social-feral has some pretty harsh effects, but adult people need emotional support too, so what's the diff ?

More to say on it sometime later, perhaps, but first I hadda point to make here.

-Frem

I do not serve the Blind God.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 2:42 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Bytemite:
I see a blatant agenda in the links (not your fault, theirs), intended to deny a significant portion of a population the right to a say in their government and treatment at the hands of caretakers and the justice system.

Of course, these will also have the best data reporting because they have the most funding backing them. They might have some interesting results and I should look at them, but I also can't shake my initial impression that they're publishing data that supports only their conclusions.

This happens a lot with government agencies. Administration sets the policy more than do scientists.

The brain would seem to me to go through changes throughout the entire lifespan of a person. Though synaptic growth slows in adulthood, people are still capable of learning and forging new pathways. A damaged brain will open up new pathways to take over some of the previous functionality that was lost. To put a moment on any of it, "this is when a person is mature and responsible for their decisions" seems arbitrary to me. I don't think we understand any of the processes well enough yet.

You are totally right about the brain being able to change throughout a person's lifespan. It's called brain plasticity and the research into this has been done by the same neuroscientists who have researched brain maturity. It's actually very, very positive stuff which I believe is really useful in helping us understand how we function at different ages and stages, and also how we can repair ourselves even if we suffer brain trauma. Have a good look at the research before you judge with your guts.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 4:22 AM

PIZMOBEACH

... fully loaded, safety off...

Quote:
Originally posted by canttakesky:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/25/us-boy-accused-murder-appe
als

The Gaurdian? Why do the Brits give a shite about this story? Oh, right, they revel in Violent America stories - violence by proxy, or is it a way to feel superior?

Here's the Conundrum: no law fits every case, but laws have to be written to fit every possibility.

Scifi movie music + Firefly dialogue clips, 24 hours a day - http://www.scifiradio.com

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Friday, January 28, 2011 4:28 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
He called me Rappy

Yeah, that's pretty bad. But it could have been worse. He could have called someone else "Dreamtrove." I think that is the low point of RWED, when your screenname becomes an insult.

I'll hate the day when someone calls somebody else "CTS." Ouch. At least, you and I aren't there--YET.

-------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 5:05 AM

My very first post on FFF was met with:
It's a troll
No it's a sock puppet
It's a sock puppet of a troll
It's still a troll.
Kill it.
Is it gone?
I think we scared it away.
Oh, it's still here. But only just.
It's pretty shaken. Maybe it's not a troll.
Hi... are you in there?

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Friday, January 28, 2011 5:24 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
My very first post on FFF was met with:
It's a troll
No it's a sock puppet
It's a sock puppet of a troll
It's still a troll.
Kill it.
Is it gone?
I think we scared it away.
Oh, it's still here. But only just.
It's pretty shaken. Maybe it's not a troll.
Hi... are you in there?

Hello,

Yes. What do you wish to say?

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 5:33 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

"I say if a child takes a gun as his own, and learns how to use it, and knows what it does, he is not free to murder his family. He is under the same rules as everyone else. I didn't make the rules, I can't change them, so why do I have to follow them? Because I'm over 18?

Society treats children badly, but adults possibly worse."

Hello,

I don't think anyone is free to murder anyone else. However, that is rather beside the point, because it is a practical philosophy and not one based on society or law.

The point is that if you have two sets of rules and consequences that people must follow- one set if they are young, and another if they are older...

Then it is wrong to switch things around because you didn't like someone's behavior.

If you want to argue that the moment a child can own a gun, he should be considered an adult, that's a decent argument. I'd tend to agree.

But that's not how things are now, and to make them so just to suit ourselves when we don't like the actions of a subhuman creature is wrong.

To try a child as an adult should force us to recognize children as adults in every way, and not simply the convenient ways that suit us at a given time.

Moreover, I think the punishment for lawbreaking needs to be re-evaluated in general.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 7:05 AM

Hello Anthony,

Are you in my machine? Or are you me? Maybe I am your sockpuppet. It just occurred to me that the people who responded to me that way, some of them are likely still here. Most people here came after me, but you were here then. It would seem out of character for you.

The next new user I saw was River6213. They shredded her right proper. Made the way they treated me seem like valet service.

Ooh, I remember the first thread I ever posted here. Some troll who had left came back just to post on my thread, how special am I? And spam the whole thread with rants about evil Jews. And something about knights of the british empire. Some guy called Pirate News.

Oh, and then someone was nice to me. I think is name was ChrisIsAll. It was a strange experience, it hadn't happened on the last firefly board id been on, which was largely for people who hated firefly and wanted to thrash noobs, and fans. So I searched on firefly fans to see if there were any other there.

There were as it turned out, and they were pretty obnoxious much of the time. So much that once a newbie came on and said something about the glory of communism, and I flamed that post. And then the newbie left, and I felt very ashamed.

I decided that this stuff rubs off on you, so every once in a while I leave, so I can become a nice person again.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 7:40 AM

Freedom is Important because People are Important

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Hello Anthony,

Are you in my machine? Or are you me? Maybe I am your sockpuppet. It just occurred to me that the people who responded to me that way, some of them are likely still here. Most people here came after me, but you were here then. It would seem out of character for you.

The next new user I saw was River6213. They shredded her right proper. Made the way they treated me seem like valet service.

Ooh, I remember the first thread I ever posted here. Some troll who had left came back just to post on my thread, how special am I? And spam the whole thread with rants about evil Jews. And something about knights of the british empire. Some guy called Pirate News.

Oh, and then someone was nice to me. I think is name was ChrisIsAll. It was a strange experience, it hadn't happened on the last firefly board id been on, which was largely for people who hated firefly and wanted to thrash noobs, and fans. So I searched on firefly fans to see if there were any other there.

There were as it turned out, and they were pretty obnoxious much of the time. So much that once a newbie came on and said something about the glory of communism, and I flamed that post. And then the newbie left, and I felt very ashamed.

I decided that this stuff rubs off on you, so every once in a while I leave, so I can become a nice person again.

Hello,

That is a wise practice. I do not recall anything specific about your arrival on these forums.

I do know that I was raked by people I now consider to be friends.

I think it is easy to misunderstand and mistrust people in this forum. It is like a madman trying to discern which of the things he perceives are real, and which are illusions of his broken mind.

A period of proof seems to be par for the course. It seems people must be tested by the flame to be accepted as real.

--Anthony

Assured by friends that the signal-to-noise ratio has improved on this forum, I have disabled web filtering.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 7:55 AM

Anthony

Yes,

Most people did not respond to me at all. You were there, but you were engaged in debates with 7%, Finn et al, people here who you already knew. I came in and the main topic of debate was Chavez, also, torture.

Most people ignored me, and I would have too. The first person to respond to me was CTS, and I first posted on her thread. After that initial thread I posted that was "hi, it's me," that summarized above, but that thread then disappeared. It either got deleted or moved to troll country.

What is very scary for me is that looking at these old threads is very much the same people doing the same thing over and over again for five years,

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Friday, January 28, 2011 8:19 AM

STORYMARK

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:

The notion we really need to lose here is child. IMHO. The fact is that eleven and twelve year olds are not mentally incompetent semi-humans, and are fully capable responsible humans. That means, as Frem says, they should have all the rights of adults, but also it means that they have to accept responsibility for their actions. I'm guessing the kid knew what he was doing.

They're not incompetent semi-humans, no. But they're not fully developed reasoning adults yet, either. The brain is still developing, and isn't, in most cases, capable of higher reasoning at that age.

"I thoroughly disapprove of duels. If a man should challenge me, I would take him kindly and forgivingly by the hand and lead him to a quiet place and kill him."

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Friday, January 28, 2011 9:10 AM

PHOENIXROSE

You think you know--what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.

Magon and Story are correct. The brain continues to develop and mature well into the twenties. Scientists were amazed in recent years to discover that neurogenesis continued throughout the entire life, unless the brain is struck with dementia and goes into a decline. They were amazed to discover that all the myelin and connections in the frontal lobe don't form until the mid-twenties. It's very recent stuff, because fifteen years ago we didn't have a good way to look at the living brain, only dead ones. The living brain is far, far more interesting.
My twenty-year-old self might not even recognize me. There are certain aspects of temperament and belief that have stayed the same, I've always been cautious and responsible for my age, but the way I think and make decisions is vastly different than it was six years ago. The difference only gets more noticeable the more I think back. At twelve? Yeah, I was pretty smart and responsible for a twelve-year-old, and sometimes I had a great deal of insight, but my thought process was totally different. It was based more on emotion and the small dramas of youth. Throughout my teen years, many things were based on emotions, impulses, what I thought would make me feel better in the short term. Even though I was more cautious about it than many of my peers, we were all going through that shortsighted desire to have fun and feel good. I could have done much worse, but a lot of people induce some physical damage in those years. It's harder to appreciate the long-term consequences. By about twenty-five, other thought functions can come into play, because the connections making them possible exist. Car accidents drop off dramatically for drivers over twenty-five, and don't really start rising again until physical deterioration catches people around seventy.
There are always exceptions. Some people never develop a lot of activity in their frontal lobe. Many of them are criminals, but there are a lot of exceptions to that as well; the scientist studying frontal lobe activity in criminals discovered that he himself didn't have normal function in that region. Some people don't decline dramatically in their seventies, either.

I don't know if a twelve-year-old who committed premeditated murder would change enough as his brain matured to not do it again in adulthood. Comparing him to the average twelve-year-old, he would definitely be more violent, angry, and aggressive. If that dialed back a bit, he might still be more violent and angry than the average twenty-five year old.
That being said: No, he shouldn't be tried and punished as an adult. He isn't one. As Frem has said many times, he doesn't have the same rights and responsibilities. He likely doesn't have the same brain he'll have in ten years. His developing brain needs guidance, not isolation and punishment. Might not work, but it's the best chance.

Ritual is what happens when we run out of rational.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 9:52 AM

PR

I think that your mind changes more than your brain, because it gets new information in it. When I was twenty, I was a political moron. But then again, so was I when I was thirty. It was experiences and people, including coming here, that made me think.

just because neurons change, doesn't mean you're "forming" it means you're learning. The creation of grey matter is the structural change, and it's still pretty much done at 12, I think if we were talking about someone whose general working model of the brain isn't mapped out yet, it's a different story, as it is if we're talking about someone who is not aware of what they're doing that's different, and these two cases are different: I'm guessing, just on facial musculature, Tate was post pubescent by several years, and Jordan is pre-pubescent. I suspect that as they become adults, they learn that killing is wrong, but don't become nice people, not sure what they add or subtract from society. Any Anne Perry fans out there?

But I think that if one is going to allow a rampant psychopath to go through a 6 or 7 year phase of unchecked slaughter, we might as well throw in the towel and abandon the whole concept of law and society. I would do that too, but first I'm open to better suggestions.

Tate is a vicious psychopath who intentionally tortured and beat a little girl to death. When he did it, he was much more aware of his actions and their consequences than a number who are executed for such crimes.

I'm no fan of the criminal justice system, I am really just looking for a solution that will introduce accountability, or stop the violence.

IMHO, Tate is an adult. I've known many kids like him, fully matured in body and mind and very aware. Ive also known psychopaths. I've even known prematurely grown child psychopaths, or one. He was someone who figured out very early on how to use his status and manipulate people. Everything he said was a lie, but he always made it believable. People fell for him, followed him, and he'd go commit a crime, a rape or a robbery, with his gang. Then he would promise to spring them if they didn't rat him out. He would then let them hang, and get another gang. Oh, and in case anyone has stereotype, this was a white guy, as were his followers.

Tate is a lone actor, but stuck me as a similar sort. If no one had interfered at all, he probably could have had a very destructive career as a serial killer. He still continued a criminal life, but I suspect that the time he spent in lock up thinking that this was really going to be life without the possibility of parole made him think a little.

Here's what it didn't do: It didn't make him a good person. It made him think "Oh man, I fucked up. Next time, man, I'd be careful. If I had to back, I'd make it look like she was hit by a car or something. Lionel, you're pretty stupid." So, less stupid, but no less evil, he returned to the streets.

There is another side to this story:

If you, not legally but realistically and I've dealt with a lot of precocious and independent kids, think of Tate as an adult, on a personal level, which is very easy to do. Hey, I've known ten year olds smarter than adults with their own place, their own gang, their own business, both legit and not, but who mother nature had made full grown adults. I can easily believe in a twelve year old adult. So, picture this just for the sake of the argument, put yourself into the mindset of "Lionel Tate is also a person, fully ready to, and actively interacting with the world on an adult level" Again, personally, not legally. Just take that image, and apply this:

Now you have an adult. He murders children. He doesn't care. He'll kill you too. It's not who he is, it's just something he doesn't have a problem with. He's Woody Harrelson looking for Juliet Lewis. And he's immune to the law. He thinks he's god.

And that's why he turned down the plea bargain on juvi, he thought he was god. that's not because he's young it's because he's an unchecked psychopath.

Now, this is where I'm coming from because I've known a lot of independent kids. I was asking Frem because a) he also has, but b) he has a world view that sees children as adults. Also, he's an anarchist, and like me, doesn't really believe in the legal system, and so his not believing in child punishment is just an case in point of this. I wasn't recommending jail, I'm not a believer. What I was asking for was a model of a society in which Lionel Tate, child murderer, himself an adult (not legally, but socially de facto) as natural born killer with god complex on the loose, is not allowed to continue killing children.

You can protect the rights of 12 year old Lionel all you want, but what about the rights of the next 6 year old victim, or the last one, Lionel isn't going to respect their rights. He doesn't have to. He's god.

So, anyone can play. If you want to, give me a social model that would not allow Early Grayce to get an exemption to kill without being restrained or disciplined, on a technicality.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 10:32 AM

PHOENIXROSE

You think you know--what's to come, what you are. You haven't even begun.

I never said he shouldn't be restrained. He should be. However, I don't think the criminal justice system is the best way to do it. He should receive counciling and guidance rather than brutal lessons in how to be a better criminal. Mindfulness and empathy training are the best bet for curbing someone like that, especially when they're that young and have greater brain pasticity. It might not work. I would never guarantee it would work. Best chance, though. Unfortunately, there are no facilities that will offer nurturing, guidance, and therapy while offering a secure place for such criminals to be kept. That's the flaw in the system more than technicalities are.
The brain does change. It's changing all the time. Yeah, it's learning, but there are things that can't be learned until certain levels of development have been reached. For most people, different levels are reached around age 4, 7, 13, and 25. There are always exceptions. some people develop faster or slower, some don't develop at all after a certain point. But yes, there is a difference in the brain of an adult. There just is. I'm not trying to devalue the minds of children or say that they're incapable of doing anything for themselves, because that would be a ridiculous absolute. There's just growth. There are things many children don't appreciate yet. Not because they haven't had a learning experience, but because they haven't gotten to a point developmentally where they can appreciate the lesson. And some children appreciate more than they should have to, but they still don't think like adults. I don't think it's better or worse, but it's definitely different. The brain even develops new folds in the cortex, which means there is a bit more gray matter. When that stops, you start to deteriorate.

Ritual is what happens when we run out of rational.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 11:08 AM

Quote:
I never said he shouldn't be restrained. He should be. However, I don't think the criminal justice system is the best way to do it. He should receive counciling and guidance rather than brutal lessons in how to be a better criminal. Mindfulness and empathy training are the best bet for curbing someone like that, especially when they're that young and have greater brain pasticity. It might not work. I would never guarantee it would work. Best chance, though. Unfortunately, there are no facilities that will offer nurturing, guidance, and therapy while offering a secure place for such criminals to be kept.

Agreed.

One of the things we have to bear in mind is that most of our legal code is a couple thousand years old, especially the prohibition on killing. During much of that time, Tate would have been considered an adult.

I take Frem's point that the authorities have no justification because they never accepted Tate as a full citizen, which sure, is fair, but I would go further and say the authorities have no rights at all because none of us were ever consulted on whether or not we wanted to play by this societies rules.

That's not my point, my point is minimizing the damage done, which I think you get.

Maybe we need new facilities. I don't know the answer, I'm just fishing for ideas here.

I agree, BTW, that prison will only make him a more determined, more efficient killer.

Anthony

I take your point as well that you can't change the rules in the middle of the game, but the reality of our legal system is that they do. We live in a fluid legal system that is constantly changing, and sometimes in absurd and destructive ways. We also know that we cannot possibly know the law.

There are 35 million laws in the United States. Each one comes with a rough set of guidelines for applying it in terms of sentencing, subjected to million more legal precedents, etc, so each one has potentially thousands of different possible results. Knowing the law, and its consequences, under our legal system would be like memorizing the names and birthdays of the entire planet's population.

So we have to go by our gut, and have a good lawyer.

The first gut is undoubtedly thou shalt not kill, because it's really our first law. This would be why Tate lied about it at first, told several different versions to several different people. What he didn't do was at any point deny that he had intentionally [edited to delete gruesome details] done thing which had resulted in her death. He had an excellent lawyer, who won him the plea bargain, which he refused, and later won him appeal and release.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 11:20 AM

WULFENSTAR

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg

Blah blah blah...

You guys are forgetting a single word,

and it matters.

Sociopath.

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"

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Friday, January 28, 2011 12:08 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfenstar:
Blah blah blah...

At least now we have the Wulfie analysis.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 12:43 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
CTS

He called me Rappy

http://www.fireflyfans.net/mthread.asp?b=18&t=47332

Magon,

You and I are clearly different species

The human brain reaches its maximum number of synapses at age 7, whereupon it undergoes a selected reduction, which I like to think of as the "is there an easter bunny phase" and by age 12 it stabilizes and remains relatively unchanged for the rest of the life of the human.

Information is gathered over those additional years, but no real structural changes. Sorry, and thanks for playing

Didn't notice this before. This information is now very out of date. see my earlier links and the posts of Phoenix Rose. It's a shame you feel the need dismiss current research findings into this stuff because you and I often disagree.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 1:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by AnthonyT:

I would be interested in seeing studies comparing the behavior of young people in societies where they are considered an adult at a young age.

I'd be interested in seeing those too. I suspect there would be differences, but they wouldn't be as great as 10 years.

I'd also like to add that in many societies, even though youngsters take on additional responsibilities earlier, they are still not expected to be fully functioning adults. Many societies which are more collective rather than individual leave much decision making to elders, older relatives or tribal, village elders. People who live in large extended family groups would make less decisions as individuals, and wouldn't be expected to make many decisions at all until they were quite old.

Quote:
I suspect the propensity for 'stupid risks' in youth has more to do with a person governing themselves for the first time, and going through the process of learning to do so, finding their limits, preferences, learning from experience, etc.

True as well, but I think the interesting thing about what we now know about the adolescent brain is that it has less capacity to foresee consequence and to undertake complex reasoning.

Quote:
I might wonder if maturity (equilibrium?) of decision-making might not be reached earlier if a person was self-governing sooner.

I'm sure it varies from person to person. PR was correct in saying that in some people it always remains underdeveloped. Prisons are full of such people. Interestingly enough, those same people would also be likely to have been exposed to or experienced violence as a child, and or experienced other forms of abuse, and/or been instituionalised from an early age, and/or be suffering from mental health. To me, the knowledge of this makes our current criminal justice system fundamentally flawed in the first place. We're basically punishing people for their impaired functioning.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 1:09 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Storymark:

They're not incompetent semi-humans, no. But they're not fully developed reasoning adults yet, either. The brain is still developing, and isn't, in most cases, capable of higher reasoning at that age.

That's exactly the way I see it as well. 12 year olds are capable of decision making and rational thought, but do not have these to anywhere near the same level as adults. And why should we expect them to? The average 12 year old has not reached physical or sexual maturity, they may have just begun to experience the hormal changes accompanied by adolescents.

Children should have rights, they should have a voice in what happens to them, but they can't be expected to function as adults. They just can't at that age.

I'd hate to see where that kind of reasoning 'children sentenced as adults' would lead to - would you be okay with them being executed for murder? Not that I am okay with adults being executed either, but I find the thought of it be applied to a child incredibly abhorent.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 1:09 PM

WULFENSTAR

http://youtu.be/VUnGTXRxGHg

"At least now we have the Wulfie analysis."

I have no hearing for those that want to turn the rest of the country into the place I grew up in.

Can you dig it? (kidding)

"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies"

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Friday, January 28, 2011 8:30 PM

Quote:
The average 12 year old has not reached physical or sexual maturity, they may have just begun to experience the hormal changes accompanied by adolescents.

Children should have rights, they should have a voice in what happens to them, but they can't be expected to function as adults. They just can't at that age.

Man. Our experiences are very different. When I was a kid, we were about as far from innocent as possible. One of my friends in high school told me she first had sex when she was seven, and the boy was her age. Neither violence or sexual experimentation were uncommon.

Watch kids on a schoolyard, and it's exactly like watching a bunch of prisoners. I don't understand how anyone can think we shouldn't have been held responsible for our actions; we spent most of our time trying to get OUT of being held accountable. That is when we weren't talking about teachers, other students, sex, death, murder, drugs/alcohol, suicide, social injustice, and war. We cursed, too. Just FYI. We cursed like sailors.

The only difference I can see between kids and adults is a cultural construct: employment and money. Kids can't compete against adults in most jobs (plus it's illegal, which considering the level of exploitation before, that's probably a good thing). And if they can't get jobs like adults can, it forces them into dependency. It's the same thing that was happening to adult women for centuries in Europe, and there was all sorts of scholarly justification for that treatment. All of which has since been discredited.

My sense is that kids are already exploring independence by the time they're in school the way they run with their friends and their support groups. Provided intelligence and a willingness to learn marketable job skills (at good enough quality to be in demand), these two factors could result in fully functional and independent kids.

as for death sentences, I don't believe in death sentences for anyone, and I'm almost against imprisonment as a punishment.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 9:25 PM

Byte

Yes.

A couple things: Labor laws are to keep children under the thumb, but there aren't any jobs, and kids work online now. I think that the structure TPTB want is for you not to gain any real earning power until you are already in debt. First, you are conditioned in the K-12 prison, then you are sent to college to become indebted, and job-trained. Then you must purchase housing at exorbitant cost, insurance, etc, and then pay taxes.

If kids could be adults in this society, they would quickly become independent, and would have no interest in signing themselves into slavery.

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Friday, January 28, 2011 9:44 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:

Man. Our experiences are very different. When I was a kid, we were about as far from innocent as possible. One of my friends in high school told me she first had sex when she was seven, and the boy was her age. Neither violence or sexual experimentation were uncommon.

Watch kids on a schoolyard, and it's exactly like watching a bunch of prisoners. I don't understand how anyone can think we shouldn't have been held responsible for our actions; we spent most of our time trying to get OUT of being held accountable. That is when we weren't talking about teachers, other students, sex, death, murder, drugs/alcohol, suicide, social injustice, and war. We cursed, too. Just FYI. We cursed like sailors.

The only difference I can see between kids and adults is a cultural construct: employment and money. Kids can't compete against adults in most jobs (plus it's illegal, which considering the level of exploitation before, that's probably a good thing). And if they can't get jobs like adults can, it forces them into dependency. It's the same thing that was happening to adult women for centuries in Europe, and there was all sorts of scholarly justification for that treatment. All of which has since been discredited.

My sense is that kids are already exploring independence by the time they're in school the way they run with their friends and their support groups. Provided intelligence and a willingness to learn marketable job skills (at god enough quality to be in demand), these two factors could result in fully functional and independent kids.

as for death sentences, I don't believe in death sentences for anyone, and I'm almost against imprisonment as a punishment.

So kids are the same as adults then? Exactly the same, it's just that we treat them differently??

This is not anything to do with my experience, or what I have observed, or think might be true, although it seems pretty bloody obvious to me that children not adults. What you are implying goes against everything that is known about childhood through the study of human development. The whole purpose of childhood is to grow and become an adult, because that is what children are, immature adults, physically, sexually, cognitively. Clearly this is kind of new information for some of you, but truly, it aint rocket science.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 3:17 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Magonsdaughter:
So kids are the same as adults then? Exactly the same, it's just that we treat them differently??

No. They are not the same.

But we've already established that the human brain changes throughout a lifespan. The point at which the changes are declared to be "mature" is, perhaps, somewhat subjective.

The problem I see here is the assignment of absolute categories in a continuum. You have Inexperienced on one end, and Experienced on the other. At some point, the law draws a line and says, you have all the rights and responsibilities of a Child on one side, and all the rights and responsibilities of an Adult on the other side.

That's is a very poor model for the real world.

What we call "maturity" is a function of both physical development and experience. I have seen lots of kids who work full time at age 5, and I've seen 30 year old unemployed men who live in their mother's basements. Both extremes have severe imbalances between physical development and experience; both need to be taken into consideration.

Historically, the human race has treated puberty as the transition between childhood and adulthood. No, a 16 year old adult is not as mature as a 26 year old, but a 26 year old is not as mature as a 36 year old, and so forth. But if a child was raised to be independent, then pubescence is a good milestone at which a human is sufficiently physically developed and experienced to actually have independence. (This doesn't mean casting them off on their own, but treating them like "adults.")

In my view, physical development exists on a continuum. Experience exists on a continuum. Maturity exists on a continuum. In the real world, each of these gradients interact with each other in complex ways, determined by life circumstances. The hard distinction between Child and Adult is ultimately subjective and arbitrary.

We should just treat each other as Growing Humans.

-------
Everything I say is just my opinion, not fact.

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Saturday, January 29, 2011 4:38 AM