To Think This is Too Low a Sentance - 12 year olds knife killing

[LuckysDadsHat]

https://news.sky.com/story/two-boys-believed-to-be-uks-youngest-knife-murderers-detained-for-minimum-of-eight-years-and-six-months-13221221

8.5 years minimum is nothing when these children are still only 13. They could be out at the same age of the man they killed. Why are sentences getting so lenient? I know some will say they are just children, but they are not so naive to not know what they were doing, and after the murder one of them was on social media saying "I don't really care" about the murder. It's just horrific and we need to have higher mandatory sentencing for all knife crimes including just carrying a knife.

This is entirely reasonable to me. They are children, they can be held as long as necessary.

But they would have started out on a path to this murder many years ago. Bullying, stuff with weed, possession of blades, assaults, robberies...... none of it dealt ever dealt with because they were considered the victims rather than the actual victims. Its not just this sentence that is the problem, its all the others they should have got over the years but never did. Presumably they were well known to social services, police, whoever. And presumably had recently committed some crime or other that they should have been paying a price for at the time they murdered this poor teenager.

That's a tragedy and I have a very similar lived experience. Looking back almost 40 years, seeing two people utterly consumed by grief and anger was traumatizing in itself. Within months none of us teenagers could bring ourselves to call or visit and they both died within a few years.

They forgot the wonderful person our dear friend was and could only feel anger over the event itself.

A child has to be 16 to have sex, 17 to drive, 18 to vote, drink or apply for a credit card.
And yet people think that when it comes to crime people want them treated as adults?
You can’t have it both ways. If a child should be treated as an adult when committing a crime, then they should be able to do any of the other things listed above. Except we recognise that they don’t have the maturity to do those things.

Nobody is arguing that the crime wasn’t horrific and that they need to be accountable. But you cannot decide that children should turn into adults based on an emotional response

I agree. They will be out at 20 with their whole life ahead of them and probably new identities and all the help they need. . The victims family are devastated. It's understandable.

Shitty backgrounds. Mum not in the picture and social services involved a lot.

And yet in a lot of cases (especially "petty" crimes it is a revolving door.

Justice for the victim/s or victims family is what most people expect from the system. You can say that's what you want, you can't say what most people want. I want the country to be safer with less crime. Unless you plan to lock up everyone for life (not affordable) or apply the death sentence to everything from shoplifting upwards, then everyone will come out at some point. You need therefore to do whatever it takes to minimise the risk of offending again, ie rehabilitation..

It was called Sure Start, the Torries decimated it.

And I have just seen 2 people who threw soup at a painting got 20 and 24 months respectively. So 2 years for throwing some soup (yes, a crime) and just 4 times that for taking away a young man's life. Make it make sense!

Hopefully they will be found to be still a danger to the public, and/or mentally unable to safely live in society and will not be released in 8.5 years, but re-incarcerated or moved to secure psychiatric accommodation. I think it unlikely it would ever be safe to release them.

Because we don't fund rehabilitation and we don't fund prevention.

…and which bit of the court proceedings where you sat in?

Or have you read half a page on a website, and become an expert in youth offending, rehabilitation and mental health.

Moved to a “secure psychiatric unit” based on what?

The parent should be in the dock to explain why their parental failures have resulted in raising a 12yrs murderer .

Why do you hope they will still be a danger? That is truly messed up thinking. I hope they will realize the damage they have done, feel remorse and learn how to become functional members of society.

It'll be so they don't get sent to an adult prison aged 21.

If they go there they will end up career criminals.

Children can be rehabilitated.

Don't have kids then, if that's the best you can do.
I hope any further kids will be taken away.
Parents should be made to apologise profusely to the victims family as well.
Absolutely disgusting that other people have to pay the price of other people's abysmal parenting...

I can pretty much guarantee it too under our draconian and under resourced system. But, it depends on how you approach it. www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-48885846

I can see why people take the law into their own hands. If anyone killed my child and got such a pitiful sentence, then I'd be going after them upon their release.

But the boys got life, and the JSO protesters will be our in half their sentence which they have probably already served on remand anyway.

I wish I could to make it make sense, not sure I can help unfortunately.

As should the support services that should have been in place, as should the Torries who culled family support AND policing nationwide.

I think this cuts to the truth. Many comments on here make it clear that they don't want to see those boys rehabilitated, they want them punished for life.

They were not sentenced to eight years. How many times does this have to be said? They have been sentenced to life (which in the case of juveniles, is 'at his majesty's pleasure'). If they are not considered safe to be released, they could potentially die of old age in prison.

The 8.5 is the minimum that they have to serve before any application for parole can be made.

This is being poorly reported by much of the media, hence the knee jerk reactions and everyone assuming that they'll walk out, aged 20. That's very far from a given.

Absolutely this. Totally agree.

I can understand this is truly awful for the family of the bereaved. I can understand the need to feel the boys are being punished and justice has been done.

If you fundamentally believe the purpose of the courts and prison is punishment, not rehabilitation then I can see that this sentence is pitiful.

Punishment without any resources for rehab though is why the prison and court systems are currently in crisis. There isn’t an infinite pot of money or resources to build more prisons, more courts, recruit more staff etc.

Offenders are in a revolving door of prison, parole, prison. Offenders who weren’t addicted to drugs before they went in are coming out with life long addictions leading to more crime, The greatest chance you have of rehab is with a first offender. But if the focus is punishment, they will rapidly become a life long repeat offender.

All of this is resulting in a society that is less safe for all.

What does society want? Budget diverted from health and education to fund prisons and courts? Because that’s what we will need if sentencing is primarily about punishment and the default sentence is custodial.

Or do we need a holistic look at the causes of crime - poverty, addiction, homelessness, county lines, trafficking, unsafe housing etc?