To see this offender as a “criminal first” as opposed to a child?

[cofefefela]

I was robbed last week by some disgusting male who had been following me, he threatened to kill me, ignored me begging him not to etc. The absolute waste of oxygen’s movements could then be followed as some of my stolen electronics had tracking. This twat not only kept returning to the scene of the crime, he ended up robbing someone else there days later!

He has now been arrested. There’s CCTV footage of him committing the crime so he’s been charged and it’s gone to court. He’s had the audacity to plead not guilty and I found out he’s a youth defendant. There will be a trial next year, and my stolen property has not been recovered.

This has made me annoyed as he’ll likely end up with a slap on the wrist as he’s a “child”, although he had no problem committing such serious crimes repeatedly and showing zero remorse throughout. Aibu? I feel like he should be tried as an adult, he’s a danger to society.

YABU to think he should be tried as an adult if he is not one, yes. But I do understand why you are frustrated by the situation you are in.

I agree. You know you are doing wrong from at least the age of 7. Personally anyone over 14 should be treated as if they were an adult and tried and imprisoned (in young offenders institution) for the same periods of time.
Prison needs to be a deterrent. We have young people carrying knives because they know they won't be punished...6 years inside will stop that.

And before anyone accused me of being out of touch with the criminal classes, I have at least 20 friends and 3 uncles who have been to prison

Your anger is absolutely a reaction to how horrible this crime was, and how powerless and scared you were .

Can you make an impact statement to the court about how you were in fear of your life? About how he was plausibly threatening to murder you and you have had a huge emotional backlash to it? He didn’t simply say punch you and wave a knife and say “hand over your phone”, he actually threatened to kill you. This crime wasn’t really about robbery - it was about him being able to exert a terrifying violent power over you. He probably loved seeing you so terrified, and threatened you worse because if it.

A youth can look like an adult age 14 upwards, and could easily have overpowered you and stabbed you to death.

Many year ago I witnessed a youth attack a pregnant woman with a hammer, push her over and run off with her handbag. It was utterly terrifying. I ran after him a short way yelling, but there was no one to help so I doubled back to call an ambulance.

I carried a defensive weapon for many years after that - stupid, probably. But I felt so unsafe even in daylight. Even today whenever I see a young man in the street in a hoodie, I will cross over to avoid.

The effect of this crime will stay with you for decades, you will be fearful when you find yourself alone in the street or even a multi storey car park. You will be afraid when you stop the car at a traffic light and realise you forgot to lock the doors.

It doesn’t leave you, the fear.

I can understand how you feel because what happened to you was horrible.
But if he's a child he should be treated as a child, I don't really want to live in a society that throws children in jail with adults!
This child will hopefully get some help and a chance to reform and turn his life around.

Reading the youth sentencing guidelines online has infuriated me. Not only is the maximum punishment significantly different, but then they take into account whether the criminal came from a deprived background or has family issues etc!

FFS, a lot of people including their victims go through the exact same yet don’t turn to a life of crime.

It’s just ironic that as a “youth” he was confident enough to decide to commit multiple robberies in a callous and cruel manner - but now gets his hand held throughout the process and a likely slap on the wrist to make sure he’s okay.

He committed an adult crime, he should get an adult punishment. Scum.

I don’t care whether he’s in jail with people his own age or not, I’m concerned that it’s likely he won’t go to jail at all! I could be wrong but it seems the absolute maximum penalty for robbery for aged 18+ is life imprisonment; whereas for under 18s, the absolute maximum is 12 months in a youth rehab facility. He’s currently also out on conditional bail so basically has his freedom right now.

For what it’s worth he’s definitely close in age to 18. He was able to overpower his other victim who was an adult male. He was absolutely evil and cruel, it’s more likely he’ll just kill his next victim as opposed to reform

We shouldn't be throwing children into adult jails and throwing away the key. We have a high rate of redactivism in the UK and prison tends to harden criminals.

It's a knee jerk reaction to a complex problem.

I would feel exactly the same if that had happened to me. It must have been terrifying.

The point of the youth justice system is to try and cut the odds of reoffending. If he was sentenced as an adult, he’d still be out of prison in under 3 years and he’d be much more likely to reoffend than he is now and likely much more violent and dangerous after spending that time with adult criminals. Youth justice offers a chance not to make things worse and to potentially make things better through rehabilitation.

If it had happened to me or to someone I loved I wouldn’t think the adult sentence was enough.

YANBU, a crime is a crime and there should be the same punishment overall. If a person is not fully competent, either because of their age or through illness, someone else (parents in the case of a child) should share the punishment with them.

I think we need to be quicker to write people off in life. Commit a crime like robbing someone in the street, maybe just five years or so in prison. Repeat offender? Prison for the rest of your life with no chance of parole. So much crime is committed by repeat offenders, this could easily be prevented by locking them away permanently.

Once you write people off in this way, once you remove the chance of them ever being released back into society, you no longer have to bother with trying to rehabilitate them. Just lock them away together, provide the basic necessities for life, and let them crack on with it.

Yes it would have an upfront cost because we would need a lot more prison space. But that's the same with many solutions, there is an upfront cost and in time you reap the benefits. The more prisoners there are, the lower the cost needed to house them, especially with the removal of the need to attempt to rehabilitate.

I do think there’s an issue with law enforcement and kids - I called the police about some 12 year olds committing criminal damage on a third occasion and was told to basically go and have a nice chat with them and see if I couldn’t explain good behaviour. Basically: parent them.

I think in that respect the world has gone mad.

On the other hand I don’t think sending people to prison works so I don’t know what the answer is.

Of course I understand your frustration and anger, but the fact is that harsh treatment and punishment of children and young people makes things worse. They're far more likely to reoffend for a lifetime than if they're treated with some compassion and support, unpalatable as that may be for the victims. Keeping them out of prison is better for everyone long term and saves £££ too.

I'm really interested to see what Timpson comes up with.

We shouldn't try kids as adults because they're not adults they're kids.

Our goal should be to reduce recidivism and all the evidence suggests that long, harsh sentences increase the risk of reoffending. We should be focussing on rehabilitation.

All that said, if it had happened to me I'd want the little scrote to hang. This is why we don't let the victim of the crime decide the punishment.

I agree totally.

I fully understand why you feel the way you do having been held at knife point myself. I understand that fear and the impact it has.

But yes I do think you're unreasonable to expect a child to be tried as an adult or for their circumstances not to be taken into account. Many young people end up doing things like this because they're being exploited or have been exploited in some way themselves. Doesn't make it right, but I personally would rather see a young person rehabilitated and educated and supported to live a better life and be a more productive and safer member of society than just go to prison and come out with fewer job opportunities etc and possibly be more likely to reoffend.

Personally I think the age of criminal culpability is FAR too low in the UK (we actually have one of the lowest ages of criminal culpability worldwide) and I think it should be raised to take into account the fact different children have different levels of maturity and vulnerability and brain development is nowhere near complete even in early teenage years - things like thinking through long term impact (necessary for good decision making) is not fully in place and I don't think it's fair to compare that with an adult who does have that complete brain development plus additional life experience. There should be a distinction. I have taken part in youth justice conferences and I think it's more important that young people understand the full impact of what they've done to other people to generate empathy and understand what they've actually done then it is to give them a sentence. In fact a lot of young people I know would do something like this to get a sentence because they're homeless/institutionalised and prison is not what they actually need. The problem is that when you're the person being impacted you've no way of knowing the difference.

Right now I think it's your own anger and fear and hurt talking (understandably as I said I've been there myself) but there's a reason why victims don't make the judgements. I hope you're recovering and looking after yourself after such a horrible experience op.

I always think if you are old enough to mug an adult, you are old enough to do the time for it.

Then what happens? He comes out a hardened criminal, his effect on victims gets worse and we pay for a lifetime in and out of prison.

Very similar thing happened to my DD, she was robbed. He then attacked her when he had her bag, cheek bone broken. He and his family were well known to the police - he was caught at the scene by some lovely lads passing by and it was all on CCTV. He was remanded in custody and denied the charge until he went Court for the hearing 3-4 months later as he knew he would get more privileges by doing that. He then charged his plea to guilty and was released due to time already served. He was 17 at the time if he had been slightly older the sentence would have been much longer. The scum know how to play the system

But he’s not acting like a child, why should he be treated as one?
Assuming he’s not actually 7?

Dotjones · Today 12:54

YANBU, a crime is a crime and there should be the same punishment overall. If a person is not fully competent, either because of their age or through illness, someone else (parents in the case of a child) should share the punishment with them.

What about the man who has just been found guilty of the manslaughter of his mother? (On psychiatric grounds of diminished responsibility). How should we punish her, or his father, who tried to stop him?

What punishment is suitable for them?

Obviously, that's tongue in cheek, but parents can't always know what their children are up to, or even suspect, in many cases.

Anyway, I think that the little bastard is a criminal first and child second.

Because putting him into the adult system will make things worse for everyone. More likely to reoffend, more likely for the level of crime to escalate. Less likely to come through the "phase" and become a contributing adult.

If you think a slap on the wrist and a gentle talking to makes any of that less likely, you’re deluded.

I don't "think" it, countless studies show that support has better results than punishment.

Or he goes to prison finds out he isn't anywhere near top of the food chain and doesn't ever want to go back.

That hardly happens. People who go to prison do then to reoffend, or never really have much success in life after. It doesn’t work.