Probable life sentence for a 13yo in the USA (warning: potentially distressing news story)

[VivaLeBeaver]

here (MNHQ: link to details of potentially distressing news story)

I know what he did was awful and he's obviously got issues, previous incidents of a sexual nature, killing a cat, etc. but I can't think that this is right. This sounds like a boy who's been badly let down, exposed to horrible stuff, etc. I really hate to think of him spending the rest of his life in prison. He's a child, he needs help. He needed help before it got to this stage.

So I'm genuinely curious, what changes for an 18 yo who grew up like this, without ever being accused of a crime? Perhaps even having done this level of harm, but at 18, rather than 13? Without the state having intervened to help, or, more likely, having grown up in care?

how much rehabilitation is given to him?

This honestly is a question, as a huge number of incarcerated individuals were in care as children.

Well not enough monsterchild. Something like 50-60% (sociologists/penologists please correct my figures if poss!) of offenders in prison have DIAGNOSED mental health problems. The suicide rate is huge. If you read about what happens to kids in care and then coming out of it when they're basically thrown out thoroughly institutionalised and then expected to become 'responsible citizens' overnight then a lot of juvenile crime becomes more explicable. (And btw before rightwingers start fuming that doesn't mean it isn't wrong or damaging. But a punishment based regime clearly doesn't work, as in the USA where there is a revolving door of prison/poverty/prison for a large number of young men).

Perhaps the word godless in your handle indicates the source of your extreme left wing beliefs. I do NOT ever spew "right wing hate", in fact turn up at an anti-BNP event in the right part of the country and you might see me there. I am just as much against far-right extremists as I am against left wingers.

Better if children are influenced by my moderate views than by the SMT I had, with their intersectional exculpationism (see before, this is a combination of blaming "child protection issues", "society", poverty and race for young people's bad behaviour instead of blaming the bullies and misbehavers, leading naturally to an antipunishment fanaticism.) Add their extreme support for abortion rights, their idea that only left wingers can be compassionate, fulminant dislike of private/grammar schools and belief that it's acceptable to let 13 year old pupils tell you about their sex lives in extenso without informing parents of anything they say.

There are a lot of teachers on this forum who I wouldn't want my kids around due to them holding those sort of views.

I am very clear that a 13yo cannot correctly be called a paedo, did I not say that upthread? I can't speak for pumpkin but that insults her intelligence too.

So he can be called a 'nonce' correctly can he? what utter rubbish.

'Extreme' left winger is sheer rubbish btw and nothing I have said on here gives you grounds to make that assumption about me. I went to a grammar school btw, great place. I believe in the inculcation of personal responsibility but not the crazed obsession with it which dominates politics today.

It is quite clear that this boy is the product of his upbringing. Perhaps an invulnerable saint would have risen above it; but he is being punished for not being that. This is unfair and a frankly stupid way to run a country.

Godless? yeah fair enough, I'm an atheist. I wonder how one can be an 'extreme' pro-choicer? Are there degrees of it? I wonder how pro-choice I could be before you'd judge me to be moderate? :D

"Nonce" is not a term defined by medical standards, it can be used by individuals to describe anyone they believe to be sexually perverse.

So you're the one with the utter rubbish. I know atheists pretty much everywhere on the political spectrum, but those who make a point of it (eg by using it as a handle) tend to subscribe to groups like the British Humanist Association who are deeply liberal and anti-family.

Extreme pro choicers are ones who want no real restrictions on abortion and think a woman's whim should outweigh the right to life at all times in pregnancy, and that all abortions should be state funded with taxpayers, fathers and parents of minors having no choice. As opposed to those who identify as pro choice but think that foetal/maternal compromise, rape etc are justification for abortion and it shouldn't just be "on-demand", who are more likely to support defunding BPAS, bringing in parental notification, 12/16-week limits, etc. I don't want to start an abortion debate as this is irrelevant to the thread- just my definition.

Wow, just wow.

Having lived in the USA for a while, the Democrats, in my experience anyway, hold political views that map more or less onto UKIP's stand. By definition, the Republicans are to the right of that. It's probably true to say that Europe in general is far more liberal and left leaning than the USA, so to an American, anyone in Europe comes across as, to use Extrospektiv's terms, "deeply liberal, anti family, extreme pro-choice, godless, anti-conservative super extremists". Apart from the fact that I never understand how the term anti-family can be defined, I don't, nor do any of the Europeans I know, consider any of these to be an insult. I can, however, see how someone who grew up or was socialised in a country where a belief in God, Guns and Flag is the mainstream, would react with anger and fear when presented with a society whose values contradict everything they have brought up to believe is right and proper.

However, this does not take away from the fact that us godless Europeans have a different view of society to that in the USA. At least here governments and society acknowledge that, to quote a trite old phrase "it takes a village to raise a child" and when society abdicates this responsibility then they should do what they can to redress the balance. To simply blame the damaged child and not take any responsibility is simply victim blaming and benefits nobody in the long run.

Personally, I prefer the pinko liberal European mindset. The USA scared the beejezuz out of me. (too many guns for my liking)

"Nonce" is not a term defined by medical standards, it can be used by individuals to describe anyone they believe to be sexually perverse. So can plenty of words that are emotive, disgusting and repugnant. I just chose not to use them. Just so we are clear it cannot be used to describe anyone sexually perverse. It is specifically a prison term to talk about men who were segregated because other prisoners were a risk to them. Normally because of child sex offences. It is prison slang and I bet I've spent more time in prisons and around offenders than you, so if anyone gets to use it, surely it should be me. I have discouraged it's use in the offenders I have worked with mainly because it allows them to be violent to these people. Dehumanising as someone said upthread.

slug, while I totally agree that in general Europe is more left than the US, it depresses me that you think that "to an American" we all think alike and share the same views.

I've lived in Europe and come across some conservative folks, and some extremely right wing folks there, in more than one country. It's just that the voters tend to vote more liberal. (which personally I think is great!)
There are things that scare me about the UK and other European countries that you maybe would not blink an eye at or even consider a very big problem.
And more children are killed in swimming pools than by guns. (not that I am a gun supporter, but pools are about 100 times more dangerous to children than guns).

Arrggh!! Typed reply then lost it when Mumsnet went offline

Point taken monsterchild. 'To many Americans' might be a better line, though my Chilean colleague gets annoyed when I use the term America as she, rightly, points out that the USA is only a part of America.

My view of this has been informed by living and working in the States where I got used to being regarded as a 'godless commie' (to quote a colleague) when spouting the sort of beliefs that are mainstream in Europe. And I do acknowledge that conservatism has a strong hold in Europe but I would argue that the sort of laws that get a serious look in in some States would be looked at in horror over here, the assault on women's bodily autonomy that is going on at the moment for example. The idea that women should be allowed to die rather than have an abortion just does not wash with countries with large socialized medicine systems. (And yes, I know, that law didn't happen in the end, but only because it was vetoed after it passed)

The swimming pool analogy is a bit misleading isn't it? Add adults to the statistics and guns are far deadlier. My objection to guns is personal. I simply can't understand (and I come from a farming background) why anyone who does not need one for their work should own a deadly device. The less fatal objects in people's possession the better. But the guns issue is just a personal aside.

The punitive opinions of pro-lifers really interest me. I think they must see the fetus as innocent until birth.

How else does one explain their willingness to imprison and execute neglected abused children? Children who might well have been unwanted in the first place. (This is not a comment about the specific situation for this child which we cannot know).

thanks btw MrsTerry for correcting Extro's appalling use of that term.

slug, I think 'anti family' should be read as 'not afraid of/ likely to become violent towards homosexuals and single parents'

Wow, just when I thought you couldn't depress me any further, Extro... Mind you, at least you've come properly out of the woodwork now. You may not be politically right wing, but socially you are certainly on the very conservative end of the spectrum. No such thing as collective responsibility - I suppose you believe that everyone who is poor is poor through their own fecklessness and lack of will too?

Thanks to everyone who has held the line today.
Honestly, why is it necessary to call people abusive names? Even when they have done awful things? The fact that it may make us feel better and separate from people who have committed dreadful acts is not an argument.

Extro scares me but doesn't depress me.

Mind you that is probably because she reminds me how lucky I am not to live in a country where extreme right wing views are consistently given a mainstream platform. Thank god for european liberalism.

Yes, I am socially conservative.

But being anti-most wars, anti-death penalty, anti-cutting welfare, anti-populist assaults on immigration and immigrants, caring about the poor and not just the elite, and in fact pro-rehabilitation of more offenders and less use of imprisonment overall (just not supporting those with very liberal views on murder and serious sexual abuse in this thread) I cannot be pigeonholed into "right-wing".

And I believe like most sensible people in a balance between personal and social responsibility. The absolute-individualist Tea Party/Ayn Rand line strikes me as sociopathic and genuinely devoid of compassion. I most definitely DO NOT subscribe to the self-serving doctrine of the rich that anyone who is not well-off is that way by their own fault, nor that only "absolute poverty" matters (the right-wing excuse for cutting benefits because "people aren't starving to death on the streets like they did in Victorian times/ are in Somalia" and totally ignoring quality of life in a modern society), nor that the State has no responsibility to help the poor.

I hate the demonisation of "benefit scroungers" and the coalition approach to welfare which is clearly hurting women and the disabled hardest. So no, you cannot call me far-right wing. Apart from the fact such terms used in Britain and Europe have for all of the past 80 years had connotations of racist/xenophobic movements which I am 100% opposed to.

This is so very wrong.

domestic: "become violent"= another libel. I would prefer if everyone grew up with a happily married mother and father. Sometimes things don't work out that way. That doesn't mean I or any genuine social conservative (who holds a strong moral line and respect for the human person) would get violent against single parents or non-heterosexuals.

Anti-family is more reserved in my view for those who promote an "anything goes" approach to life and ignore tradition. Those (not all) lefties who tend to believe in a big Government but then "each to their own" beyond that, so removing other levels of organisation, families, religious organisations, local communities.

libel against whom, Extro? Calm down. The remark is (partly) ironic and answered slug's query about what anti-family might mean in right wing discourse.

Good news here

Case dismissed for those who, quite sensibly avoid links.

Interestingly interest in the case has completely vanished; the hard work and really difficult questions start now for the poor child.

For me, mainstream European/British opinion is too supportive of sexual revolution (I would prefer if more people abstained until marriage and stayed married for life, or if they find this too difficult, at least restrict sex to loving relationships), abortion on demand, atheism/secularism, minimal parental rights, and too biased towards social responsibility at the expense of personal responsibility.

I'd like to see western Europe shift towards American values on those matters, but absolutely NOT to the extreme represented by Todd Akin, Michelle Bachmann, Tea Partiers and their pro-war pro-execution anti-poor "Christian" (prosperity gospel-ist) Right.

And I am 100% British btw. I don't believe in what I do because of the culture I grew up in/am part of (although none of us can entirely transcend our culture) but because of extensive reflection, a lot of reading on politics/sociology/religion etc. and just as importantly, my life experiences.

yes of course btw lefties have NO families. None whatever :D They want to destroy the lot of em. Crusty anarchists who all live up trees or in tents.

In fact you are quite clearly confusing the political left with anarchy. Two entirely different things.

I am rather fond of my own family and wouldn't wish to see it abolished :D or anyone else's for that matter. And I'd love to have a community, only it's rather hard in Tory Britain.

Oh and I wouldn't like to see religious organisations abolished either. Have you heard of left wing Christians? They exist, I was born to a couple of them.

Libel against me because I was the one who used anti-family and then you gave a definition of it that involved violence and suggested homophobic bigotry and hatred for single parents, which is very different to a simple peaceful belief that married two-parent families are best.

It may be ironic, but so was much of the right-wing extremist trash that preceded the Gabrielle Giffords, Tucson shooting and the left-wing US and some European commentators still blamed the conservative media for it as if their crosshairs, anti-Obama comments, etc. were to be taken literally. Most of them were not from politicians but provocateurs like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity who use utterly extreme rhetoric to get listeners on talk radio, because that's what sells. It's more entertainment than their heartfelt beliefs half the time.

Sorry, reread my linked thread- not dismissed, but charges changed.

But as you were

No, I'm not confusing the left with anarchy. I know the difference quite well and I do not stereotype liberals.

And I am perfectly familiar with the religious left- from Catholic super-liberal Michael Moore to Jim Wallis' Sojourners (who I partially support due to their pro-aiding the poor, pro-peace ideology) and the Children's Defense Fund (support some but not all their beliefs), the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (absolutely opposed- this is my life/family/sexuality views), the Interfaith Alliance (mixture of good and bad) and the United Church of Christ/Quakers/many United Reformed Churches in Britain.