Another case of a child committing murder. What to do about this?

[Stinky The Clown]

A 12 year old boy killed his 2 year old foster sister by beating her to death.

http://www.wjla.com/articles/2012/07/boy-12-charged-with-killing-2-year-old-family-member-77605.html

So far, police have arrested the boy and are holding him as a juvenile. Cops and prosecutors are considering now whether to charge him as an adult.

That just breaks my heart.

I mourn for the dead child and I fear for the one who committed the murder. In no way ought that be construed as condoning the act.

Children are incapable of realizing the consequences of what they do, even of murder. Most have no working concept of finality. Yet our vengeful, Calvinist society seems to have no problem "charging them as an adult."

They are C H I L D R E N. They are not adults.

So what to do? The juvenile laws hold that they be released at some age/date certain. I guess because of this, prosecutors find it better to charge them as an adult and then throw the book at them. What's next? Executing them?

How about this?

How about if we change the rules for juveniles? How about if, for certain crimes, like homicide, for instance, we allow them to be held beyond that age/date certain? How about allowing them to be treated in a mental facility until "cured?"

My point is, let's create a way to hold a person who commits a crime as a child until they are no longer a danger to themselves or society? I can even accept that, at some age/date certain, the child can be reevaluated, and based on their progress, or lack thereof, have their sentence changed to an adult sentence. I would also like to see the age at which they must be released raised. It is usually 18 or 21. How about if it were 25? Or even 30? For kids who go to juvie for lesser crimes, I don't see any particular need for changes.

My central point, however, is that we ought not take away all hope for these children. They are, after all, CHILDREN.

[RandySF]

1. Holding parents accountable is a start.

It seems that there was no adult supervision when most of these incidents occur.

[Live and Learn]

5. No parent can watch children at all times.

Jheesh, you'd never get anything done if you had to keep your eye on the child at all times. It really irks me when people want to blame parents for everything a child does.

[sendero]

21. Have you raised children?

I realize these sorts of stories are extremely unsettling to say the least. A life was pointlessly lost and let's face it - the perp, whether he understands it now or not, has just pretty much ruined his own life.

That said, I find it hard to believe that someone who has raised kids, even "good" kids would think that parents can control everything they do. It is simply not possible and not every instance of children misbehaving in this way can be attributed to neglect.

[RandySF]

22. I am raising one now.

And I know not to leave 2-year olds alone with another kid for long and that, as an adult, I am responsible for what happens under my roof.

[zbdent]

2. on a somewhat related note ...

this child might be prosecuted as an adult ...

and there are people who say a 17.9 year old girl is too immature to know what to do with her own body ...

[leftstreet]

6. Comparing murder and sex. This thread should be fun

If you had used the example of 18 yr olds being deemed too immature to buy alcohol, this thread would die.

[slackmaster]

3. Well, at least he didn't shoot her

In all seriousness, the boy must have some severe mental health issues. I hope he gets help, otherwise he will never live anything like a normal life.

[exboyfil]

4. Another wrinkle - this was a foster child that was killed

by the biological child of the foster parents. Brings into question the foster placement as well. Should a 12 year old be left alone with a 2 year old? A 12 year old can watch a 2 year old for short periods of time I think (my kids were too close in age but the youngest was probably about 12 when we would start leaving them alone for a few hours in the evening). Not to stereotype, but I think leaving a 2 year old girl alone with a 12 year old boy in this circumstance is probably not a good idea either.

[madinmaryland]

10. There was a 15 year old girl "watching" the children.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/12-year-old-charged-with-murder-of-toddler/2012/07/05/gJQAsbEAQW_story.html?hpid=z3

[exboyfil]

12. Thanks for the clarificaiton

What the heck was she doing? I remember when my early teen cousin used to "watch" me (I was 3 years younger). She always took the opportunity to have sex with her boyfriends and do pot. One day the police knocked on the door. I was in the living room watching wrestling. I opened the door, and they told me to get my cousin. I knocked on the door and she refused the answer. I tried to open it and was violently pushed back. The police gathered all the kids in the living room and shined a flashlight in our faces and asked our ages.

My parents said that I probably had the television on too loud when I was watching wrestling. Parents can be clueless.

[Mojorabbit]

23. I babysat at that age but I was a pretty responsible child

I had a scout babysitting badge. I can't imagine a child beating another to death. There certainly must be mental issues involved.

[KatyaR]

7. I agree that the age at which you can charge a child as an adult should be raised.

I just found out last week that the minimum age that a child in Oklahoma can be charged with murder is SEVEN YEARS. I still can't quite get over that....

[lumberjack_jeff]

8. +1. His brain will change dramatically in the next 10 years.

In 10 years he won't be the same person he is today.

The justice system needs to take that into account.

[eek MD]

9. Try to understand the kid's rationale for WHY he did what he did...

No kid just comes up with a random though that it would be perfectly acceptable behavior to beat a 2 year old to death. How did he get that idea, and why did he think it was a rational thing to do?

Typically, kids emulate what they see in everyday life. I'd be curious to know if there was abuse in the household, and if abuse (either of the kid personally, or of another family member) DID play a role in it, the parent performing the abuse should face some serious prison time!

[permatex]

14. I think you nailed it

that 12yo child had to learn from somewhere that beating another human is acceptable and that usually means a history of domestic violence in the home.

[Gregorian]

11. Change our society.

A good start would be a high quality universal education system.

Keep kids interested. Keep them involved. Keep them optimistic, regardless if their parents are shit or not.

The other thing is to keep people from dropping below a level of income. This is probably the biggest reason why parents, or anybody else, use substances to self medicate. And the big reason why there is so much depression.

And a good health care system.

I don't think we need to look much further. Certainly punishment is too late, and wrong. Our system is perverted in so many ways. It is obvious to anyone with a brain connected to eyes. But money rules. So common sense falls apart.

[permatex]

13. The good news is that the SCOTUS has ruled that children cannot received the death penalty

I pretty much agree with everything you have said, a judge should be able to sentence a child convicted of a violent crime to whatever term he/she feels is appropriate to rehabilitate the child including intensive therapy.

[knitter4democracy]

15. A 12 year old would know it was wrong.

That said, he probably wouldn't have a complete concept of what would happen to him if he did it.

This is horrible all around. That boy's life is ruined, the 15 year old sister's life is ruined, the parents' lives are ruined, and a child is dead. Something tells me that there's far more to this story that we know or ever will know, but honestly, it's just awful all around.

[obamanut2012]

17. Agreed -- this wasn't a five-year-olds

A kid this age knows killing another human is wrong.

[obamanut2012]

16. There are 12-year-old sociopaths

That is also a possibility, unfortunately.

[RebelOne]

18. In my opinion, this 12-year-old child should be charged as an adult

even though I know that will not happen. But he did know his action was evil. I think most kids have been taught the 10 commandments of which one states Thou Shalt Not Kill. I am an atheist, but I have always believed that we should all live by those rules.

[kickysnana]

19. Discover magainze just had an article about a study in "teen" behavior

"The Brain The Trouble With Teens"
http://discovermagazine.com/2011/mar/24-the-brain-the-trouble-with-teens/?searchterm=teen%20brain

Fast driving, drugs, and unsafe sex: The risk-loving behavior of adolescents may result from a neurological gap in the developing brain.

...A separate network of regions in the front of the brain is responsible for evaluating conflicting impulses. This cognitive control network allows us to hold back an action that could deliver a short-term reward if it interferes with a long-term goal. The network grows very slowly over the first 25 years of life. As a result, it works poorly in childhood, better in teens, and even better in adults...

....The trouble with teens, Casey suspects, is that they fall into a neurological gap. The rush of hormones at puberty helps drive the reward-system network toward maturity, but those hormones do nothing to speed up the cognitive control network. Instead, cognitive control slowly matures through childhood, adolescence, and into early adulthood. Until it catches up, teenagers are stuck with strong responses to rewards without much of a compensating response to the associated risks....

...The brain’s heightened responses can also open the way for psychological troubles. Due to experience, environment, or genes, some teens may possess relatively low levels of cognitive control, making them particularly vulnerable to neurological signals of fear, Casey suggests. If the signals go unchecked, they may lead to anxiety, depression, or other disorders such as addiction. 
And even well-adjusted adolescents may be primed to choose the heart over the head—or, perhaps we should now say, the ventral striatum over the inferior frontal gyrus.,,,

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So "I am going to tell on you" for a foster child might be a fear trigger. Not noted in the article but 4 year old males seem to have to aggressively challenge adolescent males, hurting in some way (kicking, hitting) and verbally but not adult men and cannot seem to back down. Since I am a girl that behavior took me by surprise and I think it may be an unlearned behavior since it happens so often. And it is always 4 year olds, not older or younger boys.

Added:

For me having a gun in the house with children is a very serious thing. Many little kids are Houdini and have little impulse control and obviously teens don't either.

As a thoughtful, caring society we should use this information to handle consequences for youthful offenders. There is a wide difference in kids behavior that needs to be detected and understood. Some seem to come almost grown up in thinking some need to be told to come in out of the cold or not put their hands in the fire more than once. And yet most are responsible adults by 25. We are not even talking about peer (or gang pressure) which is also hard to resist 11-24.

I do believe firmly in consequences but this 12 year old deserves a chance to see if he can grow up and get passed this terrible situation. I would never leave an under 5 with a preteen unless I had spent years knowing them and how they behaved in crisis. Heck, my 24 year old RN cousin got hysterical when her 2 year old broke a bone in a break away tumble down stairs and almost had to be sedated but her mother got her to calm down. And since males blow things up in microwaves and most girls would not even think of doing that there I probably would be less inclined to leave a young boy teen with a toddler.

Our society is broken and those who broke it want to have the burden borne by the youngest victims for some purely selfish reason. What kind of society wants to destroy its children, to lock them in cages forever, rather than help them to try to get bast bad behavior and mistakes and grow up?

[Stinky The Clown]

20. Thank you. Children are children, not small adults.

For too many people, including some in this thread, if they can't see it, it doesn't exist. "It" is the physical difference between a young brain and a mature brain.

[aikoaiko]

24. Its not that children are incapable of realizing consequences, its that they are not as good as...

..older people (>20). Most understand that you don't beat 2 years old ever, especially to the point of death.

There are not enough details in this article for me to feel confident that the 12 year old should be tried as a juvenile or an adult.