The human mind doesn’t even really fully mature until your mid 20s. A 15 year old still has a good full decade until full maturity, and they are notorious for making impulsive decisions without realizing the consequences of their actions.
What he did was wrong and he deserves punishment, but ruining his life too for being a dumb teenager does nothing for the unimaginable harm caused to this girl, it just makes more victims.
I don’t know what the right answer is, but I can tell you the wrong answer is to ruin a teenagers life over a stupid act when that isn’t going to solve anything.
Punishment should be a deterrent. Not an even trade. Your line of thinking is what gets us free rape passes for sports jocks “cuz they have so much potential”.
one of the main reasons people try to treat minors differently than adults is because they recognize that retributive justice is literally giving up on the person and doing the easiest thing for society to deal with them.
especially in cases that involve minors there’s a push for restorative, transformational and participatory justice models because they don’t give up and fall back on treating the person like an animal.
A kid was arrested, but released pending further investigation, so I’m hard pressed to believe there is no punishment for this. But we’re talking about teenagers here, the fact that he could be punished is there, but was not given serious consideration if any at all…because he isn’t a fully mature adult. So what would a more serious punishment do?
This is something probably solved with education rather than more punishment.
Education has its limits. The kid needs to want to learn, to change.
Our MO is talking, education, conversation, non-restrictive and non-retributive. On my desk today I have:
15 yo that hasn’t been to school in 3 years. No amount of talking has had any effect.
16 yo that spread pics of his then gf among his classmates. And recently of his current gf as well, after he’s done the talking and education and supposedly gained the insight that it was wrong.
A 16 yo with boundary issues. Oh wait, no not this one. He’s been incarcerated. For stabbing a girl.
A 15 yo that loves the german army. The '38-'45 era more specifically. Today we’re gonna talk about him cheering during the holocaust museum visit.
A 16 yo that has been beating up his mom. We had to cut our talks with abuse survivor counselors short, as he was taunting them.
A 15 yo that was pushed by his friends and made a mistake. He shouldn’t be here, but it won’t hurt talking to him.
In my experience, which spans 2 decades, the softhand approach as we call it, doesn’t work as well as people like you want it to work. Sure, the other extreme doesn’t work any better and we don’t use it. But sometimes it is necessary in combination with re-education. There needs to be solid consequences, else they’ll just shrug it off.
This is one long strawmen: you’re generalizing my argument for this single situation to every situation.
You’re basically accusing me of doing what you’re doing: thinking in black and white. In my case if I think that ruining his life here with severe punishment is wrong, it must always be wrong.
Ask yourself this. Is there anyone who did something very stupid in HS that turned out to be a good adult without facing severe consequences for their actions? I can think of a few.
So we’re gonna gamble? See who turns out ok and who doesn’t? Or not even that? We’re not gonna do anything and hope they all turn out great like your few examples? Sure, go for it.
The human mind doesn’t even really fully mature until your mid 20s. A 15 year old still has a good full decade until full maturity, and they are notorious for making impulsive decisions without realizing the consequences of their actions.
What he did was wrong and he deserves punishment, but ruining his life too for being a dumb teenager does nothing for the unimaginable harm caused to this girl, it just makes more victims.
I don’t know what the right answer is, but I can tell you the wrong answer is to ruin a teenagers life over a stupid act when that isn’t going to solve anything.
Punishment should be a deterrent. Not an even trade. Your line of thinking is what gets us free rape passes for sports jocks “cuz they have so much potential”.
Maturity of the brain is irrelevant here.
retributive justice doesn’t work.
one of the main reasons people try to treat minors differently than adults is because they recognize that retributive justice is literally giving up on the person and doing the easiest thing for society to deal with them.
especially in cases that involve minors there’s a push for restorative, transformational and participatory justice models because they don’t give up and fall back on treating the person like an animal.
A kid was arrested, but released pending further investigation, so I’m hard pressed to believe there is no punishment for this. But we’re talking about teenagers here, the fact that he could be punished is there, but was not given serious consideration if any at all…because he isn’t a fully mature adult. So what would a more serious punishment do?
This is something probably solved with education rather than more punishment.
Education has its limits. The kid needs to want to learn, to change.
Our MO is talking, education, conversation, non-restrictive and non-retributive. On my desk today I have:
15 yo that hasn’t been to school in 3 years. No amount of talking has had any effect.
16 yo that spread pics of his then gf among his classmates. And recently of his current gf as well, after he’s done the talking and education and supposedly gained the insight that it was wrong.
A 16 yo with boundary issues. Oh wait, no not this one. He’s been incarcerated. For stabbing a girl.
A 15 yo that loves the german army. The '38-'45 era more specifically. Today we’re gonna talk about him cheering during the holocaust museum visit.
A 16 yo that has been beating up his mom. We had to cut our talks with abuse survivor counselors short, as he was taunting them.
A 15 yo that was pushed by his friends and made a mistake. He shouldn’t be here, but it won’t hurt talking to him.
In my experience, which spans 2 decades, the softhand approach as we call it, doesn’t work as well as people like you want it to work. Sure, the other extreme doesn’t work any better and we don’t use it. But sometimes it is necessary in combination with re-education. There needs to be solid consequences, else they’ll just shrug it off.
This is one long strawmen: you’re generalizing my argument for this single situation to every situation.
You’re basically accusing me of doing what you’re doing: thinking in black and white. In my case if I think that ruining his life here with severe punishment is wrong, it must always be wrong.
Ask yourself this. Is there anyone who did something very stupid in HS that turned out to be a good adult without facing severe consequences for their actions? I can think of a few.
So we’re gonna gamble? See who turns out ok and who doesn’t? Or not even that? We’re not gonna do anything and hope they all turn out great like your few examples? Sure, go for it.