AnalHamster wrote: ↑Sat May 15, 2021 7:50 am
Well there's a basic reason the juvenile system isn't aimed at locking little children up forever, it's because they are children and we hope they can change. Kids like that mostly need counseling, educating and social workers to investigate just what went wrong at home, not locking up.
There's a tendency amongst conservatives to think anything but a jail sentence means getting off Scott free, like being found not guilty by reason of insanity, which actually means an indefinite sentence. The article doesn't specify but I assume the juvenile court is doing all it can with very limited resources. Prison is not the only option and it's very very rarely a good one for children.
As usual, you are trying to spin this into something political. Its not.
The juvenile system needs serious attention.
The kids that are apologetic, whose parents have navigated them well but the kid fell into the wrong crowd or made a mistake and got caught... they get probation. They have to check in regularly, do drug screens, have court appointed counseling, CPS visits into the family, etc... which is great. Kind of, CPS is a whole different bag of worms, but I won't delve into that nightmare of an institution here. They play ball and generally don't relapse.
The problem is with the kids who don't give a fuck.
These kids, like the one I posted in OP and possibly (probably) the one stapes posted thinking he was making some intelligent counter-point, the system doesn't do anything of merit. They will assign all the same stuff --> but there is literally
no consequence when they blow off probation and don't check in, when they piss hot, when don't go to counseling, run away from a shelter, when they tear off their gps monitor and run away from home to go party then get arrested again for burglary and/or assaulting a police officer. Over and over again.
These kids spend maybe a night or two in Juvenile hall and then are back on the street with a slap on the wrist.
And the ones who push the limit to the absolute extreme eventually get a few weeks in juvenile hall, and the really bad might not get out (though often its not because of an outside crime, its because they keep violating the rules in juvenile hall so they don't get their score high enough to be released)... until they turn 18. Then they just get released back onto the streets with their records sealed and the justice system knowing its just a matter of time before they do something dumb as an adult and get locked up in big-boy prison.
The kids who don't give a fuck are the repeat offenders, they are the ones who get 'extensive juvenile records' and become career criminals. For these kids, their needs to be an overhaul in how justice handles them. Because the catch and release system of things when they are committing all but the most heinous of crimes is simply not working.