A crime doesn't make a child an adult

I wish people would stop using the word “child” in an effort to minimize criminal behavior by young adults. A 16 or 17 year old isn’t a “child.” The Marquis de Lafayette and James Manor were just 18 when the revolutionary war started. Societies going back to ancient times ascribed significant responsibility to teenagers. And in modern times, there is a scientific basis for distinguishing between adolescents and children when it comes to brain development. Historically, adolescents were treated like adults.

The article’s focus on moral culpability also overlooks the key purpose of the justice system: protecting society from criminals. In that respect, the age actually creates a bigger risk. People who start engaging in criminal conduct at an earlier age more likely to engage in criminal behavior as adults: https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/youth-justice-involvemen... (“Continuity of offending from the juvenile into the adult years is higher for people who start offending at an early age, chronic delinquents, and young people who commit violent offenses.”). If you look at the curve of when violent conduct occurs, it peaks from ages 13-25. And it’s actually about as high at age 13 as it is at age 25, with the peak around 18-19.

A more rational and less emotional sentencing system would be harsher on teenage offenders while reducing sentences overall. If someone is committing violent crimes at age 15, that signals an increased risk of violent criminality for the next decade. Short sentences will mean that person will keep victimizing society repeatedly over that period. On the other hand, multi-decade sentences are counter productive. Violent criminality drops sharply after age 40.

The article is so facile.

> Yet crime-data analysts have noted that Louisiana’s crime wave was in keeping with a national trend

This is meant to be mitigating? What is this thought process? Who in their right mind is like "okay, a group of people broke into your home at night but your state shouldn't have been so hard on them for what ensued because akshually it was part of a whole nationwide trend at the time."

The modern right absolutely thrives on the fact that so many mostly reasonable people can't see that "play stupid games win stupid prizes" is just another side of the "tolerate anything but intolerance" coin. You can be in favor of showing leniency to kids for dumb, youthful mistakes without taking the doe-eyed approach that every dumb thing someone does in their youth is nothing more than a mistake. And the fact that you yourself made some poor decisions as a youth doesn't mean you have to look at a group burglarizing a house as "well, kids will be kids."

> The modern right absolutely thrives on the fact that so many mostly reasonable people can't see that "play stupid games win stupid prizes" is just another side of the "tolerate anything but intolerance" coin

This is something that drives me up the wall. I'm a pretty lefty guy, mostly, but I am very irritated by "my side" being so weak on crime.

I get it, we don't want to ruin people's lives for being a stupid kid doing a stupid crime, but there has to be some kind of middle ground between "ruin their life forever" and "teach them there are no consequences"

It's ridiculous

What about cultures that see children as throw away tools and cannonfood for crime? Like sending thrm forth to throw stones, chant racist slogans on demos, etc?

The experimental data from Salvadore and now its neighbors says yes.