12/13 year old girls arrested for stomping man to death in DC last fall

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to be charged with a criminal case for parental neglect or abuse when their kids are troublemakers BEFORE they become killers.

Parents should be charged, absolutely. They had the responsibility to know where these kids were and what they were up to. If they actually parented this wouldn't have happened.

I don’t necessarily think the parents should be charged. Parents can do everything right and their kids can still turn out to be evil sociopaths if they are unlucky. Especially if they were walking home from school, I don’t support charging the parents.

While that can be true, I seriously doubt that's the case here. I say charge them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents need to be charged with a criminal case for parental neglect or abuse when their kids are troublemakers BEFORE they become killers.

Parents should be charged, absolutely. They had the responsibility to know where these kids were and what they were up to. If they actually parented this wouldn't have happened.

I don’t necessarily think the parents should be charged. Parents can do everything right and their kids can still turn out to be evil sociopaths if they are unlucky. Especially if they were walking home from school, I don’t support charging the parents.

While that can be true, I seriously doubt that's the case here. I say charge them.

DC is so unlucky to have so many psychopaths.

[Anonymous]

I just had a discussion with my neighbor about this case as it happened a few blocks from us. She said the old time saying “It takes a village to raise a child”. I said that village is raising these kids and that there is the problem. I had to point out my own kids and she said “you’re so right, the parents are to blame here”. I’m a single parent although my kids father is in their life, they would never think to do this and they are the exact ages of these girls.

Parents need to held accountable in some form or fashion and being embarrassed is not enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should be sentenced to do community service for the next decade to help people that have disabilities. This will help them understand the consequences of their actions. I don't think a long prison sentence will help. It will only turn them in to career criminals when they get out.

Probably too late for that, sadly.

+1. I'd have to go back and look for the article but reporters were only allowed in the courtroom if they omitted information about the teens' previous disciplinary problems and mental health. It's a very poor prognostic sign if someone is in their early teens and already on the radar of law enforcement and social services due to behavior. Putting these kids in community service where they're working with vulnerable populations is definitely not the answer.
They should be put on long acting birth control and kept in a secure facility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They should be sentenced to do community service for the next decade to help people that have disabilities. This will help them understand the consequences of their actions. I don't think a long prison sentence will help. It will only turn them in to career criminals when they get out.

Probably too late for that, sadly.

I agree. Someone this violent is unsafe around the elderly and children.

+1. I'd have to go back and look for the article but reporters were only allowed in the courtroom if they omitted information about the teens' previous disciplinary problems and mental health. It's a very poor prognostic sign if someone is in their early teens and already on the radar of law enforcement and social services due to behavior. Putting these kids in community service where they're working with vulnerable populations is definitely not the answer.
They should be put on long acting birth control and kept in a secure facility.

[Anonymous]

I do think that these children and our society would be best served by a juvenile justice system that successfully intervenes at the first sign of trouble. It should be researched based and intensive.

That said these girls are long past the point where that would help and they should definitely stay confined until at least 21. I would be shocked if at that point they magically became model citizens, but we can hope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do think that these children and our society would be best served by a juvenile justice system that successfully intervenes at the first sign of trouble. It should be researched based and intensive.

That said these girls are long past the point where that would help and they should definitely stay confined until at least 21. I would be shocked if at that point they magically became model citizens, but we can hope.

One recent article said one of the girls has been constantly cited for assault, on both guards and fellow teens, at the juvenile-detention facility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do think that these children and our society would be best served by a juvenile justice system that successfully intervenes at the first sign of trouble. It should be researched based and intensive.

That said these girls are long past the point where that would help and they should definitely stay confined until at least 21. I would be shocked if at that point they magically became model citizens, but we can hope.

One recent article said one of the girls has been constantly cited for assault, on both guards and fellow teens, at the juvenile-detention facility.

I guess she will remain confined to the facility until she is 21. It's good she has people to practice on.

[Anonymous]

I'm the PP who said this case was a failure of community and schools as well as parents. I wanted to clarify that since people took issue with it.

To be clear, I don't blame teachers or neighbors for not somehow stopping this from happening. I'm talking about systemic failure that enable kids like this to escalate their violent and anti-social behavior over time without consequences.

Yes parents are to blame and have a responsiblity for addressing this behavior as it arises. But DC has lots of people who have kids as teens, who have their own bad childhoods as an example, who are violent with their kids or abuse drugs or are totally absent. We could punish those parents and I wouldn't disagree with that but I don't think it will solve the issue because these parents are not just negligent -- they are incapable. They won't "step up" because they might get in trouble otherwise. These are people who already engage in a bunch of behaviors that could get them in trouble with the law.

In terms of what schools and communities could do: DC needs real consequences for truancy and real enforcement. We need more people whose whole job it is to get kids who are supposed to be in school to be in school. And yes parents should be the focus in early grades but by MS kids should be held accountable themselves. There should not be so many truant children running around this city period, but especially not committing crimes. We need a way to catch these kids and deliver them to schools or detain them for chronic truancy.

We also need more police officers and community safety officers in neighborhoods where truancy is particularly problematics (as well as on metro and in places like Chinatown and Columbia Heights where truant teens tend to congregate).

That's what I mean by school and community involvement. Formal systems for catching and detaining kids who aren't where they are supposed to be. I wasn't talking about teachers somehow failing to de-criminalize these teens.

[Anonymous]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

This kid deserves life in jail without parole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This kid deserves life in jail without parole.

The girls in NZ were older, 15 and 16, when they murdered one of their mothers. They grew up to be normal adults.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavenly_Creatures

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

What happens when this violent child is released at the age of 21 with no education or skills?

Then I guess she keeps committing crimes but thanks to the YRA is not held accountable until she reaches 26?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This kid deserves life in jail without parole.

The girls in NZ were older, 15 and 16, when they murdered one of their mothers. They grew up to be normal adults.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavenly_Creatures

The exception proves the rule?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

This kid deserves life in jail without parole.

The girls in NZ were older, 15 and 16, when they murdered one of their mothers. They grew up to be normal adults.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavenly_Creatures

The exception proves the rule?

Anyone who murdered their parents as a teenager will never be a “normal adult”. It’s pretty definitional. In fact, “normal adults” didn’t commit any crimes as a teenager.