Reply to Md. officials urge review of youth crime laws as 12-year-old's serial break-ins continue

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Reply to "Md. officials urge review of youth crime laws as 12-year-old's serial break-ins continue"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I understand that the police are frustrated but I fail to see how charging the kid would help. A twelve year old breaking into car dealerships every night and getting caught over and over is a cry for help, for goodness sake. Getting caught seems to be the point. [/quote]

The juvenile justice system doesn't charge. These acts aren't considered  crimes. They are delinquent acts that "would" be crimes if committed by an adult. That's why juvenile records are sealed and don't follow kids when they become adults.  The kids get referred for services. It's one of the few ways to at least try to get help for kids.

Some kids end up detained but the vast majority go home to their parents. The courts develop a treatment service plan to help habilitate or rehabilitate if needed.

The system is not very effective but at its heart, it's trying to help the offenders make better choices. It's not meant to be punitive.  [/quote]

It's time for a 2 strikes punitive stance this rehabilitation isn't working we need them to fear being a criminal and the parents too[/quote]

Poverty and neglect have these kids so full of trauma and rage that they don't even fear death. We desperately need to build more RTCs to help them before it's too late. [/quote]

Criminal behavior is not mostly attributable to neglect and poverty. It has a very strong genetic component (around 50% genetic). The vast majority of environmental interventions do not work at all or they do not work very well. Unfortunately, the most effective environmental intervention that protects law-abiding members of the general public is putting people who commit crimes in jail (even if they are minors). Right now it is car theft, but there is a an incredibly high probability a very antisocial preteen (with a criminal history) will progress to more serious violent crimes unless they are incarnated to protect the general public. Decades of research with twins and adoption studies show that genetic propensity for criminal behavior is by far the largest explanatory factor. From the research paper "Adoptive parent criminality was not found to be associated with a statistically significant increase in the son's criminality, but the effect of biological parent criminality was." [b]The adopted boys whose biological fathers were in the top 1% of criminal behavior (3 or more criminal convictions) accounted for 30% of all criminal convictions among males in the adoptive study cohort. Having a highly criminal biological father increased their risk of criminal behavior by 30x.[/b] https://gwern.net/doc/crime/1984-mednick.pdf Unfortunately [/quote]

Those poor adoptive families.  I knew a family who fostered at-risk children and those kids were problem children.  It was so hard.[/quote]

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