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

Forum Index » Metropolitan DC Local Politics

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

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]6% of the population commit 60% of the crime.  Poverty isn't the cause, but it may contribute to a family's inability to help provide necessary supports to some of those 6%. [/quote]

People can come from poverty, and understand that their situation sucks, and will try and get themselves out of it.

Then there are some people who come from poverty, and think the world owes them, and that they are entitled to act without regard for others. That's what's happening here - the "kids" are raised thinking they're owed, and they get that attitude from their parents.

Most people who experience poverty (including immigrants from every continent) do not go through the world with a sense of entitlement. They seek to get themselves out of poverty by... trying. Trying really incredibly hard, without harming another person. And most have experienced FAR worse neglect.

I'm fed up with people blaming "poverty" for the violent choices these "kids" make. It's not poverty--not even a little bit. It's the feelings of entitlement they get from their parents and relatives, who are deliberately teaching them that they are owed x, y, and z.

My father grew up homeless and motherless in the 3rd world. He's never stolen any non-necessity in his life. As a child I'm sure he stole food just to eat, but that's the kind of "stealing" that any human can understand.

[/quote]

My personal view is that there is a percentage of people who think they are entitled/aggrieved/owed something in every class.  But it manifests differently.  Rich or professional class people that are this way might cheat on their taxes, embezzzle from their companies, take advantage of their employees, etc.  They aren’t going to rob a CVS, but it’s the same mentality that justifies cheating to get what they want.  After many decades of life, I’ve decided that policies that assume everyone is good and wants to be good are probably misguuddd, because something between 5 and 20% of people are just selfish a—holes.  
But I think with kids it’s impossible to know, because all kids make bad decisions and can be selfish a-holes at times — so with kids it’s just really hard to figure out if they are capable of growth and change.  I’d like to think that all kids are, but I also don’t think our juvenile justice system is well set up to get them there.  I’d love to see more studies on what works and what doesn’t in juvenile justice.  There’s a guy at Yale Law that was incarcerated as a teen for carjacking and he has some interesting thoughts on it, but I’m not really sure he can really say why his life changed, and that of some of his friends did not.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics