Teen burglars' crazy insulting letter of apology

On the one hand this is saddening and infuriating and other hand it is utterly hilarious. A teenaged burglar was required as part of his sentence to write a letter of apology to his victims. Unfortunately he seems to have misunderstood the concept of "a letter of apology" and the letter reads like something that would have been written by Vicky Pollard (a fictional character on the comedy serious Little Britain) or Lauren Cooper (the 'Am I bovvered' character in The Catherine Tate Show)

See linked news article for full story

Teen burglar tells victims it was their fault

Teenage burglar abuses Leeds victim in 'apology' letter

I personally think that it is a good idea to ask criminals to apologise to their victims or to arrange for them see the consequences of their crimes by having to speak to their victims, see pictures drink driving crash injuries etc.

However, perhaps different types of judicial response are effective with different types of people. Maybe many criminals do the callous things that they do because they haven't really thought about the consequences whereas maybe some just don't give a damn!

The question is, how should the criminal justice system deal with people such as this teenaged burglar? Can he be reformed or should we simply 'lock him up and throw away the key'?

I think he can be rehabilitated, but he needs a significant time behind bars to adjust his attitude first.

I read this in the paper the other day (posting it on FB as a new angle on victim-blaming).

I'm not that surprised that some youths can become (or be? inherently?) stone-cold callous, or appear to be. But this kid has committed a crime of property and said "Well, too bad. You left your door open, I went and took stuff." The recent London riots showed much the same mentality on a mob scale.

If he was showing this kind of lack of remorse about a horrible crime of violence then I'd be a lot more apprehensive about what might be in store down the line. It's pretty easy to be detached about property crime ("I took your stuff. Get over it.").

This isn't a black and white question. Having a lack of remorse can mean so many things in psychology. Some personality disorders cannot be rehabilitated.

However, if this is just some stupid teenager acting out why can't the parents be brought in, as well? Isn't it just as much their fault for raising a kid this dim-witted as it is the kid's?

I am also a firm believer that aggression just breeds aggression. Locking him/her up and throwing away the key doesn't solve anything, and I, for one, would rather have more contributing members of society than teenagers who weren't taught the decencies of life locked behind bars.

Hmmmm does that make sense? I guess what I mean is that people can be rehabilitated. All it takes is for them to be shown what their parents and friends evidently didn't, couldn't or wouldn't.

This kid is angry for a reason. Try understanding the motivation behind the action before making judgments.

Requiring someone to apologize for something means that you don't know what an apology is.

Maybe if everyone takes turns robbing his house while he's away he'll develop a sense of empathy.

Not really sure why people are surprised that a robber doesn't have a well developed sense of empathy. That's one of the first things you give up when you start robbing people.

Well, I'm not professionaly involved in the judicial or penal systems myself so this is just one amateur's take on it, but I would presume the starting principle here is to look for signs of potential rehabilitation and the avoidance of a simple lock-em-up-and-throw-away-key approach that has, in turn, the potential for continuing recidivism. (Particularly, in this case, with a young offender.)

Anyone who commits a crime of this sort might be said to "lack empathy" but that's different to saying that they have no capacity for it, and wouldn't find that capacity once their ability to detach and depersonalise was challenged by a requirement to communicate with their victims as individuals.

Well....yeah. I'm clearly not saying that a robber doesn't have the capacity for remorse or empathy, just that forcing them to write an apology has no bearing on their remorse or empathy

I thought they had reality shows to fix kids like this

Did the judge get the idea from The Simpsons opening sequence?

Again, I don't have a professional's perspective on this, but I don't see why that is.

Writing an apology requires you to think about the individuals you affected by your actions. Which is exactly what you would most likely not have bothered to do in the course of those actions.

Now, you may respond by thinking of those individuals as (wealthier-than-you) suckers who brought it upon themselves by not paying close enough attention to their property's security.

Or, as a teen who is not yet a hardened criminal, you may be scared and possibly ashamed at having been caught, in which case being required to deal with your victims as people would be one step to making it less likely you would do such a thing again.

I admit, I am speculating as to why this approach gets tried, and maybe we need a professional's input into all this.

and that the unfortunate part of my statement. Theoretically, spending time in jail should make him miss his freedom and programs there should be there for him to help him. Sadly, it will probably keep him in jail long enough to miss his freedom and be pretty pissed off that it was gone.

Well, he'll be in juvie, not jail, presumably, although that doesn't necessarily make the above issues go away.

In my layman's opinion, I support this type of response to this type of crime. How often do parents march their children in front of the neighbor to apologize for mischief? It's embarrassing and forces the child accept responsibility for their actions and verbalize the connection between their behavior and its effects, kind of like using positive affirmations to create a positive attitude. Fake it til you make it.

*sigh* jail/juvie.........neither is a good means towards rehabiliation.

Yes. Why isn't this common sense?

This. Forced apologies kind of miss the point.

I was just having a conversation with coworkers about this a few hours ago (I work in residential treatment for juvenile offenders). They were talking about this new kid who always apologizes an hour or two after he has done something, and always with the same step-by-step speech he gives to staff about how he was in the wrong, won't do it again, was under stress, blah blah blah...

The same rehearsed apology speech every time he commits an infraction. Why? Because different programs and case workers have required him to apologize all throughout the different stages of his rehabilitation and treatment process. It's a conditioned response now, and hardly sincere. He just knows he is supposed to apologize when he breaks a rule. That's why I have never required any kid I've worked with to apologize, it's ridiculous.

"You left your window unlocked. What was I supposed to do, be an honest and decent human being or something?"

Hee hee!

Ok burglary is not funny but the attitude of that teen burglar (which you have parodied perfectly) is so moronic that I can't help but laugh. It is as though he doesn't think he is responsible for his own actions, as though as soon as someone leaves their window open he is compelled by irresistable forces of cause and effect to go and burgle their house. Perhaps this burglar considers himself to be a blind force of nature like fire or wind or flooding.

Good point but with one theoretical objection.

When we class people as adults at the age of 18, we are not doing this because we believe that people wake up at age 18 and undergo a sudden change from being children to being adults. Rather it is because, by the age of 18 people have lived through number of years of adolescence and thus had time to make the gradual transition from childhood to adulthood.

That's the theory but in practice I suppose that plenty of people have not grown up by the age of 18. Some people never grow up!!