NEWS: Children Don't Belong in Prison

-Definitions from here.

These are the four main concepts of operant conditioning. Prisons only use punishment. Perhaps we should attempt to work the others in somehow?

I think children who are better educated can make better choices. It's harder to become better educated though if your parents aren't educated. I think more mentoring in schools and some programs or something would solve some of that, but there are always going to be kids that are hard to reach. If you're immersed in violence from age 1 it's a little hard to do anything without succumbing to violence. Same with drugs.

For most hardened criminals, no they aren't. that's just the stuff that we fluffy law abiding citizens think of when we think of prison.

Reading your quote a little more in context :

I see they are referring to 5% of all juvenile arrests are for violent crimes. It has nothing at all to do with how many juveniles go to adult prison. And that the reason most juveniles charged as adults don't get sent to adult prisons is because they were sent back to juvenile court.

Way to pull a quote out of context and totally misrepresent it. But yeah, most juveniles are not normally sent to adult prisons, or courts.

200.000 children to go prison each year in the u.s.a. That is a damn sight better than other countries like Saudi Arabia or thailand or singapore or turkey.. where even a misdemeanor, such as carrying pot in small amounts could get you executed, or a good ol' public whipping, your hands cut off... maybe even a stoning..

case in point, a foreign youth in singapore while traveling was convicted of stealing a street sign,...a fucking street sign,..for his punishment, 25 lashes (most people die between 34-40)...so in other words he was beaten to within an inch of his life. When amnesty international intervened, they were given the big fuck off and the boy was only whipped 18 times and sent back to germany.

A little perspective maybe needed here to show the harsh reality of how bad prison is,..it is not that bad in comparison to how these kids would be dealt with in other cultures.

I wonder what the rate of recidivism, incarcerations per capita, etc. are for a place like Singapore compared to the United States. I don't have an axe to grind, and I certainly have no idea one way or the other, but if the occasional caning has a tremendous impact, do you think it'd be acceptable? I mean, if it's a matter of incarcerating twenty children, thereby very nearly sealing their larcenous fates, versus flogging one child and sending him on his way, well I wonder which is more humane.

Maybe I've just been reading too much Robert Heinlein lately.

Agreed.

As the last Arch bishop of Canterberry said shortly before Henry VIII cut his head off:
"If you subvert the law to fight a perceived evil, and than evil turns and comes after you, then you no longer have the law to protect you". Laws protecting children from society had been put in place by far smarter people than us, why do we need to remove that protection now if it was considered needed for so long? Although I guess they could pick up a few pointers from older and wiser sociopaths while in prison.

The only difference between a 21 year old and an 18 year old that I can see is that a 21 year old is typically more comfortable in their new shoes. When you're 18 and you've just forged your identity, your shoes are new. It takes some walking to wear them in. But they're still essentially the same shoes.

And learning to drink responsibly is arugably a more difficult skill than learning to drive responsibly. I'd argue that if anything one should learn how to drink before learning how to drive. So you're at least more aware of how alcohol would affect you before you get behind the wheel. And remember, that if something's legal it's not as taboo. Most high schoolers drink anyways. But they tend to do it because it's a) dangerous, b) everyone else is doing it, c) their parents (in most cases) don't want them to. Didn't you want the toy your mom said you couldn't have more than any other toy?

I really believe that if the drinking age were lowered there'd be less desire to act out with alcohol. But this is admitadely getting a bit off topic

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age

We're one of less than ten countries worldwide that won't let you buy alcohol until you're 21. Most seem to have settled on 18, with a substantial minority opting for somewhere in the 15-16 year old range or no restriction whatsoever. Also interesting - that particular restriction is only a little over two decades old. I suspect it can be comfortably blamed on moral crusaders rather than any real scientific difference between the two ages' capability to use alcohol responsibly.

Another excellent point. Thank you.

agreed. teenagers drink and have sex. in countries where this is accepted the teenagers do both with much more control, self respect and responsibility.

+1
We don't need strict sentencing for kids we need the the Toss Salad Man!

but didn't those people we're keeping alive already disregard those qualities?

no, beating your kids is a fuck up move. only teaches kids to be fuck ups when they grow up (and in some cases even before). which means that kids grandparents are likely to be fuck ups as well. and we know what happens to fuck ups? thats right, they die.

oh, and by the way, im fixed. i don't want to worry about screwing up a kid.

This thread is an idiot magnet.

"you fuck up, you die." Troll, dunce, or both?

People like to think that kids are innocent, naive. Anything they do wrong they didn't mean to do. I call bullshit. Kids know that killing is wrong, regardless of any other right/wrong confusion they may have. I think that focusing on fixing the larger issues at hand would be more productive than throwing these kids in prison, but what are you supposed to do with them in the meantime? I mean, seriously. What are you supposed to do with a 10 year old and 11 year old who just dumped some kid off a building? I'm open-minded here, let's hear a practical alternative solution.

Serious psychological counseling? Not hard to figure out. I mean, seriously.

Well, obviously. Should they be confined while they're being counseled? Should they be free? My question shouldn't have been hard to figure out. Seriously.

Wrong.

Notice the bit about impulse control? If you bothered to retain the context of what you were reading, then you'd know the brain reaches 80% of it's adult size at age two. The brain pretty much has all it's neurons at birth but that is meaningless to the conversation at hand. The brain keeps producing glial cells which are central to the proper function of a brain. Moreover, the neurons that you insist are the only important factor continue to develop connections or neuro-pathways into your late teens. Consequently this is why it's easier to learn a second language when you're a kid versus an adult. Anyway, you don't know what you're talking about.

Sure they did. So we should disregard them in turn? I don't see your logic. The point of compassion is that you care for someone regardless of whether they show it in return. That's why we have charities. How should we be allowed to go on about how superior we are to the animals and then act as hypocritically as possible?

I agree. Too much "white collar" crime goes unpunished in this country. It sends the wrong message to the youth.

And I've been reading up on Iran/Contra lately--somebody ought to punish Colin Powell and Oliver North and Scooter Libby and all those other guys before they go and start thinking they're above the law.

Ahem, WAS. I've done my level best to undo that since, and this thread has certainly helped. Thanks SQ!