What The Hell?

[Paul H]

You lot make me sick, the way you compete with each other to find more and more outlandish ways of punishing the guy.

 

He's a murderer at 13 and that means he's beyond hope? There is no intervention that can be made, or no personal growth that he can make, that will mean he can ever, under any conceivable circumstances live as a decent member of society, so we must dispatch him as quickly as possible.

 

Well I'm not ready to give up on human nature just yet, if that's ok with you.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

With respect, would you have the same opinion if he had just murdered a member of your family?

 

How do you live with yourself if your faith in human nature allows a murderer to do it again?

[Ean]

How do you live with yourself if your faith in human nature allows a murderer to do it again?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

How do you live with yourself sentencing a child to death? Not only that but then killing a member of their family....just because.

[Declan]

Those questions just show you up, Paul. Facile and emotive, you've chosen a simplistic stance ("kill 'em all and a member of the family for good measure") because it is easy. You don't want to accept the complexities of the situation so you've taken a dogmatic approach that you can only back up with hypothetical "what ifs".

[happy camper]

Nothing but revenge on International News at the moment.

 

Paul - I take it you'd say yes to Speckled Frost's question?

 

http://www.manxforums.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4012

[P.K.]

Those questions just show you up, Paul. Facile and emotive, you've chosen a simplistic stance ("kill 'em all and a member of the family for good measure") because it is easy. You don't want to accept the complexities of the situation so you've taken a dogmatic approach that you can only back up with hypothetical "what ifs".

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being emotive and proposing simple solutions to complex questions. Every point of view is as valid as the next - to those making them that is.

 

My two-penn'orth - clearly this disgusting little scrote is the product of his "parents". You are starting to see the results of appalling parents producing stupid offspring with no moral values whatsoever. They end up as a moron with a knife that is a danger to the public at large. Hopefully 15 years rehabilitation might produce somthing that can make a contribution to society rather than just be a burden on it. Time will tell.

 

-

[Ripsaw]

It more than just parents.

 

Yes, the parents failed in their duty to bring him up as a decent law respecting child. They carry the vast majorirty of the 'blame'.

 

The whole of society is on a moral decline, the only differences are the stages that particular groups have reached.

 

The Isle of Man is accused of being backward, an island caught in a time warp. Another thread asked about pride in our Island, one reason given was low rates of crime. That is one reason for my liking of living here, but I can not claim to be proud of it because the Island is letting this positive benefit slip.

 

Many of us are blinkered of the troubles of far away lands and more importantly, the causes, because the only time we take any interest is when it makes the headlines and even then rarely do we take the time to look beyond the headline.

 

Those useless parents are probably the offspring of useless parents, and they were probably the offspring of useless parents themselves. The kids growing up now will one day be parents and so it goes on and on.

 

The simple answer is to lock up the offenders at the first sign of bother. This boy already had a damning history that went unchecked, facts tell us that those without imposed boundaries are more than happy to go looking for their own and also to push them further and further from what the majority of the population would call 'decent'.

 

The boy is a product of his enviroment. As well as calling for the public thrashing of his parents, what about all the other people and influences on his life?

 

Children who grow up surrounded by violent games, violent films, violence in real life accept those practices as their version of 'normal'. It is all well and good those of us who are in control of our senses and morals to say that teenagers know right from wrong, our sense of 'normal' doesn't come close to theirs!

 

Does anyone really think that 4 and 5 year olds who are allowed to mix on street corners at 8 and 9 o'clock at night with drinking, drug taking, thieving elders are learning good manners and how to become model citizens?

 

Yeah sure, pluck out the odd ones that make the headlines, lock them up, torture them and members of their family.

 

Great, that'll teach those few (even though it rarely does), but what about the majority, the ones who grow up to breed and continue the trend?

 

Our 'caring' society has for years put in place a number of safety nets to look after those who don't receive the upbringing that they should in the domestic enviroment, but at the same time, this same society was letting the boundaries of what was 'normal' and acceptable and what wasn't slip. All this did was create the situation that we are (barely) aware of now.

 

Where is the caring, responsible society that is supposed to exist? It went down the drain years ago in the UK, it is slowly going the same way here on the Island, and once going it will snowball. Ignore it, or think things are still at acceptable limits and prepare to be bitten on the arse.

 

It is coming and believe it or not, locking up the odd person here and there *after* they have pushed the limits and stepped over the line of decency isn't going to make a blind bit of difference. It may take them out of society for a few months or a few years, but the influences still exist and will happily move on to an ever increasing number of wannabes.

[Mission]

Well said Rip.

[Ean]

clearly this disgusting little scrote is the product of his "parents".

 

Clearly? Know them do you, read anything about them then PK? The one thing that i have not seen about this incident is the parents commenting on it. The only thing i have read is that he left the dock being hugged by his crying mother. They have kept quiet, they haven't tried to say how he made a stupid mistake or say that they tried their best with him as so often happens in cases like this.

 

Obviously the parents didn't do their job in bringing him up to be a moral citizen but to blame them for everything in the way the child turned out is not fair. Like Rip said and i have said before, the society he lived in has influenced the way he behaves.

 

P.S. Good post Rip.

[WilDDog]

Yeah Good posts Ripsaw and Ean.

[Paul H]

Those questions just show you up, Paul. Facile and emotive, you've chosen a simplistic stance ("kill 'em all and a member of the family for good measure") because it is easy. You don't want to accept the complexities of the situation so you've taken a dogmatic approach that you can only back up with hypothetical "what ifs".

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

An easy solution that removes the dregs from socitey and makes more funds available for helping the innocent victims while protecting decent people.

 

Cut through all the do-gooder crap and start looking at a punishment that fits the crime, at the very least as a deterrant to others.

 

You might find it easy to try and put me down. Lets see if you find it as easy to explain the "complexities of the situation" to the Mother, Father, Husband or Wife of someone who has been brutally murdered by a teenage thug. Then justify why this thug should be given any sympathy or the opportunity to do the same thing again.

[Paul H]

How do you live with yourself if your faith in human nature allows a murderer to do it again?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

How do you live with yourself sentencing a child to death? Not only that but then killing a member of their family....just because.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Sounds harsh on the face of it, doesn't it? But let's look at the bigger picture. Would it be so hard to sentance a teenager to death if he or she had a history of violent crimes, was a drug user and a thief who had no prospects of rehabilitation and had just committed a sickening murder over a trivial altercation? If this teenager was a dog it would be destroyed without a moments hesitation because we could never trust it not to do the same thing again.

 

Take an animal that is dangerous and waste as much time as you like trying to train it to be otherwise. You will fail my friend.

[Ripsaw]

But let's look at the bigger picture.

The bigger picture *is* looking at the root cause, the ongoing preventative/remedial action and the eventual outcome of the various preceding actions.

 

A rotten tooth can be extracted in minutes, so why do most of us regularly brush for years on end?

[Declan]

Paul who is talking about sympathy for the teenager?

 

P.K.'s solution seems best to me.

[Ean]

If this teenager was a dog

 

Stupid analogy and you know it. Human's are not animals in the same way that dogs are, you cannot just put down a human. We have evolved and the animal instinct to kill is no longer a part of our thought processes, i agree take a lion and try and teach it not to attack then you will be wasting your time but humans are not the same. We are able to make complex associations that the majority of other animals are not and therefore our behaviour is affected by our surroundings and what we have learnt and been taught.

[Ant]

I read about this story the other day. I have a slightly controversial view. The childs father, if I remember rightly, is in Jamaica. Although he does still have contact with him, I gather. I believe this may be a factor, children from poor backgrounds and children who are in single parent families invariably go on to underachieve and/or lead a life of crime statistics show.

 

To me, there isn't much that excuses murder (apart from self defence which his mother seems to maintain that it was, I'm not so confident given her sons apparent record of being pulled up over knife related incidents, but I don't believe he was ever actually prosecuted in relation to any of these incidents), the fact that he is living with just his mother doesn't excuse it either.

 

But, given the fact that children from poor backgrounds and with just one parent are more likely to go on to fail academically and/or commit crime I think that the stance for any government to take would be to advise those from poor backgrounds not to have children. I know myself of people from poor backgrounds who have gone on to have children, and to be fair that is their choice, I would never advocate "breeding licences".

 

I personally could never envisage myself having enough money to start and support a family. So, even at the tender age of 19 and looking ten years ahead, I don't think I will. Maybe I have hijacked the thread from it's original course and into a debate about family structures, but there is evidence to show that family structures do have an impact upon a childs prospects.

 

As far as single parents go, I do take the view that sometimes families do have to split up, it is in my view better that a child grows up with one parent as opposed to two parents one of whom beats lumps out of the other or both of whom are constantly rowing.

 

I know that having children isn't a decision taken lightly, but I just feel that poverty is being bred. Looking back at this post I think I sound like some sort of Nazi trying to control which groups can and cannot have children, at the end of the day it is each individuals choice, but I think maybe governments could be more vocal in talking about the link between poverty and underachievement and crime.