Summary
A 15-year-old boy was sentenced to life in prison for fatally stabbing a stranger, Muhammad Hassam Ali, after a brief conversation in Birmingham city center. The second boy, who stood by, was sentenced to five years in secure accommodation. Ali’s family expressed their grief, describing him as a budding engineer whose life was tragically cut short.
What basis do you have for presuming his incompetence?
The fact that he was unsupervised in public tells me he should be assumed to understand the concepts of right and wrong.
Now I don’t know where you’re from but around here four year olds are unsupervised in public. It’s also not about the concept, but about what is considered right and what’s wrong, and the self-control to not act on an overwhelming impulse from the unconscious. May I remind you that the frontal cortex, that which gives us the ability to pause and reconsider, is not fully developed at his age.
You have no idea what his psychology looks like, yet you’re condemning him, and thousands more, by your principles. Unseen, unheard, and yep that – unseen, unheard – is one of the possible depth-psychological reasons why kids lash out like that. Not only do you, self-righteously, condemn him, you also might have created him by the habitual way in which you regard – or rather don’t regard – people.
I suspect you misspoke. 4-year-olds require 24/7 supervision from a parent, guardian, or other caregiver in public or private. Failure to continuously supervise a 4-year-old you are responsible for is a chargeable offense.
It is about the capacity to understand right and wrong about a given act. Children much younger than 15 are expected to understand the general legal and moral implications of murder.
Untrue. I know he was subjected to numerous hearings and evaluations to determine his competency. He was found to not have sufficiently diminished capacity to excuse or mitigate his actions.
I’m sorry you’re living under fascism.
Which does not mean that he is responsible for being the way that he is. Criminal insanity is a rare thing and, as a verdict, not actually that preferable. Doubly so criminal insanity as a juvenile, who are, yes, judged by different standards because their brains aren’t there, yet.
I suggest you learn something about developmental psychology.
Ad hominem.
“The way he is” is “responsible for his own actions”. He has been found to have the mental capacity necessary to comprehend the difference between the “rightness” and “wrongness” of jamming a knife into another human.
Some people should just never see the light of day again. This kid is one of them.
I’m not attacking your person, I’m attacking whatever backwater government you’re living under for having such inane laws.
He has been found to have the capacity necessary to stand trial in juvenile court. Those standards are different than for adults because, and I’ll say this again: Juveniles are not fully developed. They don’t have the same mental capacity.
If, at the ripe age of 90, he’s still messed up then I’d agree with you. But there’s quite a couple of decades until then.
As said: You’re out for blood, plain and simple. You know nothing of understanding, of forgiveness, or you would be more lenient, you know nothing about justice or you would take into account that he’s a kid, and you certainly know nothing about developmental psychology.
You should be kept as far away from the justice system as possible. I don’t consider you unredeemable, but by the way you dig in your heels and refuse to listen to arguments it’s going to be a while before that restriction can be lifted.
You just “othered” me. You just called for me to be undemocratically removed from the political process, entirely because you don’t agree with my opinions. I have not been tried or convicted in any crime, or otherwise been the subject of any sort of due process that would strip me of any rights or privileges.
Your position is therefore undemocratic.
I do, indeed, understand that children slowly bear more and more responsibility for their own actions as their cognition and experience increases. What you don’t seem to understand is that the cognitive abilities and experiences necessary to comprehend the rightness and wrongness of murder are typically developed well before age 10. You further fail to understand that this kid possessed them. He knew what he was doing. This wasn’t some youthful indiscretion, or a simple failure to control his impulses. This was a deliberate act. He specifically went looking to kill someone, and succeeded.
You asked me several comments up to consider my own behavior at age 15. I never murdered anyone, and I knew that murdering people was wrong before 15. Long before 15. The overwhelming majority of kids are sufficiently responsible to use deadly weapons for hunting and sport before reaching their teens.
Murder stops being tolerable as soon as the individual is capable of deliberately causing it. This kid was capable of such deliberation. He is irredeemable.
If your position was to kill all people of a particular skin color then my position would be the same. Democracy cannot work if fundamental rights are not protected from onslaught by people who, ultimately, would abolish democracy itself. Because that’s where your path leads: Towards a failure to regard other people as people.
You still fail to acknowledge that that’s not what it’s about. It’s about executive control. If an adult has an intrusive thought they have a very good grasp on blocking it, youth doesn’t. If everything works well then they’re simply exploration happy, like stupid bands, invent new makeup styles and re-invent the shopping cart race. If society messed them up at a fundamental level then things like murder can bubble up, and might not be stopped by the weak frontal cortex. That does not mean that they’ll regret it, though: They’re already perfectly capable of rationalising, and will do so to maintain a consistent self-image of themselves.
Did you understand anything of what I just wrote. Please rephrase it in your own words (“So you’re saying that…”) so I know we won’t continue to talk past each other, there.
More generally speaking, there’s an African saying: If a kid does not feel the warmth of the village they will find the warmth they deserve by setting it ablaze.
No. Life, liberty, rights, and privileges can - and should - be deprived upon conviction of a crime. The appropriate deprivation of rights and privileges as a sentence for murder is life imprisonment. Nothing of my opinion disregards any person as a person.
Your position, however, disregards the victim’s rights as a person. Further, you have advocated for stripping me of my rights to participate in governance based solely on your dislike for my opinion.
You have justified fascism.
I summarily reject your suggestion that a 15-year-old is so lacking in their capacity for executive control that they can be excused of murder.
This wasn’t an intrusive thought. This was a deliberate act.
By all means, be warm to the kid. Until he starts setting people on fire.