If you don’t speak Portuguese, you probably won’t understand this news article, but it’s like this: a group of minors, between 10 and 15 years old, have just murdered a homeless man, in Oporto, Portugal. Apparently, they stoned and kicked him to death.
Surprisingly, not much has been said yet (though I admit I don’t watch TV or listen to radio, I only read news sites), other than a couple of politicians saying “I’m shocked!”. But, having lived in Portugal all my life, I can easily see where this is going. Politicians here, who sometimes remind me of Atlas Shrugged villains, are probably going to say that the kids are minors according to the law, that they aren’t responsible for their actions, that they are the true victims, that this is all society’s fault, that they can’t possibly be seen, or treated, as criminals, that all children are innocent, that this or that is to blame, and so on. In other words, collectivism, and the denial of that bothersome thing called “personal responsibility”.
I can bet that no one among them will be punished in any way. I really, really hope I am wrong… but I’ve seen how justice works here.
Me, my belief is this: by commiting murder (and it’s murder, make no mistakes), they lost the right to be treated as “innocent” children. By acting like adults, and doing one of the worst things an adult can do (killing an innocent, just for fun), they should be treated as adults, and punished as such.
What do you people think? Should their young age make a difference here?
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I’m fairly certain that in Portugal, like most western countries, politicians don’t enforce laws or prosecute crimes, so what they say really has no bearing on the case.
Your legal reasoning can also lead to some unintended consequences. Your standard is whether children are acting like adults, and if so, they should be prosecuted like adults. With that reasoning, you could claim that since a pedophile’s victims consented to sexual activities with an adult (behaving like an adult), and that no force was used whatsoever, pedophilia should not be a crime. What if an adult trained a child to break into houses and steal from its owners? Would you charge the child with theft and the adult with conspiracy? And since this child is behaving like an adult, why not send him into prison with other adults?
Most people recognize that children are not adults and not capable of making adult decisions, and neuroscience supports this. The rational centers of the brain that enable people to comprehend the consequences of their actions are not completely developed until age 25, which is 7 years worth of development past the age that you are legally held responsible for your actions. Without being able to peer into people’s brains to find out if they understand the consequences of their actions and whether they are acting as adults, you have the draw the line somewhere, which means that some people won’t get the punishment they deserve.
Although now I hear you making a completely opposite argument against collectivism. On one hand, you fault collectivism (and religion) for training people to be obedient and conform to society’s moral expectations, but now collectivism is faulted for not doing that. So which is it? It seems that no matter what the problem, collectivism is at fault.
The problem, as I see it, is that individualism is cruel. Everyone who doesn’t live up to the moral standards of the individualist ought to be punished, which is a very comfortable position to be in when you define everyone else as morally deficient. The man with the words “personal responsibility” on his tongue is ready with a hammer in his hands to dispense justice to those who displease him. Working to improve conditions to make it easier for people to make right decisions is also seen as morally deficient since it prevents deficient people from being destroyed.
But this is an easy opinion to have, living in a collectivist society and benefitting from its protection. Its easy to claim that you are more moral that other people when you don’t have to face the same conditions that they do, but its difficult to prove. The individualist claims that he is successful and moral because he is Good, but the inferior, the unsuccessful and morally deficient are that way because they are Bad. This very Christian idea is easy to claim, but difficult to prove. You ask us to restructure society based on your beliefs that some people are inherently bad? Where’s the evidence for this?
You miss the obvious: it is possible to make it easy for people to make the right decisions, and let them face reasonable consequences when they make the harmful choices. This is just common sense. There’s nothing wrong with saying that we ought to find ways to make sure that children are not being abandoned by their parents and have access to education, and if they still end up as murderers then we ought to prosecute them to the extent that it is reasonable to prosecute a 10 year old. Instead, you are saying that the reason they are murderers is because we are helping them too much.
Yes, but judges, here, are extremely affected by public opinion, not to mention politicians’ statements. The moment the press starts mentioning how so and so is a “victim”, we can usually be sure that he’ll be considered innocent and released. That has included pedophiles (with evidence, witnesses against them, and all that), murderers, and so on.
The difference is that, in your example, the child is the victim of sexual abuse (even if he or she is too young to realize it). If a child murders someone, it’s quite different.
I fault collectivism for telling people that nobody is responsible for their actions, that we are all just a product of our education, our society, our influences (those pesky video games!), our skin color, our genes, and other absurdities like that. I believe in choice, and, yes, personal responsibility.
Hmm? Where did I imply such a thing? I do believe, though, that if someone commits a crime, “it was the environment I grew in, your honor!” isn’t an excuse.
I don’t see it in terms of “easy” or “hard”, sorry.
Again, I said no such thing. The problem I see here is just one: I’m sure that nothing will happen to them, simply because they’re minors, and because everyone will say that they are the victims (of society, of their environment, whatever).
The Negligence of the Law in the Young Offenders… It is amazing how it comes that we still assist to such negligence on handling such cases of Young Offenders. If we take into consideration the age of the young involved, it would be applied the “Young Offenders Act” clause, this if Portugal happened to be a member of the “Organization of American States”, of course, but it doesn’t…
In my opinion they should be held accountable for their criminal acts, although not in the same manner or to the same extent as adults. It is in society’s interest to ensure that as many young offenders as possible are rehabilitated and become productive members of society and become productive responsible adults. But this gives to much concern and trouble, so we just wash our hands of it and let them go back on the streets again until they grow up to really dangerous adult criminals.
But a child who is taught to break into homes is the same - its a child committing an adult crime. You believe that a child committing this crime ought to go to an adult prison like any other adult?
This is a contradiction. You say that there is no such thing as outside influences that alter people’s behavior, but you also say that collectivism (an outside influence) is altering people’s behavior.
I don’t believe that there is any such contradiction present in this statement. Of course outside influences have an effect on people’s behaviour, and of course collectivism is one of those influences. But to assert the idea that noone can be held responsible for their actions because of these influences is absurd. Behaviour is not a deterministic system. Sorry for butting in on this, but I feel strongly that regardless of how well developed the brains of the children involved here, they all know that to kill another person is wrong.
A case was tried a little over a year ago in New Zealand where a then 12 year old boy was the ringleader of a gang of teenagers, all older than himself, who beat a pizza delivery guy to death for the money he carried on him. Because of his age he was sentenced to a lesser term than an adult would have been and was required to serve this out in a juvenile facility. Now I would not question the idea that the circumstances this boy grew up in (he came from a poor neighbourhood) had an influence on his behaviour. I would not question the fact that, had he had money available to him to purchase drugs, alcohol and cigarettes (which his gang spent the money on), there in all likelihood would have been no murder committed that night. But I would seriously question any assertion that the choice of whether or not to kill to gain that money was ever out of the boy’s hands.
Mike: Geoff said mostly what I was going to say: I don’t deny that there are external influences here (or everywhere else). What I deny is the collectivist belief that we are all powerless victims of external influences / environment / etc., up to a point where neither a hero should be praised (he owes it to society, upbringing, genes), nor a criminal punished (he’s a victim of society, upbringing, genes).
While we may be pushed to one side or the other, ultimately it’s all our choice.
If you admit the possibility of external influences, then you have to admit that the collectivist perspective has some truth to it. I think its perfectly valid, and in fact necessary, to argue that in any one particular situation, society tends to be too individualistic or too collectivist, but I don’t think its particularly helpful to portray the two sides in absolute terms of good vs. evil. It is frequently the case that individualism (or collectivism) works for you, so you believe in it - I think this is short-sighted. Its important to acknowledge the importance of other worldviews that hold an element of truth in them, even when those truths can be taken to extremes and applied in ways that are not valid, and when those truths aren’t applicable in our lives at the moment. To fail to do this is to create a contradiction, because individualism and collectivism can’t exist without each other.
It is impossible for individualism to exist without the protection of the collective, in the same way that no growth can occur without the initiative of the individual. Intelligent people sometimes make the mistake of thinking that one is superior to the other, and this is something that I would like to avoid. At this point, I think its much more fruitful to put our efforts into unifying false dichotomies instead of oscillating between opposite, either/or ideas. I think you are a compelling thinker and writer and you have insight, but sometimes of only half the picture. Its not my intention to antagonize you, but to challenge you to look at both sides.
When any individual who is old enough to know the laws of society, and what is right and wrong within society breaks the law that protects the sanctity of human life by committing act(s) of murder that individula forefeits their own right to live. I once was totally against the death penalty and strongly believed in rehabilitation up onto a few years ago. A very nice older gentleman who lived in our neighborhood was found savagely beaten to death in his home. The 15 year old man who killed him admitted the crime, as well as admitted that he broke into the old guys house to rob him. This kid’s criminal history began at the age of 12. He came for a struggling hard working family. He did a short jail times on and off for breaking the law up until his release a week before he committed the murder of the elderly man. He has an older brother and a younger sister, both began work as soon as they were old enough to support themself through high school and college. This is to say they took part-time jobs to earn money while going to school. It was a death pentalty case becasue the crime was premediated as stated in his freely given confession. His lawyer argued, his youth, his not knowing right from wrong, that he grew up playing violent video games and that he couldn’t seperate reality from fantasy and the defense began to blame the victim (if only Mr. Smith wasn’t at home during the burglary, If only he would have given up his valueables, ATM card pin code, or didn’t try to fight back, then maybe he would still be alive). The sad part about the trial is that the jury found him guilty of manslaughter and the sentence given was the miminum (five years, with a probation hearing after 1 year). 3 months into his jail time he was found guilty of rapping, stabbing and taking a cartoon of cigarettes from an inmate who had just got into the prison for shop lifting. Is this the type of person who deserves to live in a society that holds human life as a sacred gift? You tell me - is this someone you want living in your neighborhood, around your children, around your grandparents or parents. He can’t even be civil in prison. Why should we make him the poster boy for life?