11-yr-old sets mom on fire w/15-yr-old bf.

There's your answer right there, messed up families raise messed up kids, and the more messed up the family the more messed up the kids. Combine messed up kids from different messed up families and I guess the resulting mess is greater than the sum of its parts.

She's young yet though, so there's probably still a pretty good chance they can help sort her head out. Maybe even for the boyfriend as well, though 15 is pushing it.

Makes me wonder about the quality of policing in that area though, if the best they can come up with is "teen angst".

 

Oh god! Remind me why I'm planning to move to that state.

 

Well said. +1

 

I'd be horribly disappointed if they tried the 15 year old as an adult. They're kids and are horribly messed up. Who ever said it earlier was probably right about the messed up family life. These kids come from bad backgrounds, so it makes sense that they'd act out in such a way.

They're kids and still have the chance to be turned around. It'd be terrible to sentence the 15 year old as an adult. The system would be giving up on a kid (one that according to their back ground, sounds like they didn't have a chance to begin with).

Terrible...

 

Well...having a greater selection of cute gay guys might play a small part...


I guess this kind of thing happens everywhere. I've known some pretty messed up families in Idaho.

 

Give them the death penalty.

 

That's tragic. Teen-angst my ass.

Exactly, right

The judicial system really upsets me. Sticking a child in jail is easier than dealing with the problem. It's a grown-up version of "your punishment is to sit in the corner". These kids need help, and unless there are fantastic facilities I'm unaware of, imprisoning young persons is more harmful than helpful. I understand that consequences have to exist, but why is the motive to punish greater than the motive to help?

 

Ummm, I'm quite familiar with mentally ill people from my own family. The young girl and her mother and her boyfriend probably all have psychiatric problems.

 

My wife and I both believe that after the age of twelve, a kid's trajectory is pretty well set. After that, it's usually too late to change things, unfortunately.

 

If you don't mind my asking, do you think then that it isn't worth trying to help anyone over the age of 12? Or do you instead feel that it's still worth trying, but that people shouldn't except results in the vast majority of cases because the chances of success are next to nothing?