What to do with a 13 year old sex offender?

[9-10ths_Penguin]

We need a 3rd way here for these terribly violent crimes. I think there are some limits when it comes to legally putting such young criminals in mental hospitals, though.

We have a very out-of-date legal system when it comes to issues of insanity and mental health. We seriously need to update it. This is not the 1700s any more, and we know a lot more about human psychology.

Canada has attempted to address this problem for adults as well as children with the introduction of dangerous offender status:

Dangerous offenders are not mentally disordered (see CRIMINAL CAPACITY). Neither are they common criminals, even recidivists, to whom the ordinary sentencing provisions of the Criminal Code apply. They belong to that small minority of offenders who are neither deterred nor reformed by ordinary punishment and who pose a serious risk to the mental or physical well-being of other members of society. The indeterminate sentence permits these offenders to be controlled until their dangerousness abates.

[...]

Dangerous offender status is addressed in a hearing held after an offender is convicted of an offence. Before the ordinary sentencing proceedings commence, the prosecution must duly notify the offender that a dangerous offender application shall be made. The provincial attorney general (minister of justice) or deputy minister must consent to the application[.]

The prosecution must establish two main matters beyond a reasonable doubt in the hearing. First, the conviction must have been for a "serious personal injury offence"[.] [...] Second, the offender must be "dangerous." If the conviction offence involved non-sexual violence, the offender must constitute a threat to other persons' lives, safety or physical or mental well-being.

[...]

If the judge finds the offender to be dangerous, the judge has the discretion to impose the determinate sentence warranted by the conviction offence, or a sentence of indeterminate detention. This decision is based on evidence relating to the offender's potential cure and treatment. If the judge imposes an indeterminate sentence, the offender is entitled to a parole review within three years from the date the offender was taken into custody, and every two years thereafter, until release.

The implementation of dangerous offender status has been controversial at times, but it is one approach.

Edit: however, I don't believe anyone under the age of 12 could ever be determined a "dangerous offender". Dangerous offender hearings only happen after conviction, and in Canada, children under the age of 12 are considered not legally responsible, and cannot be convicted of a crime.

 

[Smoke]

The implementation of dangerous offender status has been controversial at times, but it is one approach.

In the U.S., we'd probably end up releasing the rapists to make more room in the prisons for drug offenders.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

In the U.S., we'd probably end up releasing the rapists to make more room in the prisons for drug offenders.

But how will you have room in the prisons for drug offenders with all the "three strikes" shoplifters?

 

[Smoke]

But how will you have room in the prisons for drug offenders with all the "three strikes" shoplifters?

Build more prisons! I think the plan is that eventually everybody in the U.S. will be a prisoner, a guard, a politician, or a preacher.

 

[Booko]

Well, not all, since we live in an atmosphere of hysteria in which you can be classed as a sex offender for things like having sex in your car, public urination, and conspiracy to commit inappropriate touching.

Yes, we have gotten rather crazy, and there's no distinction made between actual serious offenses, smaller offenses, and things that shouldn't even be included.

My sister-in-law flipped out last summer when her 14-year old son was going across the street in their neighborhood to go swim in the neighbor's pool. He went out the door, went halfway across the street, realized his swim trunks were on backwards, ducked behind a shrub and turned them around.

If someone in that neighborhood had seen him and decided to be an idiot, he would've been classified as a "sex offender" for being a typically ditsy teenaged boy just turning his swim trunks around.

Welcome to America.

 

[Booko]

Canada has attempted to address this problem with the introduction of dangerous offender status:

The implementation of dangerous offender status has been controversial at times, but it is one approach.

Thanks, Penguin. As you know, I grew up fairly close to Canada (Michigan) and I sometimes wonder if I made a mistake moving south instead of north. Y'all have your problems too, but overall you still seem far more sensible in your approach.

I would expect the introduction of any new status like this to be controversial. New things like this always take a little time to get the minor problems tweaked out of them.

It certainly beats acting like we don't have an issue that needs dealing with, which seems to be our approach. We're more interested in Senators who play footsie in public loos I guess.

 

[Booko]

In the U.S., we'd probably end up releasing the rapists to make more room in the prisons for drug offenders.

No, we'd end up building more prisons. One of the downsides of privitizing prisons and their management is you end up with a system where there are more prison-building companies (widget companies) who want to sell more product (widgets) which in this case is more prisons.

The system is set up to incent more tax spending on prisons and not on ways to avoid having people end up there in the first place.

It's kind of bassackwards like the economic model behind our healthcare system.

And yeah, like you say eventually we'll all be prisoners, guards, preachers or politicians.

Since for religions reasons I can't be a preacher or a politician and a prisoner is not such a hot idea either, I guess that leaves me being a guard. Joy.

 

[jamaesi]

Yes, we have gotten rather crazy, and there's no distinction made between actual serious offenses, smaller offenses, and things that shouldn't even be included.

My sister-in-law flipped out last summer when her 14-year old son was going across the street in their neighborhood to go swim in the neighbor's pool. He went out the door, went halfway across the street, realized his swim trunks were on backwards, ducked behind a shrub and turned them around.

If someone in that neighborhood had seen him and decided to be an idiot, he would've been classified as a "sex offender" for being a typically ditsy teenaged boy just turning his swim trunks around.

Welcome to America.

I wonder what my sentence would have been for the time I accidentally locked myself out of my house... naked. I had a towel that was pretty much the equivalent of a washcloth desperately wrapped around my body.

 

[Ozzie]

Adante Joseph Manuel Thornton is 13 years old, six feet tall, 150 pounds, a level three sex offender, has been convicted of raping two boys (a five year old and a ten year old) and is to face trial for the rape of a six year old boy in September. He was released $100 bail.

Is it too much to ask that this person be sent to a juvenile detention center until adulthood? Or does anyone think that the system has failed the victims in this instance?

13-year-old sex offender moves into Hoodsport | Local News | KING5.com | News for Seattle, Washington

13-Year-Old Sex Offender Moves to Mason County : Code 911 : Kitsap Sun

Is there a case for asking whether this individual knows right from wrong at 13 especially given the repeat offending? The case plays at the margins IMO.

More specifically does anyone know whether there is a rebuttable presumption this individual does not know right from wrong where this decision was made?

 

[Hema]

Give him a good spanking on his little 13 year old arse.

 

[Smoke]

Give him a good spanking on his little 13 year old arse.

For his third rape?! I think we're past the spanking stage, here; in fact, I suspect the boy has been abused plenty already.

 

[Ozzie]

Give him a good spanking on his little 13 year old arse.

Sounds like back *sheesh*!

 

[Hema]

For his third rape?! I think we're past the spanking stage, here; in fact, I suspect the boy has been abused plenty already.

I agree that spanking is mild...I dunno, I just got so angry when I learnt about this that the statement just came to my mind. It's like a cultural thing in my country when you hear about a child being bad - we just say something like, "He needs a good spanking on his arse".

Okay, okay...send him to bootcamp!

 

[Don Penguinoini]

Ive said it before and ill say it again, CUT IT OFF!!

 

[powder21]

I think he needs to be put in a high security mental hospital.

I agree as well. At thirteen, I'm thinking something obviously happened to him at a young age to screw him up, so I DO sympathize. However, I think it is absolutely atrocious to allow this child his freedom after admitting to these rapes. He's old enough to know that he's done wrong and yet he continued to do wrong after the first conviction. He needs to be locked up and if I were the victims parents, there's no telling what I might have done when I found out that he was released.

 

[zombieharlot]

He was released to his parents? Who can watch a teen or anyone for that matter 24/7?

Forget about the fact that their parenting skills probably played part in how this boy got to this place in his life to begin with. :sarcastic

 

[Kungfuzed]

If he isn't locked up soon it's only a matter of time before someone kills him. If it were my daughter that was molested he'd be dead already. He should be locked away in a mental hospital, even though there doesn't seem to be a cure for pedophiles, but perhaps he's still young and pliable enough to be molded back into shape.

 

[Don Penguinoini]

I wouldnt bother fixinghim...