Quote:Original post by Ravuya
I just shared a train ride back with a bunch of junior high kids, so I'm not exactly in the right frame of mind here.
They're a particularly brutal bunch. During junior high the "pecking order" that will persist through high school is being established and kids are settling into social groups/statuses that will remain with them until the end of their secondary schooling. It's an awful process and is actually not necessary, but the way teenage children are interned for six hours a day while their parents are off at work causes teens to go crazy and create Lord of the Flies-esque societies. Their existence lacks purpose, so they become frustrated and do stupid things. They're also still treated like pre-pubescent children, so they don't learn a lot of core responsabilities of being a productive member of society, and are more destructive as a result. In my dream society, lower education would end at the 8th grade, tying up a few loose ends like algebra, economics, government, reading/writing, etc. Then teenagers could be given "apprenticeships" in an industry they're interested in, and take some higher education classes at an independent pace to gain proficiency in the industry they are apprentices for. That way, the teen won't feel like he's being trapped in a playpen all day, they learn some practical skills, contribute to society, and by they're 18 most will be geared up to work full-time careers. Basically what I'm trying to say is, teenagers are so fucked up because they're dead weight and they know it.
Quote:
The kid doing the stabbing should be stabbed himself, and then hung.
That sets an example of a double standard to the community, and doesn't right the wrong the perpetrator did to his victum. The purpose of a justice system should be to protect society from dangerous people, not exact vengence.
Quote:
The family of the stabber should be forced to apologize to him and his family, and then pay for his medical bills.
Sounds good to me.
Quote:
If they can't afford it, they should have their belongings repossessed and sold at public auction.
Causing more poverty, which is one of many causes of this problem. Sounds like a bad idea to me. If they can't afford it, I say they pay what they can, and have the attacker work off the difference.
Quote:
The gym teacher should be lynched for not stopping the kid in time.
Not really. He or she may have not been able to for various reasons, and in any event, the teacher wasn't the one who attacked the kid.
Quote:
Public school needs to walk their "zero tolerance" bullshit, because this is getting out of hand.
Zero Tolerance doesn't work. The best way to end this kind of madness is to fight poverty and end the war on drugs (which causes more poverty).
Quote:
Does the kid who did the stabbing have worth to society? Hell no.
You're damn right. This goes back to what I said in the first paragraph. He knows he's worthless, and it pisses him off.
Quote:The court's going to give him a slap on the wrist and then a couple months later he'll murder or rape somebody.
And I fucking hate that. When I was 13, a kid beat me over the head with a thick, hard bound text book and hurt me pretty badly. He got a slap on the wrist and I don't think it even shows up on his police record (which I'm sure is quite long by now). Troubled teenagers are "passed through the system" in more ways than one. There are teens in high school that don't even know how to read. If you find a teen in a court room, chances are, he'll show up there multiple times. The same old cycle over and over. It's disgusting but that's just how it is (until there's a massive effort to make changes).