[Vision2020] More than rascals

[deb]

Having worked as a counselor with just such youth, I also think this consequence is very light.

 In my experience, development of a conscience and the ability to feel for others must happen before age 10. If it doesn't (and in this case appears to not have happened) the person in question is unlikely to ever have empathy, not to mention impulse control, social skills beyond predatory machinations, and a sense of right vs wrong. Long term therapy can help them with enlightened self interest, but they still will have those sociopathic tendencies.

 It doesn't help that Idaho has closed or downsized so many Health and Welfare offices, which means these boys are unlikely to get the continued counseling and monitoring they will need. And where the heck were their parents? They get to go back to the very people who left them unsupervised (with guns) for an extended period of time....

Sadly, our system is not set up to prevent further difficulties with and for these boys....it is set up to create more of them, given our lack of funding for public school programs that actually assist kids through developmental stages which encompass empathy, consideration, and critical thinking skills...We seem to be raising a generation of kids who think life is a video game, people are only images, and consequences end when you turn off the game. You can always start again, good as new, in a differnt persona...

Debi R-S
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Rosemary 
  To: 'Vision 2020' 
  Sent: Monday, April 26, 2010 1:00 PM
  Subject: [Vision2020] More than rascals


  I am by nature and family livelihood sympathetic to the defense side in most legal battles.  However, 14 year old kids who spend an afternoon shooting at passing motorists for the pure hell of it aren't just rascals they are, at the very least, moronic little thugs.  The notion that 30 days detention and three years of probation is an adequate sentence for their crimes is ludicrous.  How  long do you think it will be before these punks graduate to bigger and nastier offenses - although shooting at people is not exactly bush league,  is it?

  Rose Huskey



------------------------------------------------------------------------------


  =======================================================
   List services made available by First Step Internet, 
   serving the communities of the Palouse since 1994.   
                 http://www.fsr.net                       
            mailto:Vision2020 at moscow.com
  =======================================================


------------------------------------------------------------------------------



  Internal Virus Database is out of date.
  Checked by AVG - www.avg.com 
  Version: 8.5.427 / Virus Database: 270.14.133/2612 - Release Date: 01/10/10 19:35:00
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20100426/5ecb4047/attachment.html