after all the measure of worth for youth today is apparently their athletic prowess.
And yes this is snark.

so I didn't read it until just now.

n/t

but I can't help but notice that 4 out of the 5 are being tried as adults and the animals from Ohio were not.

once upon a time sportsmanship was all about doing the right thing - now it is win at any cost, even if it means your little sports-stars are bullies, rapists, whatever.

or is it simply a matter of the intertubes causing more of us to see what has been the sad, sorry state of affairs for decades?

I'm glad incidents like this get exposure. If nothing else, it serves as a cautionary tale for people whose first instinct is to offer assistance to strangers. It's a damn shame that sociopaths such as these teens prey upon vulernable people, but it occurs at all strata of society - all the way up to corporate boardrooms - so it's important that people are careful. It doesn't appear likely that Sociopath Nation is going away any time soon, so please be careful.

So the only response is to arm every 6 month old with a baby bazooka so they can shoot an assailant before they get shot.

You know, if ignorance is truly bliss, then Tea Baggers must be on the verge of a never ending orgasm. From my observations, that does not seem to be the case, therefore that premise must be wrong.

I wonder how the NRA will respond to the Quantico killings. With silence, I bet.

this kind of depravity in young people when I grew up (60's & 70's). Guns at functions, even fights, were unheard of. Now they'll kill you for $1.98 and never look back.

No Manson family memories? Nothing about Altamont, the RAF and Baader Meinhof, or the 200 riots during the time, such as Detroit and Newark? ("Today we stand amidst the ashes of our hopes" and "I know the kids here. I know the hard ones and the good kids. And it was the good kids in my ward who first threw the bricks through the windows.&quot No memories of airplane hijackings with dead hostages?

There are just three times as many people now.

No one said there wasn't violence. But the incidents you mention were exceptions. They were highly unusual. They made the news for MONTHS. What I'm talking about is today's culture of everyday carnage. We didn't have 16-year-olds opening fire with semi-automatic weapons. We had some pretty outrageous parties in my time and the WORST thing that could happen was a fist fight. There were never guns. There were not 13-year-olds stuffing 89-year-olds in trunks. These incidents make the news for a day, maybe a few days, and it's on to the next carnage. These incidents are now COMMON. I would think the difference would be obvious even to the most casual observer.

Guns are far more common and available now (almost one gun per person), forty years of gun promotion has broken down any inhibition to using them on someone, and there are three times as many people now. Three times as many psychopaths, three times as many sociopaths, and three times as many personality and conduct disorders. Back then, CNN, MSNBC, and FOX weren't around to cover every sensational, salacious story 24/7 when they had a moment between Congressional scandals or the latest war. Is it worse in a per-capita sense? Maybe, but look at the culture you were raised with and look at the culture that children are raised with now.

We could debate this until blue in the face. If there's a cultural or societal problem, what's the plan and where do we go from here? "What do we have, and what do we need?"

age be lowered to 18.

"Some say" that the brain is not fully developed until the 20s, so adding legal consumption of another mind-altering substance may well be imprudent.

edited to add link to earlier thread http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2533928

A drinking age of 18 is just common sense. Or would you rather raise the min. age for joining the military to 21?

common sense - considering the maturation of the brain, especially impulse control, is not complete until the 20s.

Laws do not *prevent* any specific behavior, but for most folks are an effective deterrent.

Joining the military, and the age for it, is a different discussion.

If they aren't mature enough to buy their own booze? Ridiculous.

age to join the military.

It is not a case of 'do thing A because of or despite thing B', but two different things.

Get your congresspeople to raise one age and/or lower the other.

Yet another discussion could well be if people are not satisfied with what congress has done/is doing, why are so many of them reelected to what amounts a full career? Boot them out. Every two years there is an opportunity to change all of one group and one third of the other, but there is about a 90% success rate of everyone keeping their jobs in spite of low approval ratings. They know this, and don't seem to really care about wants/needs of their constituents.

But then one hears the rebuttal "Well, MY congressperson is one of the good ones!" Bah!

Make an example out of them, and keep them away from decent people.

Can we lock THEM in a trunk for 2 days? Please...pretty please??

This kind of thing makes me soooooooooooo angry.

The actions of these 'kids' is despicable!

Sounds to me like they stepped into adult territory...and somehow, I doubt that they didn't know that what they did was horrid and wrong.

Get one car for each of them and put them in it. Better yet, put a camera in each one so we can watch. Humiliation would be an added bonus.

.. lock them up long enough that they can't breed. We need to get this strain of crazy out of the gene pool.

I don't know if a geneticist would agree with me, but I wouldn't want this bunch producing any offspring.

Like she should get used to the idea.

They had no idea what her health was like. She could have required medicine or some type of medical procedure during the time she was locked up that could have killed her if she missed it. Also, she could have had an elderly husband at home dependent upon her to take care of him, and he could have died when she didn't return home.

There are way too many uncaring, unsympathetic, mean, angry people walking around today.

Very glad this woman survived.

Severe punishment is needed, but it does occur to me that people don't get this way "on their own". One wonders what kind of life one needs to lead to be quite this callous, and stupid. Immersion in a culture where this kind of callousness couldn't even be concieved would seem necessary here. Exposure to people with some rational thought and critical thinking skills might be useful too. Pretty much means a GOP free zone.

By the by, haven't there been internal trunk releases in cars since about '85?

Fuck them.

when you're finally let out.

In some sort of reasonable way. Not with decades in prison.

To do that to an elderly lady tells me they are already incorrigible

THEY COULD HAVE KILLED THAT WOMAN. BY EXTREME FORTUNE THEY DIDN'T.

40 years in the slammer should fix their wagons real nice.

attack on another person .

These are sociopaths. Sadly more and more of them around. Why? I don't know but I don't want them on the streets.

Cruelty is always horrible but it's especially infuriating when it's a betrayal of kindness. How could anybody be so horribly mean to a sweet woman who'd trusted them and been kind to them?

Margaret Smith is Superwoman, seriously. She looks and sounds amazing... I can't believe she's 89. I would really like to know a little bit about her... how could anybody, let alone someone her age, survive what she went through and still be so strong? She's incredible.

Edited because I noticed right as I hit "post" that they were going to be tried as adults. GOOD!

which caused them to do this in the first place? How about we "lock up" those abject failures known as their "parents?"

It's intended to protect society from them.

These CHILDREN (which is what a 14-year-old is!) have obviously had a life of neglect at best. No normal child decides to lock an elderly woman in a trunk and carjack people. This is psychotic behavior.

I have heard that some of these kids are the children of crack babies! So genetically there may be issues, as well. But they need psychiatric care.

I have heard that prisons these days are FULL of mentally ill people. That is just wrong.

It's a large problem within the mental health community.

Edit: Shameless advertising of a new group: http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1260

Not everyone who commits a horrible violent crime is mentally ill. And most mentally ill people aren't violent.

Schizophrenia does NOT typically cause violent behavior. However, I do believe that everyone who does something violent has a mental problem of some sort. In some cases it's a borderline personality, which may mean that the person is very charming, scheming, etc.

Otherwise, what is the other explanation for violence? If you were abused as as child and are violent now, you have a mentally disorder which causes you to do so. This is NOT demonizing the mentally ill! My whole point is that what is happening right now is that the jails are full of people in need of major HELP, not simply to lock them away like animals. I bet the vast, vast majority of those incarcerated were abused by someone in their past (I think it's been documented).

*Edit: And I agree that dangerous children and adults need to be kept from harming others. It's just WHERE they are kept that I am debating!

Maybe they feel better afterward, or maybe because it gets them money, or maybe because they think it's funny, or maybe because they want control over someone. Not everyone who is violent was abused either, although that is sometimes behind it, though it doesn't absolve people of responsibility for their actions, nor does it necessarily make them mentally ill.

People who commit violent crimes should be in jail.

I disagree with your premise that someone just "chooses" to be violent. Violence is a physical manifestation of rage. I believe that when children and teens display such rage, they are very disturbed and yes, have most likely been brutalized by adults in their care and past. It may not always be the parents doing it but even in molestation cases, there is usually a parent who is unsupportive or lax in proper supervision. How many girls go to their mothers and tell them that the mother's boyfriend is messing with them and the mother either calls the daughter a liar or get JEALOUS that the daughter is attracting the boyfriend?!

This society is so hellbent on PUNISHMENT. I can't believe that in 2013 people still believe in "spare the rod, spoil the child." There is a real lack of understanding of how adults are supposed to MODEL behavior, not use physical intimidation as a way of controlling the child.

I don't believe in "spare the rod, spoil the child." I also don't believe in allowing violent criminals out and about around my kids. In our society, there is either jail (or prison), or out and about.

They are but among the rapist ones their dicks are fully grown. That woman deserved to die after a peaceful life without these memories. They knew they were doing unlawful stuff. They just didn't care. Scam of the earth.

Furthermore, I don't see this as being about violence particularly but more about callous disregard for others, so I'm not sure rage is applicable. Nor is violence always a physical manifestation of rage. Some people enjoy violence. These kids may or may not have been abused, but they are clearly a danger to others.

locking them up temporarily help them or protect the public? They didn't kill her, thank God. So how long will they be in the detention center? What sort of counseling will they get? Will anyone treat them like they are worthwhile human beings or will they just get dumped with other psychotic kids?

Sorry, but these kids pose a real danger to others and they have to be locked up. I'm all for providing services to them in detention or jail, including counseling, education and recreational opportunities, but they have to be in locked facility. Unfortunately, we don't provide those things in most youth detention facilities, let alone in prisons (though I have worked as an advocate in prisons where such services do exist), but there really isn't an alternative to locking them up.

that are also lockdown ones.

As for your statement that they are spoiled, from the pictures of these perps, they don't look like they hail from upper-middle-class environs. And then I went to Wikipedia and looked up Milford, DE. It states: "The city of Milford has a crime rate higher than the national average in some categories, much higher in rape, assault, and theft, and lower in others."

The question is how will locking them up temporarily help them or protect the public?

That infers that we shouldn't lock them up.

As for spoiled, I was using it as in ruined. And yes, I think that kids that commit as callous a crime as this one, are pretty ruined. That doesn't mean that I don't believe that they should get help and services and that it's possible to reverse it.

because they will not see much time. They are young, they did not murder her, and even some murder cases has the perp out in ten years! I doubt they will be in the joint past their 21st birthday. And the trouble is that if they are not rehabilitated (which I doubt these settings provide), they will likely be even worse.

(On a side note, it would be that I IMPLIED something...Infer is what you do when reading the info )

The charges are likely to include, kidnapping and car jacking. 4 or the 4 are being tried in adult court. They could well get stiff sentences. In any case neither of us knows. And yes, we both agree that rehab is preferable, but as you note, that's unlikely.

that doesn't mean they all do. Some people are just bad seeds and come from good stock and have lots of love but just don't care. We don't know the background and are all just speculating. Luckily the jury should get the facts and hopefully make the right decision to keep society safe from these sociopaths and would be murderers. My mom is 89, and there's no way she would have survived that ordeal.

I do think that some children are born with particular issues that parents may not have the sensitivity to handle. Especially nowadays with many parents working and so many single-parent homes, adult attention is more divided than ever. Some children are born more sensitive than others and may have all sorts of other challenges, including learning disabilities (which create a sense of inferiority inside), anxiety disorders (including OCD), and ADD.

The problem is that children are being medicated without being TALKED TO. A lot of children are hurting these days. Did you know one of the Steubenville perps (the Black male who cried in court and apologized to the victim's family) didn't have his dad in his life? His dad admitted that he was not there for his son and told his son that he loved him! I believe that this one act opened up his son's heart and gave him EMPATHY for what he had done to the girl.

The scary thing is that there are young people with so much anger and hurt that they have no conscience.

I think that most people who are violent and anti-social have some untreated developmental problems. Maybe one of these kids is a born sociopath. The condition is rare enough that it is unlikely true of all of them.

In any case, there should be a method of treating these kids, at least to the point of determining whether it would be fruitless.

Violence and indifference are not signs of normalcy.

--imm

I know plenty of guys who didn't have a father figure who still manage to respect women and not rape them just because the girl is drunk. That's a BS excuse. Having no conscience sounds like being a bad seed to me. But that's just my interpretation based on life's observations.

As far as his tears, sorry don't buy it. He's remorseful that he got caught and is sufferring reprecusions, not sorry for the girl. If he had empathy. he wouldn't have particpated in ruining that young woman's life, but guess what - he didn't.

I know people who's parents were raging drunks and they turned in to upstanding citizens and are raising good children. I know people who had great caring parents who totally suck at life, while their siblings are very successful. Parenting matters, I totally believe that. I also have seen how 2 people raised excactly the same can turn out very different. I think it's nature and nuture together that form a child and that some are just broke.

And cannot be cured.

I disagree! I seriously doubt that a normal person can make it to adulthood and "suddenly" become a psychopath. Violent? Yes. If someone has an addiction and continues to spiral downward, an alcoholic blackout can lead to tragedy. But a psychopath is a long time coming. Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy didn't just wake up one day and start doing serial murders. They showed signs earlier and even did things (I think Gacy raped someone as a teen and Dahmer abused animals).

This is a pretty big sign to me.

quite a broad brush stroke you are using there.

that my own thought processes are not subject to such black-or-white reasoning.

You don't find that to be black-and-white: "lock them away?"

I concur with the sentiment that, once these budding young sociopaths get tried and convicted as adults, they are locked up for a long LONG time. I wouldn't characterize that as black-or-white thinking on the part of the person who made the OP and titled this thread, as I am familiar with her posts and have never seen anything to indicate that she believes all juveniles should be tried as adults.

On the other hand, how familiar are YOU with cali's posting history? Is it always your practice to join a web discussion group and start dispensing allegations? Please DO, proceed, Governor!

Only about 99.9%.

You know, the single parent who worked long hours after having her first kid at 16 to eventually put away enough to buy a house in an area where the kids could have a decent education. This produced two nearly-perfect people who are well-adjusted and live normal lives, and one who spent months as the city's most-wanted fugitive several years back, despite every attempt at fixing him. She's clearly an "abject failure", neglectful, and whatever else some random Internet coward wants to call her, despite the uncountable hours spent providing for her children, trying to figure out where she might have gone wrong with him, and get him diverted into a prison treatment program once he was apprehended. In your world, none of that relates to the decisions her son made for himself at the age of 22. You want to jail her too because it's somehow "clearly" her fault, that she should have consulted the random Internet coward who has a clear course of action that somehow evaded the trained specialists.

Fuck you and the self-righteous, moralizing high horse you rode in on.

there's plenty of blame to go around, but at the end of the day, these kids have gotten to a point where I don't think hugs and kisses and positive affirmation by itself is going to work.

Sure, some of that needs to be employed but something negative needs to be employed as well. Clearly there has been a dearth of both positive and negative reinforcement in their lives.

So, yes significant jail time is unavoidable here.

It seems mainly to be so we can be outraged, cluck our tongues, and say, "Oh, those terrible kids."

I posted this for 2 reasons: 1) It struck me as particularly callous. 2) I was amazed that the woman survived.

I would imagine that disappointed her captors. I'm sure, given the chance, they will simply try harder to kill next time.

In other words, any crime you care to mention is 'local' to some community, but that doesn't mean the crime or the punishment are meaningless within society at large. If I were a more cynical sort, I would say that your comment is a passive-aggressive attempt at stifling discussion, but since I'm not, I'll just say that the title of this thread alone should have provided an inkling of the topic under discussion and provided ample opportunity to 'hide thread' or merely skip over it.

I hate seeing kids get so messed up at such a young age. That's really one of my least favorite things to see, and I am powerless to prevent it.

If she'd busted out and kicked those kids' asses into low-Earth orbit, that would have been heroic.

were predators running in a pack. As predators do, they chose the weakest victim they could find. I would not be at all surprised if they came from fucked up family circumstances but I'm not buying that they were all mentally ill.

Try them as adults and put them away for a long time!

why they would do something like this. They are lucky that she didn't die or they'd be facing murder charges.

Yep, lock them up and start each of their time with 2 days in the trunk of a car.

...be given a dose of their own medicine and then whatever else the judge deems appropriate. That 89-yr-old lady must have nerves of steel and be relatively healthy for her age. It would have killed anyone else her age. Ms Smith is one tough cookie!

It's just the one they got caught for........ and they picked the wrong woman to mess with.

it's not like she fought her way out of the trunk and wrestled them out of the drivers seat.

in what way did they 'pick the wrong woman'?

they could have killed her if they'd chosen to.

and this is just my opinion, girls (females) can be just as vicious as boys (males) when it comes to the treatment of others. As another DUer said, "These things don't happen in a vacuum."

an 89 year old. Do these scumbags not have grandparents?

Who are these people?

All I can say now is that I'm really fucking happy that I'll never have the opportunity to hire your stupid asses.

Embrace it. Fucking idiots. Never. And you're lucky that I don't drop in on your stupid bitch asses.

Yes, said bitch. Fuck you, they are what they are.

Be glad you don't come to know me.

As someone pointed out, at her age she is probably pretty frail and the stress I'm sure was awful. If it had been summer, it might have been hot enough to kill her. I hope the kids get what they deserve. Locked in the truck of a car for 2 days, followed by carting them off to prison.