Don't really give a shit just like the kids apparently didn't.
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7 teens in Philadelphia assault elderly man on camera; victim dies following day
- Thread starter mbpm
- Start date
you are right. a lot of people here have seriously never had to leave their insulated internet lives and think law and order is a documentary not a tv show.
I personally believe murderers can and should be rehabilitated, especially children. If we are not able to rehabilitate a child to the point where we can eventually reintroduce them into society, then we are absolutely failing.
Its no excuses. We've had the killings since ive been alive; we spent a good 20-30 years jailing "superpredators" both hardened shooters and dudes that might possibly grow up to be shooters on some three strikes/broken windows. We sent em to death row, cops shot em in the street, worse killers murdered them on the way up just on some street shit.
Yet 2022, same old man getting murdered.
Ok, well then book them danno I guess.
We're on the same page.
Him and Krasner are a joke. They'd rather poke blame at each other than confront the issues and work together. They've both helped the city go down the drain. Even when they were going to receive outside help they just turned it into a pissing match.
one of my oldest buddies worked at a school in the "less good" part of the city here and he basically said that the season of the wire where prez became a teacher was underselling how bad it is right now.
I would say that here is where we actually differ. Because I look at this video and I just don't see the signs of a premeditated murder, or the idea that they discussed this at all beforehand. First off, these are teenagers. It's frankly going to take a lot for me leap to the assumption that this particular group of kids met at night to kill this particular man. To me, there are just too many signs of otherwise. Why are there several kids who look surprised, aren't participating, or just visibly shocked by what's happening? Why are the actual aggressors' weapon of choice a set of traffic cones? I also have to point out my own lived experience; I'm born and raised in South Central/Inglewood California. I know what a group of kids hanging out after hours and looking to get into trouble but not looking to kill anybody looks like. This looks more like that, and to be clear pointing that out is not erasing culpability. If their intent were just to roughhouse this old man that's still fucked up and wrong. These kids are going to feel the consequences of what they were a part of for years to come, both legally and (hopefully) within their own conscience, as they should. And I feel so sad for James Lambert, his family, his community and anybody who knew him.
I think you and I agree with that part. But if your thought process is that this was premeditated, then it's not surprising to me that you arrived at the conclusion that they're irredeemable. I can't honestly say I'd arrive at irredeemable myself if my thought process were the same...but I'd be pretty close.
Respectfully, I can't agree with this. Of course, we cannot gloss over the fact that a man is dead. No matter how much anybody (including myself) tries contextualizing the actions of these kids, there can be no ignoring that their actions resulted in someone's murder. But even still, I can't in good conscience compare this incident to, as has been mentioned, the Uvaldi killer. That's an animal, that's barbaric to me. The man who got into a car, drove to a Buffalo NY grocery store, and shot down elderly black shoppers with an AR15 that had the word "Niggers" written on it, that's irredeemable to me. We've seen what it looks like when people intentionally set out to kill, and that does not look like this. That does not look like a group of kids who all jump with shock at whatever happened at 0:59.
And making that distinction is no small deal, imo. Because we have evidence that when we allow language that should be reserved for actual cold-blooded killers to be passed down, it continues to be passed down. And that's not a toothless slippery slope argument. I know what it's like to be a young Black kid afraid to slip up because you'll instantly be compared to the worst society has to offer, because so many people inherently see that potential in you. It's why it's so damn hard to prioritize true criminal justice and prison reform in this country, because too many people (including people on the left as this thread has gloriously demonstrated) fail to understand why we should throw resources behind measures that are only going to help "animals" in waiting.
If we want solutions, we have to constantly be vigilant about how we engage with the problems.
I think a useful change would be to stop looking for reasons to call these kids monsters. Stop looking for reasons to lump these kids into one group, and start treating violence of the sort we see here as a symptom and owning our part in how we've failed these kids. Because if we don't do that, then the prison reform debate won't ever matter, because prison will continue to be the place we're sending inner-city kids by truckload.
I wish I had a better answer for you. I just know how we shouldn't talk about it.
Just want to say I appreciate your posts and perspective here Royalan. I don't feel like they can be absolved of blame for their actions, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't seek to understand and address why it happened. What led to some of these kids being at the point where they see an old man and they want to repeatedly go at him with a traffic cone, and then mock and laugh about it in the aftermath. There will be answers, but they require someone to care enough to want to look for them and understand them.
The country continues to be shit with the highest prison incarceration rate in the world.
Maybe, just maybe, the country in part continues to be shit because all we do is send people to shitty jails ran by corporations and give them 20-25 with no rehabilitation or any form of assistance.
Sincerely want you to tell me what you expect these kids to do after being in jail for 20-25 years with no rehab or government help.
Coz I'll tell you what they'll do: something far worse than this because they're gonna be in their 30s with no money, no education, unable to get jobs because they've been sent to prison and have no education, unable to qualify for a bunch of assistance because they've been in prison and have no education.
Country is shit partially because instead of helping educate others or lend others aid we like to just lock them up and pretend they don't exist, then get really surprised that when they're unable to function in society after we pretend they don't exist that they do something worse to survive.
Something far worse than murdering a defenseless 73 year old man for the thrill of it and TikTok's? Going to have to say that's pretty hard to top, I feel.
I want to be able to sympathize with the teenagers, but this is still too raw. There's an update with the victim's family (would post but it's the NYP) going into detail about who he is and what he's done in his life that just breaks my heart all over again.
Good lord. Some of those kids look very young. They absolutely need to be tried as adults.
And RIP to the victim he didn't deserve any of that .
And RIP to the victim he didn't deserve any of that .
"We we're just having fun and thought it would be funny"
I don't think you'll get any deeper of answer here, especially considering it was a traffic cone in use.
Nah there's often deeper answers there when you analyse what might get a kid to the point where their idea of fun is beating an old man to death with a traffic cone.
I don't understand why they absolutely need to be tried as adults? The whole point of youth justice is that children are tried as children based on their age (and thus a nod to them being minors lacking the understanding, culpability and social responsibility of an adult), rather than solely the severity of their crime deciding that they now face trial as an adult.
Still, shocking and deeply disturbing. RIP to the victim.
If you stop thinking emotionally and think critically it's really not hard to imagine something worse than killing 1 person, such as killing 2 people. Or 3. Or more. Split robberies in small family owned places with murders in each. Rape and then murdering the person, or multiple people. I mean the list goes on, really, if you want to get really depraved.
You know what's better than that? Rehabilitating them and giving them the tools to survive after that so instead of sending potentially 7 people to jail fro 20-25 years and giving them nothing so they're essentially forced by the system to commit more crimes to attempt to survive on the outside (on purpose mind, for corporate owned jail profits, woo capitalism) and then go back to jail.
The jail system in this country is pathetic. We already lock the most people up in the world per population. It's clearly not working at staving off terrible things from happening.
Especially stupid when other countries jail less and have less crime per population. It's almost like rehabilitation and government assistance works or something.
I mean using language like "beat to death" implies there was intent to do such but then again, why even bother with a traffic cone? Sometimes it's as simple as kids being idiots and it going to far.
What the rehabilitation should be? Because in any way they should be taken off the streets as they are a proven danger to others, it doesn't mean they should be thrown at a dark room for 25 years
This I disagree, they aren't adults no matter what they did.
It speaks to action and not intent, it's what they did. You seem to be misunderstanding the angle I'm coming from as well. I'm not talking about the preceding five minutes before they went at him, I'm speaking to what circumstances in life and society can result in a kid doing what they did to an innocent old man for fun.
I think it's time we start realizing that people in general have become much more desensitized to violence over the past couple decades. You can point the finger to whatever you like, but the fact is this society has become much more dangerous top to bottom.
Adults are killing kids. Kids are killing adults. You got random acts of murder and targeted acts of murder going on.
Trying to rehab someone AFTER they already committed murder is a fucking joke. It's too late. They already took someone's life. You're giving killers a second chance, when their victims are dead and have no chance. It sends a horrible message.
If we get caught up in the "let's just wait for the crimes to happen and then rehab the criminals so we can keep the jail population lower" routine, nothing will change for the positive.
Offering rehab for criminals AFTER the fact is not a deterrent. Getting them help BEFORE they kill someone is a deterrent.
We have to start making people respect one another's lives again. But I'm not sure if that's even possible in a capitalist society with systemic racism, mental health issues across the board, and general economic distress. Parents don't give a shit, kids don't give a shit, law enforcement doesn't give a shit, law makers don't give a shit. Nobody seems to give a shit. It's progressive societal decline.
Adults are killing kids. Kids are killing adults. You got random acts of murder and targeted acts of murder going on.
Trying to rehab someone AFTER they already committed murder is a fucking joke. It's too late. They already took someone's life. You're giving killers a second chance, when their victims are dead and have no chance. It sends a horrible message.
If we get caught up in the "let's just wait for the crimes to happen and then rehab the criminals so we can keep the jail population lower" routine, nothing will change for the positive.
Offering rehab for criminals AFTER the fact is not a deterrent. Getting them help BEFORE they kill someone is a deterrent.
We have to start making people respect one another's lives again. But I'm not sure if that's even possible in a capitalist society with systemic racism, mental health issues across the board, and general economic distress. Parents don't give a shit, kids don't give a shit, law enforcement doesn't give a shit, law makers don't give a shit. Nobody seems to give a shit. It's progressive societal decline.
That's a good idea except American prisons are not properly set up for rehabilitation which is kind of the problem. The American prison complex is composed of a lot of jails that are run by corporations that exist to make profit.
When your goal is to make money as a jail, rehabilitation runs contrary to your goals. The point of rehabilitation and assistance is to prevent people from getting back into the system, the American prison complex is specifically built at this point so that people will almost certainly re-enter the system. We don't rehabilitate or give people ways to move forward after prison by design (right down to preventing them from voting in case they might vote for someone that would actually help them), because in order for these corporate run prisons to keep making money they essentially trap people in the system on purpose.
The American prison complex is designed under the intention that they want you to leave and commit another crime. They're not trying to help anyone. It actively makes things worse because it can take people with minor crimes and thrust them into situations where they're forced to do a harder crime to survive because the government and workforce turns their back on prisoners no matter what they did.
Proper rehab? Other countries such as Denmark has already solved this problem. They get to go to proper mental health professionals and get actual genuine therapy by people who actually genuinely care about them, they are taught valuable life skills in prison and given access to tons of government assistance to move forward with their life after they are out.
People here seem to think the American jail system is good or something. Y'all realize it's the least effective prison system in the world yeah? When you're jailing the most people and STILL have worse crime than 81 other countries, it's objectively the least effective system. That's what happens when your prison system is built around punishment & profit and not rehabilitation & assistance.
In countries like Denmark when in prison they help educate the prisoner's with life skills in classes, the prisoners cook their own meals, they're allowed and encouraged to take up hobbies, they're allowed to pick what they want to wear rather than being forced to lose their personal identity with prison garbs, they're allowed to get up and go to sleep with more freedom, they work for personal income on a 37 hour work week so they can have money when they leave prison, they get to go shopping, the prisoners are given privacy with walled toilets and doors the guards knock on before entering.
They're treated like people, allowed to make their own decisions and afforded opportunities outside once they are let go (allowed to get jobs, allowed to get assistance programs, etc) rather than being treated like garbage to make money off of.
I'm not sure that it does, considering it's proven to be effective? We have 10x the prisoners per 100k people than Denmark and nearly double the recidivism (more than HALF of all prisoners in the US go back to jail after leaving it once. MORE THAN HALF). We actively jail more, retain more prisoners, AND have more violent crime per 100k people than them.
Also, we're talking about people who want to jail these kids for 20-25 years. News flash, you're still giving the killer (not all 7 people killed the guy, some even actively tried to stop it) a second chance, you're just giving him no actual second chance of thriving on the outside so they'll turn to crime AGAIN.
You can do both. It's important to deter crime by making your society not as stressed, with plenty of government assistance and good food/heat/water access and mental/physical health care, but it's also important to deter crime by...making criminals not repeat their actions? Not send them to a prison system that explicitly has the end goal of getting you back in the system?
I mean, that includes respecting people's lives in prison. You're not going to get anywhere with this with a prison system that is designed to make it borderline impossible for you to thrive on the outside and encourages people to become repeat offenders.
(Sorry, I just don't fuck with people who are pro US prison complex, our prison system is god awful, and I'm not sure people realize how bad it actually is compared to other countries. It's really bad.)
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Gotcha, thought you were implying to try and get answers out of the kids specifically and that's why I was coming at it how I was.
Punishment should be the consequence for serious crimes like rape or murder.
Rehab as a consequence for serious crimes is a failed system and an insult to the victims.
Rehab as a consequence for serious crimes is a failed system and an insult to the victims.
You can do both, and one doesn't cancel out the other. Punishment alone sure ain't doing shit to change anything for America.
IKR? They've ruined their lives over what, some views on social media or something? So stupid as hell.
I disagree to a certain extent here. Society may feel like its gotten worse but the crime stats don't point to it. America was always a terrible place and we forget things in our history; Kent State, Kitty Genovese, etc. What has been consistent is us jailing as many people at whatever period of time we decide the big crimes are.
Btw, not saying society is good, lol, just we are clouded by our own biases and childhoods if you were lucky enough to have one that wasn't impacted directly by society's ills. Hence my confusion at us going back to the same solutions that have been sold to us.
They're not going to spend their entire lives in prison, so you might as well help them on the road to returning to society.
Giving them no support isn't doing anyone any favours.
Not particularly surprised that's where some people go when thinking about a perfect world. It's not about "soothing" just "removing", difference is the right don't call us out on it like we do to them. Going by semi-popular opinion a good chunk of people are actually non-human and should disappear out of sight (virtually) forever
Holy shit some of the replies here are ghoulish. Your gut feelings are not research about rehabilitation. You are not immune to propaganda about the US prison system. Stop letting unchecked kneejerk gut feelings and biases conjure up a fake reality.
Oh a defense force for a bunch of psychopaths. Miss me with that bull shit. Won't call them animals because animals don't kill for funsies.
They do actually, but that's besides the point that nobody is defending their actions; they just don't want society to keep brewing even bigger monsters to release back into the world a few decades later while completely failing to address the systemic failures that lead to kids committing such actions.
Who the hell is defending them?
Being able to pay attention to research and other real world justice systems and understand facts and reality =/= defending people. Just means some of us don't fall for US prison complex propaganda and don't let feels override reals.
You can not approve of what these kids did (especially the ones who actually murdered the man) and simultaneously understand the America prison complex is an abject failure of a system that actively harms American society with its intent of recidivism for profit via repeat crime rather than actually helping society improve through rehabilitation and assistance.
Nobody is defending their actions whatsoever, we can all agree what was done was awful.
You don't know that it's too late though. If anything when they are kids is probably the best time to start rehabilitation efforts because they can still change. How many ex-convicts are out on the public speaking circuit that turned their lives around and are now using their life to prevent other people from going down the wrong path? They don't even have to do the public speaking thing, maybe even mentoring other people in their community.
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You can argue to an extent that imprisonment is not a widely successful deterrent either, but the point is that rehab is taking action AFTER the crime has been committed. That's not a deterrent. It's come too late.
Rehabbing a murderer won't bring justice to the murder victim. Dead is dead. Hoping for the murderer not to murder again with rehab is not solving the problem - again, it's too late. They already killed someone. If the goal with rehab is to keep the "body counts" low, then we're COMPLETELY fucked.
We focus too much on what to do AFTER crimes are committed and have missed the whole fucking point of preventing them from happening in the first place. And considering how large the US prison population is, how the hell are people planning on effectively mass-rehabbing everyone in prison for serious crimes? We have no idea who will "recover" and who will go on to kill again. Every individual killer would need to be closely monitored. It's an impossible task. There's not enough agency to handle a task of that magnitude.
Rehab, education, mental help, economic help, and simply respecting other people's lives needs to be the focus BEFORE crimes happen, to prevent them, to deter them through common sense and consciousness. That's where the effort for saving people should be.
But this country sucks because everyone is reactionary instead of proactive.