Reminds me of the Bulger murderers....who served 8 years each. Unless something different goes on here, these guys will be out at 21 and enjoy more freedom from past mistakes than you would if a cop found an once of weed on you at 18. Great eh?
I did a fair bit of research into youth sentencing (Young Offenders Act in particular), and for the most part it's fucking retarded. Don't get me wrong, there's purpose, but in execution it gets fucked up all too easily because some motherfuckers should not be covered by it, but somehow, the ones that really really shouldn't be, usually are. Like, if you're 14 and you hurt a kid by throwing a rock a little bit too big at him, sure...you shouldn't be AS culpable as a 30 year old who should know fucking better. You still need something to teach you, but you don't know all that much, and maybe you're a bit too influenced by whatever. We'll give you the benefit of the doubt.
If, however, you're 10 years old and you kidnap a 2 year old, take him to the woods, pour paint all over him, beat him, smash so many rocks, bricks, and assorted rubble into him that the coroner can't even say what exactly killed him, and then take an iron pipe to his head before placing him on train tracks, covering him with garbage, and hoping that the train cutting him in half will cover up what you did, well....if you did that, that wasn't just misjudgement and we don't fucking need you (oh, and they mangled his dick up as well). Don't get me wrong, I'm all for rehabilitation, but sometimes, you have to recognize your sunk costs and cut your loses.
Don't believe in capital punishment? Cool, I'm not really all that for it myself. I'm all for rehabilitation, but what if it's not really an option? Like, maybe those two kids who killed Bulger are rehabilitated - we'll never know because they have been granted lifetime anonymity by the British courts. You know who gets the opposite of that? Guys who are 19 and fuck their 17 year old girlfriends and then get fucked over by a jealous ex or someone's father. They're knocking on doors and fruitlessly filling out job applications for the rest of their lives. But these guys? 8 years, scott-free, and a new identity. Seem fair? "Well, it's complicated because they're kids and they don't understand the severity of their actions. They can be taught!!"
In a lot of cases, this is probably a pretty valid point - most kids are at least semi-retarded. I certainly was. BUT, the courts handle this all wrong and motherfuckers like this end up doing less time than Beo's old roommate probably will for looking at some pictures (still pretty gross though). My argument is, and probably always will be, that these cases should be looked at like criminal negligence cases. Should you be able to prove that the average 10 year old would understand that you just DON'T do something like that, you no longer treat the perpetrators like average 10 year olds. Furthermore, if you can prove that they understood that, had previously attempted to kidnap another kid for presumably the same purpose, and had the presence of mind and foresight to put the body on the tracks in order to try to hide what they did, well then - you treat them like any other individual that's very presence shouldn't be tolerated - locked up forever or fried.
We have 6 million and change in this world and limited resources. Tragedy and loss of life surround us, but for some reason some squeamish with shit like this. I understand - judges can't legislate, but seriously, they can work the numbers to give guys growing weed in england 15 years or guys in possesion of mushrooms, lsd, or crack 7 years for possession (life for distributing if they really want to), but their hands are tied here?
Sorry for the rant, but I can't fucking WAIT to find out what gets thrown down on these kids. I imagine less of an inconvience in ten years than any of us would have for having one beer too many any going through a roadblock.
