Another prison suicide

[G]

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

He also chose to be a complete numpty and ignore a lenient sentence

We were making everything else irrelevant apart from the fact he was dead.....which was his own doing.

But yup to be locked up he was obviously a complete numpty also.

[yorkie_chris]

Originally Posted by Ed

with our supposedly enlightened 2007 western values are locking up 15 year olds for such trivial matters.

Better than getting a hairy Arab in a ski mask to beat him to death with a stick.

Some of the crap that goes on and gets the offender an ASBO or a warning is shocking, especially as prison is used as the very last resort in between about 10 other steps of warnings and wrist slappings.
Maybe making prison look a bit more depressing is the answer to youth offending?

I have to say i'm with YC, GP and Warthog here.

Its unlkely he was a decent kid if he got banged up. The fact he commited suicide makes little difference to me either. I certainly will not lose any sleep over it.....there are people far more deserving of sympathy in the world.

With the amount of compassion you have Ed, you must be a saint!

[G]

Originally Posted by ASM-Forever

With the amount of compassion you have Ed, you must be a saint!

or a defence lawyer?

Do I remeber you saying you were a lawyer Ed or did i imagine that...i know someone on here is.

Originally Posted by graemepaterson

or a defence lawyer?

Do I remeber you saying you were a lawyer Ed or did i imagine that...i know someone on here is.

I thought he was a contract law solicitor....i'm often wrong though.

Ed is in the legal business but lets not confuse business with personal views here.

I have to say that a 15 year old dead is not good news...neither for the kid, his family or even the system that is in place.

Questioning why we lock up 15 year olds is very vague and a generalization. Certainly, he wasn't a saint but without knowing what he was locked up for we cannot judge the system. For all we know he might have killed someone.......nothing we haven't seen before from a 15 year old. On the other hand he might have indeed just stole a sweet.

I think the sad thing here is that the system is failing to "correct" these people...of whatever age!

[Balky001]

A waste of life is always sad and I understand where Ed is coming from but the public shouldnt be exposed to dangerous people regardless of their age, and no politician is going to raise tax to provide decent care and reabilitation due to sceptisism from the public, its a vote loser. To say no 15 year old deserves custody is not a reality (IMO).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/l...re/7117016.stm

Good god people. I'm with Ed on this one. At what age are we writing off kids as scrap nowadays? What is the purpose of prison? To punish? To protect the public? To rehabilitate? It's all three of these, the least of the three being to punish. If we can't turn around a 15 year old's life what can we do? What's more worrying is that it would appear we don't actually *care* to turn round a 15 year old kid's life, we'd rather just see him locked up and don't give a damn what happens.

I can't quite see how the same people who seem to think prison is a cushty option where inmates get luxury treatment don't really give a damn when it's apparently so horrific that a kid feels he'd rather be dead than spend another day there.

Yes there are always going to be kids that go down the wrong road, and yes we're always going to need to make some sort of provision for them, but we have a duty of care, whether we like it or not, to children.

[timwilky]

Locking children up is nothing new. I had a friend do 6 months borstal in the 70s age 15, he never offended again. My younger brother convicted with him of the same crime. was given probation. He instead carried on his ways. got a second probation, then a suspended sentence and finally a year in Walton.

Co-incidently both these guys now run their own businesses, the former now a multi millionaire whilst the latter is close. They both offer one chance jobs to ex prisoners.

Prison done right serves two purposes, to punish and to rehabilitate. In both cases above. The punishment was enough to ensure neither had any desire to go back.

I site my younger brothers case. You could go on dragging him before the courts and soft option sentences were a joke. If he had been given borstal at day one like his mate then that would have been one offending behaviour nipped in the bud at the start of his career.


BTW, why did my brother do a year. Nicking a car battery. Trivial, low value, etc. But a persistant offender in breach of a 6 month suspended.

Oh well s*it happens, he was inside for a reason and probably deserved to be inside.

TBH i think more scumbag prisoners should top themselfes, we could then solve the cell shortage.

Yes he was only 15, but he chose his path in life and could not deal with the concequences, oh well so he was a weak willed person as well, probably in the grand scheme of things not a great loss to civalisation.

If you cant do the time dont do the crime springs to mind.