What are your views on punishment for minors who commit crimes such as murder? For example, how do you feel about minors being sentenced to death for murder? Also, do you think the legal age for minors in Japan (up to 20) should be lowered? If so, to what age?
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-2
Maria
1) I think that someone tried and convicted as a minor should not later be resentenced as an adult for the same crime - even if the age of adulthood is adjusted between the 2 events... What if they started doing that across the board? Could someone sentenced for what used to be a minor crime but became a more serious crime, be resentenced? Or vice versa? 2) In quite a few countries, the law also states that you can legally drive and get married before you can legally drink alcohol and smoke tobacco. And in those countries too, that law is broken. But I suppose that this question refers specifically to the age you can try someone as an adult? I think it should be the same as the voting and drinking age, so if they change one, they should change the other 2 at the same time.
4
iceshoecream
You rape, you kill. You're an adult and should be treated like one.
1
combinibento
With regard to the death penalty for minors, I think it should be outlawed for the exact same reasons used by the US Supreme Court in ruling it unconstitutional in Roper v. Simmons in 2005. With regard to the question of legal age, I think 18 is a good cut off point because this is generally where compulsory education stops (or high school at least) and, theoretically, society presumes this is the age where a person no longer needs assistance in growing up. Thus, they are an adult.
1
Gurukun
It should depend on the crime. If you blatantly kill a baby, kill a mom and then have sex with a corpse, you should be put to death. Sound familiar?
2
cleo
I'm against the death penalty, full stop. Whether it's for minors, adults or klingons.
If the term 'minor' covers everyone between the ages of 1 and 18 or 20, the question is impossible to answer; of course an immature 9-year-old should not be treated the same as someone who is one day short of their majority.
Whether you fix the age of majority at 18, 20, 21 (as it used to be in the UK), 30, 16 or whatever, it's going to be an arbitrary number with some people falling on the wrong side either way - some people who are obviously adult though legally under age, others well over age yet not fit to be let out alone. I see nothing wrong with leaving the age of majority in Japan at 20.
1
Virtuoso
In Japan we are talking about an extremely small number of cases (fortunately), which is why it's getting so much attention in the first place. Even if they hang the perpetrator of the Hikari City murders, the husband of the victim is probably not going to obtain much closure. In 6,000 or so years of human civilization, no one has yet to come up with a satisfactory deterrent to murder. I recall the 14-year old boy who killed two children in Kobe in 1997 was finally "rehabilitated" and returned to society (with a clean slate and a new identity). I wonder how he's been doing on the outside, and if he'll ever marry and lead a normal life.
1
Elvensilvan
Lower the age to 18, and whoever commits a henious crime, should be tried as an adult if he or she is mentally sound.
Lately, we have seen "minors" who drink, drive, rape, kill ... all serious crimes. It's about accountability, and taking responsibility.
5
Patrick Smash
Well, I think people should be considered adults at 18, but the way we think and feel through our lives changes on a daily basis. There is really no birthday that makes someone an adult when the previous day they were not, so if we set an arbitrary age, maybe 21 would be suitable rather than 18.
No one anywhere, in any country should face an irreversible sentence. This is even more the case in societies where the legal system is known to be corrupt and confessions are extorted under torture. I feel the same rage when I read these crimes, but when a close friend of mine was murdered in the UK, I did not feel like inflicting death on that individual. Anyway, we often only have the word of judges and juries that someone is guilty of a crime and even the most well-meaning of people make mistakes.
Those who think people should be executed when convicted of crimes like murder should read about men like Toshikazu Sugaya and think again. People read "guilty" verdicts and are stupid enough to believe that their legal systems are foolproof. Why is anyone that stupid or that blinkered by blood lust. Sugaya's story is here:
http://www.tokyomango.com/tokyo_mango/2009/06/man-intimidated-into-admitting-to-murder-is-set-free-after-17-years-in-prison.html
The real answer is to do away with the death penalty as so many convictions are unsafe. Make the ultimate penalty life in prison without parole and with labour, so that those guilty of the most heinous crimes have a lifetime to reflect on what they did and to work to pay compensation to the families of victims. If that person is actually innocent, he or she can later be released and compensated. That beats a posthumous pardon as I see it.
OK, the pro-death group will give me the thumbs downs for saying that we must make sure that we never ever run the risk of stringing up and innocent human being. That says more about you than about me.
1
Aliasis
The death penalty is always wrong. Two wrongs don't make a right, and the law can protect society via life imprisonment sentences without jeopardizing our own morals. Period. No exceptions.
Minors should be tried differently from adults for a reason - any leading psychology organization will provide you with studies that prove the brain has not fully developed in teenage years, PARTICULARLY in the area where it comes to understanding consequences of actions. In other words, it's possible that a minor could impulsively do something that he or she would not do as an adult - it's essentially a handicap. That's not to say that there shouldn't be serious punishment for crimes, but they should NEVER be tried as adults.
And it should go without saying that we don't sentence kids to death. I mourn any society that could possibly think that is in any way okay, even if they have the death penalty otherwise.
1
Aliasis
I agree with everything you've said, Patrick.
And the fact that innocent people are put to death (yes, this is a fact), or people who have been convicted with minimal evidence - that alone should be reason enough to abolish the death penalty.
0
Ah_so
The setting of an arbitary age for which an individual is tried as an adult is difficult, but must be done. The age of 20 is absurdly high. 18 seems to be nearer the mark.
The use of the death penalty for crimes committed by people under 18 is prohibited under international law. Only a handful of countries have breached this since 1990, the "usual suspect" list of countries with slightly "backward" legal systems. The worst offendors were Iran and the USA, followed by Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Pakistan, China, Sudan etc.
To its credit, the USA has stopped executing children - the last one was in 2003. The purveyors of "justice" must miss the days of 1993 when the USA carried out 80% of all child executions.
Since 2004, Iran has exectued 43 children,against 9 for the rest of the world combined. I wold hate to see Japan execute any minors, although think anyone over the age of 18 knows what they are doing and should be tried as an adult.
2
japan_cynic
I think the death penalty is barbaric. Killing children, even more so. However, I don't think it is reasonable to set 20 as the age of majority. So that is three ways that Japan is wrong on this score.
-2
Wakarimasen
Didn't someone once say "Kill them all and let God choose his own"?
-4
TimeiClic
String them up, no matter the age. These types have no place in modern society and need to be purged.
0
Greapper1
It should be decided on a case-by-case basis. Using a number to paint every teenager the same is unfair.
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