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Juvenile vs Adult in Law.

Goshin

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Many folks have a tendency to view the divide between adult and minor in a very sharply defined manner... anyone under 18 is referred to as a "child" (actually some stats even include persons up to 25 as "children", incredibly) and 18 and over is "adult". Under 18 is assumed to be irresponsible, far less accountable, and forbidden most adult activity, while 18 and up is, in many ways, treated as fully accountable and so on.

I'm talking about the full spectrum of issues here: sex/consent, ability to legally contract, vote, buy a gun, live independently, self-determination, criminal accountability (juvie justice vs adult court/prison), driving, getting married, etc.

Many seem to want to view it as an all-or-nothing proposition, and laws vary by state.

The thing is, as any parent can tell you, maturity and responsibility are a process with stages.


Huge diff between 3 and 6yo.
Huge diff between 6 and 10.
Huge diff between 11 and 14.
Major changes between 14 and 16.
Pretty big changes in maturity between 16 and 18.
And significant changes in maturity between 18 and 22, as the impulse filter in the brain fully develops.
(While we're here, there's a large diff between 22 and 35, as well, but that's really beyond the scope of this thread.)

The process varies from individual to individual. Some people are more responsible and mature at 12 than most are at 20. Others are still goofball spasmotrons at 22. ;)

Unfortunately an individualized "maturity and responsibility test" isn't practical in most cases... implementing such for all youth society-wide would be a massive undertaking, assuming you could come up with an accurate test in the first place.

So we're left with averages.


Well, on average maturation is a process with stages. A six year old has no business driving a car, we can all agree. A 16yo might be ok, but it is debated.

Trying a 9yo as an adult is something most would oppose, as a 9yo lacks the cognitive ability to appreciate the significance, implications and consequences of many actions. However trying a 14-16yo as an adult is done but often controversial.

I think part of the problem is that many call anyone under 18 a "child". Some extend that word to 18-22yo's.

A 16yo is not a "child" in the same sense that an 8yo is a "child".

Ok, a 16yo is not, on average, ready to take full control of their life and full responsibility for themselves, and their readiness to take on responsibilities that require impulse control or fine judgement under stress is typically iffy. Still, they're not a "child" in same sense as an 8yo.

I prefer the to call 13-17yo's youths, juveniles or "teens", rather than "children", due to that distinction.

For example: an 8yo unquestionably (well to almost all of us) could not give informed consent for sex. A 16yo might, even if it is controversial. Actually 16 is the age of consent in all of Canada and nearly half of US states.... but some states allow marriage under certain circumstances as young as 14.

Some states set it at 17 or 18. Worldwide it varies a great deal, but is usually between 14 and 18... because there's a lot of difference between a pre-pubescent child and a post-p. adolescent. Not saying necessarily that all post-pubescent youths can give informed consent, but that there is a major difference here.


Historically, in England under Henry VIII you were an adult at age 12 for purposes of criminal prosecution, though most people were under the control of their parents or craft-master or other mentor for several more years. Historically, marriage between 14-17yo was common.

I'm not saying these were good things, just pointing out that 18 is a somewhat arbitrary age. After all, a person is not REALLY completely irresponsible at 17 years 11 months and 29 days, then suddenly the next day they are completely responsible and accountable... legally perhaps but not in reality.


This is one reason I think statutory rape charges for having "consensual" sex with a 9yo is entirely reasonable and justified... but when the subject is 14-16, perhaps not so much, at least not "rape". Especially not if the "perp" is only 2-3 years older. And what if they're both "underage"? To be fair and reasonable you'd have to either charge both or neither.

In my home state much of these issues are resolved through a gradual accumulation of legal rights/privileges. At 16 you can drive and consent to sex; at 18 you can vote, join the military, marry, buy a long gun, sign a contract. Due to Federal fund pressure you can't buy a pistol until 21, which is also when you can get a carry permit.

I've never heard of a 10yo being tried as an adult in my state tmk, but plenty of 15-16yo's are if they commit adult crimes.


Discussion? Let's try not to get overly hung up on a single issue please (like consent) because I'm talking about ALL the adult rights/privileges/responsibilities and not just one.
 
I personally believe that 17 or 18 is a reasonable place to draw the line, it is when most people become independent or at least want to try to be independent. It is when people start thinking about moving away form the support of their parents and on order to do that they need the ability and legal capacity to be independent.

This is one reason I think statutory rape charges for having "consensual" sex with a 9yo is entirely reasonable and justified... but when the subject is 14-16, perhaps not so much, at least not "rape". Especially not if the "perp" is only 2-3 years older. And what if they're both "underage"? To be fair and reasonable you'd have to either charge both or neither.

Here in Canada if it is within 3 years it does not apply which I think is a reasonable exception.
 
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It's one of those weird kind of things, G.

If you're a 40 year old male having sex with a 14 year old female you're a creep. I don't care whether she consented or not. You're a creep and need some time away from society to ponder your place in the world.

If, on the other hand, you're a 14 year old mail who hooked up with your 30 year old social studies teacher it's still inappropriate but we can talk about things.

If you're a 30 year old female social studies teacher who is hooking up with a 14 year old boy in your class you've got issues and those will be brought up when we explain things to junior.

If you're gay and you're in one of these situations then you'll have to find someone else to deal with all that mess because it's simply become political dynamite and I'm not going there.
 
Many folks have a tendency to view the divide between adult and minor in a very sharply defined manner... anyone under 18 is referred to as a "child" (actually some stats even include persons up to 25 as "children", incredibly) and 18 and over is "adult". Under 18 is assumed to be irresponsible, far less accountable, and forbidden most adult activity, while 18 and up is, in many ways, treated as fully accountable and so on.

I'm talking about the full spectrum of issues here: sex/consent, ability to legally contract, vote, buy a gun, live independently, self-determination, criminal accountability (juvie justice vs adult court/prison), driving, getting married, etc.

Many seem to want to view it as an all-or-nothing proposition, and laws vary by state.

The thing is, as any parent can tell you, maturity and responsibility are a process with stages.


Huge diff between 3 and 6yo.
Huge diff between 6 and 10.
Huge diff between 11 and 14.
Major changes between 14 and 16.
Pretty big changes in maturity between 16 and 18.
And significant changes in maturity between 18 and 22, as the impulse filter in the brain fully develops.
(While we're here, there's a large diff between 22 and 35, as well, but that's really beyond the scope of this thread.)

The process varies from individual to individual. Some people are more responsible and mature at 12 than most are at 20. Others are still goofball spasmotrons at 22. ;)

Unfortunately an individualized "maturity and responsibility test" isn't practical in most cases... implementing such for all youth society-wide would be a massive undertaking, assuming you could come up with an accurate test in the first place.

So we're left with averages.


Well, on average maturation is a process with stages. A six year old has no business driving a car, we can all agree. A 16yo might be ok, but it is debated.

Trying a 9yo as an adult is something most would oppose, as a 9yo lacks the cognitive ability to appreciate the significance, implications and consequences of many actions. However trying a 14-16yo as an adult is done but often controversial.

I think part of the problem is that many call anyone under 18 a "child". Some extend that word to 18-22yo's.

A 16yo is not a "child" in the same sense...

Back in the day, the cut-off for holding "kids" responsible was 14. Someone that age was thought to be a big enough threat that we should give them a second look when they commit a horrendous offense. These days...hell, some 12 year old kids scare the hell out of me.
 
It's one of those weird kind of things, G.

If you're a 40 year old male having sex with a 14 year old female you're a creep. I don't care whether she consented or not. You're a creep and need some time away from society to ponder your place in the world.

If, on the other hand, you're a 14 year old mail who hooked up with your 30 year old social studies teacher it's still inappropriate but we can talk about things.

If you're a 30 year old female social studies teacher who is hooking up with a 14 year old boy in your class you've got issues and those will be brought up when we explain things to junior.

If you're gay and you're in one of these situations then you'll have to find someone else to deal with all that mess because it's simply become political dynamite and I'm not going there.

Why the double standard?
 
Why the double standard?

Because.

At the risk of coming across as some kind of Neanderthal, it's the man's job to protect women. If a guy turns around and starts preying on women then he needs to get his ass kicked. If a woman chooses to prey on a male child she also needs to get her comeuppance but it's actually MORE important that the male child understand what happened so he can sort out his place in the whole situation and move on appropriately.
 
Because.

At the risk of coming across as some kind of Neanderthal, it's the man's job to protect women. If a guy turns around and starts preying on women then he needs to get his ass kicked. If a woman chooses to prey on a male child she also needs to get her comeuppance but it's actually MORE important that the male child understand what happened so he can sort out his place in the whole situation and move on appropriately.

Rape is rape whether it is committed by a man or a woman they should face the same punishment. Your gender does not make the crime any less severe.
 
Discussion? Let's try not to get overly hung up on a single issue please (like consent) because I'm talking about ALL the adult rights/privileges/responsibilities and not just one.

I would say the problem here is, who actually requires this dividing line. You speak of parents and point out that it is dependent on knowing the child and variations in maturity.

But parents do not need a dividing line and for many parents a child will always be their child no matter how old they get.

The dividing line is created for the purpose of law. Because for law to work it needs to have specifics. The less grey area in a law the better that law works.

The line they draw is an arbitrary one that suites whatever the current ethical standards are.
 
Rape is rape whether it is committed by a man or a woman they should face the same punishment. Your gender does not make the crime any less severe.

Well, "rape" would indicate that there wasn't consent from one of the parties. In that case I'd certainly agree with you. What the OP was discussing, as far as I could tell, was whether it was possible for a 14 year old to give consent.

Here's my take on this, if you've got a couple of 14 year old kids who decide to play doctor then that's an issue for the parents to handle, not the courts. Even if the kids aren't at the legal age for informed consent as long as there wasn't evidence of coercion it's one of those things that happens and it probably would do more harm than good to stick one or both with a criminal record.

Now, if we introduce an age gap or a mental handicap or something the question of coercion and/or informed consent becomes more subjective and may warrant state involvement.
 
Well, "rape" would indicate that there wasn't consent from one of the parties. In that case I'd certainly agree with you. What the OP was discussing, as far as I could tell, was whether it was possible for a 14 year old to give consent.

Here's my take on this, if you've got a couple of 14 year old kids who decide to play doctor then that's an issue for the parents to handle, not the courts. Even if the kids aren't at the legal age for informed consent as long as there wasn't evidence of coercion it's one of those things that happens and it probably would do more harm than good to stick one or both with a criminal record.

Now, if we introduce an age gap or a mental handicap or something the question of coercion and/or informed consent becomes more subjective and may warrant state involvement.

That is not what I was addressing, I was addressing a teacher having sex with a student, it should not matter what gender either the student or the teacher is, they should both be punished the same way.
 
Many folks have a tendency to view the divide between adult and minor in a very sharply defined manner... anyone under 18 is referred to as a "child" (actually some stats even include persons up to 25 as "children", incredibly) and 18 and over is "adult". Under 18 is assumed to be irresponsible, far less accountable, and forbidden most adult activity, while 18 and up is, in many ways, treated as fully accountable and so on.

I'm talking about the full spectrum of issues here: sex/consent, ability to legally contract, vote, buy a gun, live independently, self-determination, criminal accountability (juvie justice vs adult court/prison), driving, getting married, etc.

Many seem to want to view it as an all-or-nothing proposition, and laws vary by state.

The thing is, as any parent can tell you, maturity and responsibility are a process with stages.


Huge diff between 3 and 6yo.
Huge diff between 6 and 10.
Huge diff between 11 and 14.
Major changes between 14 and 16.
Pretty big changes in maturity between 16 and 18.
And significant changes in maturity between 18 and 22, as the impulse filter in the brain fully develops.
(While we're here, there's a large diff between 22 and 35, as well, but that's really beyond the scope of this thread.)

(...clipped for length...)

Discussion? Let's try not to get overly hung up on a single issue please (like consent) because I'm talking about ALL the adult rights/privileges/responsibilities and not just one.

I think in terms of minors being charged with crimes, one way to look at this is an issue of scale and influence.

For smaller crimes, or crimes involving groups of people, I view trying as a juvenile all the way to the limit to be valuable for a couple reasons.

One is that they're easier to correct than an adult who's set in their ways, so putting them into a system that focuses more on rehab than punishment (as the juvie system does, compared to adult prisons) is more valuable and gives us a better opportunity to try to stop the progression towards being a repeat offender.

Two is that because the smaller or more condoned within a social circle the crime is, the more "gray" it is, especially when there is no harm to others. So the younger the person is, the less likely they are to be able to differentiate exactly where it becomes a crime, especially if they're being influenced by adults. Even as teenagers, their neurology is still susceptible to following the lead of adults. In other words, they may not fully understand that it's wrong, or why it's wrong, and their very biology is designed to give way to the opinion of adults when they feel the situation is too gray for them to decide alone.

But when it comes to something like murder and rape, a 16-year-old fully understands that it's wrong, unless they are significantly mentally impaired to the point where they should probably be institutionalized, just like adults. They know what death is, they know violence against others is both illegal and wrong, and therefore their problems are significant enough that they might be better served in the adult system.

As far as consent, I think there is a clear and good reason statutory laws exist: as I said earlier, even teenagers are still neurologically vulnerable to coercion by adults. They were created for the classic dirty-old-man-stalks-a-teenager sort of situation. In other words, statutory rape laws are intended to be more about coercion using status and power over someone with a neurological vulnerability, than they are about a number.

But as you point you, they are mishandled quite a bit. In many states you can wind up with a statutory rape charge if you're 19 and are dating/having sex with someone who's 16, despite the fact that these two might be in the same high school and only 2 grade years apart. This is a situation where the social status and power of the two people involved is pretty similar. Statutory laws shouldn't apply to this.

If there is coercion going on, that's a regular rape case in my mind and should be tried as such, with no attention paid to their respective ages. Two high schoolers don't have a social power differential.
 
That is not what I was addressing, I was addressing a teacher having sex with a student, it should not matter what gender either the student or the teacher is, they should both be punished the same way.

Maybe it shouldn't matter and the law generally agrees with you but, personally, I'm MUCH more inclined to impose a more harsh punishment on an adult male who has sex with a minor female than I am on an adult male who has sex with a minor female.

Yeah, it's a double standard and it's probably sexist and it probably doesn't agree with the law and all that but we're talking about my opinion in this matter and that's my opinion.
 
I think it should depend on the level of premeditation because that requires a degree of maturity and understanding that an immature mind would lack. If you're intelligent enough to organize a crime then you are intelligent enough to be punished for it.
 
Well, "rape" would indicate that there wasn't consent from one of the parties. In that case I'd certainly agree with you. What the OP was discussing, as far as I could tell, was whether it was possible for a 14 year old to give consent.

Here's my take on this, if you've got a couple of 14 year old kids who decide to play doctor then that's an issue for the parents to handle, not the courts. Even if the kids aren't at the legal age for informed consent as long as there wasn't evidence of coercion it's one of those things that happens and it probably would do more harm than good to stick one or both with a criminal record.

Now, if we introduce an age gap or a mental handicap or something the question of coercion and/or informed consent becomes more subjective and may warrant state involvement.




Bing. That was pretty much what I meant.
 
I think it should depend on the level of premeditation because that requires a degree of maturity and understanding that an immature mind would lack. If you're intelligent enough to organize a crime then you are intelligent enough to be punished for it.




In general, yes... but I think there needs to be a cutoff point, a lower limit for trying as an adult.

Even a precociously intelligent 9yo isn't really capable of comprehending the enormity of some things, even if he might be able to plan and carry them out in some circumstances.
 
Many folks have a tendency to view the divide between adult and minor in a very sharply defined manner... anyone under 18 is referred to as a "child" (actually some stats even include persons up to 25 as "children", incredibly) and 18 and over is "adult". Under 18 is assumed to be irresponsible, far less accountable, and forbidden most adult activity, while 18 and up is, in many ways, treated as fully accountable and so on.

I'm talking about the full spectrum of issues here: sex/consent, ability to legally contract, vote, buy a gun, live independently, self-determination, criminal accountability (juvie justice vs adult court/prison), driving, getting married, etc.

just to jump in here with my thoughts.

This is why we have judges. The reason we have judges is to reasonable assess these issues and determine which court they should be tried in and what is a reasonable sentence.

In my opinion.. this is one of the problems we have in the judicial system today. We have laws that tie the hands of judges such as mandatory sentences. And often this causes unjust convictions and sentences.
 
In general, yes... but I think there needs to be a cutoff point, a lower limit for trying as an adult.

Even a precociously intelligent 9yo isn't really capable of comprehending the enormity of some things, even if he might be able to plan and carry them out in some circumstances.

The cutoff point should be to prevent the prison industrial complex from capturing more people, because you know they will. Other than that, I am content to let judges decide what is best. Most young offenders need guidance and reform in order to change. A murder charge should not end their lives in most cases, like it would an adult's. There's still hope for most children but it doesn't mean they shouldn't be charged with murder. I just think the sentencing guidelines should be different.
 
I think it should depend on the level of premeditation because that requires a degree of maturity and understanding that an immature mind would lack. If you're intelligent enough to organize a crime then you are intelligent enough to be punished for it.

Explain this one then.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger
James Patrick Bulger (16 March 1990[1] – 12 February 1993) was a boy from Kirkby, Merseyside, England, who was murdered on 12 February 1993, at the age of two. He was abducted, tortured and murdered by two ten-year-old boys, Robert Thompson (born 23 August 1982) and Jon Venables (born 13 August 1982).[2][3] Bulger was led away from the New Strand Shopping Centre in Bootle whilst his mother was distracted. His mutilated body was found on a railway line two-and-a-half miles (4 km) away in Walton, Liverpool, two days after his murder. Thompson and Venables were charged on 20 February 1993 with Bulger's abduction and murder.
 
That case was appalling, and a real head-scratcher as to how two 10yo boys got so wrong in the head as to do such a thing.

There is no denying that it was calculated and premeditated. Those boys walked 4 km with that child before torturing him to death. They had plenty of time to think through what they were doing.

Unfortunately this maturity thing is not a straight science.
 
That case was appalling, and a real head-scratcher as to how two 10yo boys got so wrong in the head as to do such a thing.

Some kids are broken right out of the chute. I don't know what got those kids that way but I wouldn't count on either of them "growing out of" whatever problem they've got. They both need to lead a life on the funny farm and rarely if ever be more than a stone's throw from the rubber room.
 
Some kids are broken right out of the chute. I don't know what got those kids that way but I wouldn't count on either of them "growing out of" whatever problem they've got. They both need to lead a life on the funny farm and rarely if ever be more than a stone's throw from the rubber room.



As I understand it, they're both on some UK version of lifelong probation.
 
If you go back 100 years, 15 year olds were getting married. They were building farms, settling communities, riding as ranch hands. The question of competency and capacity was never raised. People were expected to be adults and they lived up to their expectations. What we have done is counter-evolutionary. We have in effect devolved adolescents and personal responsibility to the point where 26 is considered to be fully developed and 'adult'.
 
There is no denying that it was calculated and premeditated. Those boys walked 4 km with that child before torturing him to death. They had plenty of time to think through what they were doing.

Unfortunately this maturity thing is not a straight science.

They were still boys and not adults. That's the nub of the question. The Human brain develops and grows until the mid-twenties. Thats the anatomy and physiology of it. before that age, the person is to some degree not completely adult. There are all sorts of other factors, socialisation, physical strength, learning disability, but that's the basic norm. The law can set a cutoff, the question is where, and that can be varied by societal difference. Arbitararily moving the goalposts depending on the crime doesn't change the child's culpability, only the punishment.
Scandinavia has a very different way of dealing with child murderers, compared to how the Bulger killers were treated. Their murderers never missed any school!


BBC News - How Norway dealt with its 'Bulger' case
 
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