"Story Not Found" at the Sun-Times link, Amy.

I wouldn't bail my kid out.

Ah, the delightful British custom of "happy slapping" makes it across the pond at last.

As I've said for some time, it is perhaps time to dispose of much of the notion of "age of legal responsibility". If they're old enough to do the crime, with enough mens rea for legal purposes, they're old enough to face the same consequences as anyone else.

As I've said for some time, it is perhaps time to dispose of much of the notion of "age of legal responsibility". If they're old enough to do the crime, with enough mens rea for legal purposes, they're old enough to face the same consequences as anyone else. --Alistair Young at January 19, 2012 5:46 AM

I'm going to agree and disagree on this one. I think there should be a juvenile court system, but they can handle the "juvenile" as an adult sentence, but without the mandatory minimums that come with some felonies. Such as if the minimum for aggravated assault is five years and the kid is 16 with no record you can give him 3 and a felony record. And the can have it sealed after he serves the full three years. Not he turns 18 and gets out.

Hopefully this video will make the thugs easier to track down.

What kind of idiots record their crimes and then make them public?

"with enough mens rea for legal purposes,"

How quaint, you think the courts actually know what mens rea means anymore. :)

@Jim P - Well, I'm against mandatory minimums for everyone - either we trust judges to use their discretion or we don't, and if we don't, we have problems that mandatory minima won't fix.

Of course, I'm also enough of a judicial hardass and deeply unimpressed with the UK experience of youth crime (and attempts to fix it gently) that I, for one, would rather just shoot the little bastards as an example to the rest, so I shall politely duck out of the rest of the appropriate-sentencing question.

@Sio - Heh, indeed. But in the interests of staying at least somewhat on-topic, I wanted to deal with the problem that could be solved - in theory - through legislative action, rather than the one (the modern fetish for strict liability) whose solution is more likely to be along the lines of "the first thing we do, we hang all the Congressmen".

@Amy Alkon - *guffaw*

I've always held the hope that one day instead of jail time we might just inflict the same injury upon the assaliants as they heaped upon their victims.

Imagine if each if those 7 bastards were given the same beating they gave their victim?

No jail time, no shelling out for 3 square meals a day and dozens of meetings and court dates and visits with tthe jail shrink.

Just after their convictions taking to the parking lot of the closest hospital, beat the shit out of them and barring any accidental life threatening emergencies deny medical care for the same amount of time it took for their victim to recive care once they were through with him

My little bother used to bite everyone, didnt matter how he was punished by my dad or his wife, went on for months, until the day he decided to bite me and I bit him back, wonder of wonders he stopped biting people that very same day.

Sending these kids to jail will only give them access to a greater set of criminal skills

"What kind of idiots record their crimes and then make them public?"

43 gang members arrested after boasting of murders on Facebook:

http://news.yahoo.com/gang-members-arrested-boasting-murders-facebook-222906864.html

"What kind of idiots record their crimes and then make them public?"

Narcissistic ones.