Ruminations

Blog dedicated primarily to randomly selected news items; comments reflecting personal perceptions

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Youth Offenders, Offending Parents

In Ottawa a trial of one of two 16-year-old boys arrested for break-and-enter, and maliciously destroying the interiors of the homes they invaded during a day of boredom-relieving mayhem has been sentenced to four months' incarceration, on top of the six months already served. The presiding judge condemned their "orgy of vandalism", citing their "extreme level of callousness" and "utter indifference and contempt" for other peoples' privacy and property.

These two bored boys fried a pet gecko in a microwave, sloshed paint over a small, vulnerable family dog, ruined furniture, smeared walls and upholstered furniture with paint, defecated on the floors of households, stole clothing, jewellery and electronics, and generally disported themselves as sociopathic louts in practise for a lifetime of crime. A lifetime of crime actually describes this boy's aspirational outlook on life.

He had once informed a psychiatrist it was his goal in life to be "good at crime, famous and important". Evidently he has absorbed a life lesson in achievement from his mother who refuses to take responsibility for her son's behaviour, rarely bothered to attend court, couldn't be put out enough to visit him in custody and had no interest in participating in the preparation of a pre-sentencing report.

Now, remind me again why people have children? And why and how it is that society does not discipline parents for not maintaining parental responsibility to groom their children to become well-adjusted members of society? A psychiatric assessment found the boy derived his pleasure from destructiveness, and harboured resentment toward people who were emotionally and financially secure.

This was not his initial venture into criminal activity. He has a string of past stays in both secure and unsecured open custody. With convictions of assault, assault causing bodily harm, possession of a weapon and break-and-enters into two schools where satisfaction and joy in opportunity were achieved by damaging computers. Quite the accomplishment for a 16-year-old.

But this boy is a relative novice.

In Nanaimo, British Columbia, police are faced with the conundrum of a 12-year-old child exhibiting all the symptoms of a hardened criminal. He's had three years of apprenticeship in the trade. Like the 16-year-olds in Ottawa, he cannot be identified by name, under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, nor for the same reason, can the names of his parents be revealed. But this 12-year-old has acquired a history of run-ins since the age of 9 with local police.

And now he has been arrested - at age 12 - for armed robbery. Having accosted a 20-year-old man exiting his vehicle, and demanding from him his cellphone and other items. The gun, retrieved from a source other than the boy's home, turns out to have been a replica. The victim had no way of knowing that; he saw himself confronted with a child pointing a firearm at him, demanding he divest himself of objects the boy wanted.
"This youth has been so involved in the criminal system it is scary. We would really like to see this youth get help. He really needs some help." Sergeant Sheryl Armstrong, Nanaimo police services.
"Most of the arrests police have made of this young man have been for indictable or more serious crimes."
Why cannot the parents of these children be placed alongside their offspring, in front of a judge to be held accountable for what their neglect has realized?

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