How young is too young to charge a child with murder

[bgelber]

I don't think a child of five should be tried as an adult. Yes there are some children that are pure evil, I remember while living in
Atlanta two eight year olds taping up puppy, placing it in a oven and cooking it. They thought it was funny.

Why are they not looking at the care giver. A child of that age could be coaxed very easily.

 

[sadies chicks]

Quote:
Certainly not every child.

How would you even "put a 5 year old away?" where would she go? Kiddie-jail?? How would that work? I haven't read all of the thread but that was the first thing that popped up in my mind. Crazy. If she had malicious intent then certainly something needs to be done, therapy, etc. But definitely agree on where was the supervision so this horrible tradgedy didn't have to happen.

there are intensive treatments centers for five year olds.

When I was six i was sent to one of them. As an abused child I was prone to fits of anger, crying, and screaming, made worse by being picked on by the other children, and isolated/ostracized and pulled out to be a public example by teachers, who had little patience for me, and refused to help me when I was tormented mercilessly ( some teachers made a game of baiting and tormenting me themselves).

The child psychiatric mixed with tough love wing had every sort of kid form kids with genuine mental illnesses to children who were on drugs, to abused children, to simple spoiled brats.

I think it would have worked if they didn't take the same approach with all the children. You can not treat a spoiled child the same as a child who was abused.

so in short there are places to send children who commit crimes/ show sever social problems/ mental illness at that age.

Whether they work is debatable though.

personally I believe the child was either abused, or framed.

That is great that there are places for children to go, I am really happy there is help out there like that. When I read the OP's post those questions just popped in to my head, I wasn't trying to sound sarcastic or anything, just me working through the circumstance.

 

[Matthew3590]

I must be a sociopath, when I was 5 years old I knew how to properly strangle someone with an arm bar. But that is probably because I watched A LOT of WWF back then or WWE whichever one it was.
Also a toddler is younger than a 5 year old. The 5 year old has more growth than the toddler so I could easily see a 5 year old drowning someone. NOW I am not saying that it is right to charge her with murder but I would do screenings of her and get her one of those therapist that can conclude if there are serious things wrong with the child. If they do charge her with murder she won't be going to jail but to a crazy house.

ETA: The magic age from child to adult is different. 8 year old boy was wrestling with his 5 year old cousin. He body slammed her and killed her. He was tried as an adult. I do not remember if he was guilty or what the sentence was.

 

[sadies chicks]

Quote:
Certainly not every child.

How would you even "put a 5 year old away?" where would she go? Kiddie-jail?? How would that work? I haven't read all of the thread but that was the first thing that popped up in my mind. Crazy. If she had malicious intent then certainly something needs to be done, therapy, etc. But definitely agree on where was the supervision so this horrible tradgedy didn't have to happen.

Yes, I wasn't disagreeing with most of your post, if you read my other posts on this you'll see I don't think this child should be put away for this. My only point was that it doesn't necessarily mean this kid was abused, she could have heard about this stuff from TV, and being only FIVE, didn't know better.

Yep, I would totally agree with that.

 

[punk-a-doodle]

I remember incidences very clearly from the age of three, some of which were fairly complex socially. I've also worked with kids who were abused (sometimes as infants), and while it can lead to sociopathic behavior in kids, it does not make a sociopath. Sociopaths may be the closest thing we have to our view of evil, but...I wouldn't actually call them evil. In the case of this child, were she a sociopath, the crying annoyed her, she can only care about her own desires as a physiological reality, and she chose to end the crying in a way a normally functioning child would not. Yes, charge the teen for neglect, but I am guessing something similar would have happened at some point regardless from this child. While it is hard for many to grasp how something like this might not be caused by abuse, try to picture life if you had no feelings of guilt, if manipulative techniques were strong at an early age, along with intellect (seen in higher functioning sociopaths). You would not be the same person or look at things the same way. Read up on children who murder. Murder being different than accidentally killed someone because they didn't understand consequences (or jumped off the roof after watching Peter Pan). Genetics can be a powerful thing.

 

[Laurajean]

Quote:
Cancel my question, thanks.

 

[JulieNKC]

I thought they said on the news they were considering charging the parents for leaving the children alone with only a mentally handicapped person to watch them? I hadn't heard about the 5 year old possibly being charged. The whole story is just plain sad...

 

[Matthew3590]

which person was mentally handicapped? 12 year, 5 year, or toddler?

 

[JulieNKC]

They said on the news the 12 year old was the handicapped one and was supposed to be watching the kids, but was asleep.

 

[Matthew3590]

I need more of story. Was the toddler, 5 year old, and 12 year old, all siblings?