Summary

A 15-year-old boy was sentenced to life in prison for fatally stabbing a stranger, Muhammad Hassam Ali, after a brief conversation in Birmingham city center. The second boy, who stood by, was sentenced to five years in secure accommodation. Ali’s family expressed their grief, describing him as a budding engineer whose life was tragically cut short.

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[–] 84 points 2 years ago (5 children)

This is genuinely disappointing. I understand the need for punishment, but unless there is therapy, a path to recovery and reintegration into society, we're just housing more and more people without a future.

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  • [–] 129 points 2 years ago (30 children)

    I'm sorry, but at 15 you're old enough to know that stabbing a stranger to death is wrong.

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  • [–] 25 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Sure but what's even the point of a youth Justice system if you're gonna say that and try every kid as an adult?

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  • [–] 95 points 2 years ago

    Youth justice is for the many nuanced & lower stakes scenarios. Stealing a car, breaking windows, shoplifting/petty theft, getting into fights, drug abuse/addiction, arson, criminal mischief, etc.

    Not stabbing strangers to death.

    You can't equate the two.

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  • [–] 30 points 2 years ago* (2 children)

    A youth justice system is for dealing with kids and teens who shoplift, or break noise ordinances, or run away from home, or abuse illicit substances, or any number of "boundary exploring" behaviors.

    A youth justice system is not the appropriate venue for dealing with "kids" so lacking in moral fiber as to deliberately and maliciously kill another person.

    The tolerance we have for "youthful indiscretion" does not and should not extend to this degree of violence. A youth justice system is not an appropriate venue for those determined to be fundamentally irredeemable.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago (36 children)

    You got the purpose of juvenile justice completely wrong: It is focussed more on rehabilitation and less on deterrence than the adult one because juveniles are still way more formable. Psychologists will descend upon him, and they'll do the job his parents and neighbours didn't (or couldn't) do, a job which, at 15, noone is able to do on their own.

    those determined to be fundamentally irredeemable.

    That's vile. Of course they'll be unredeemable if you don't give them the chance to redeem themselves.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    A youth justice system is for dealing with kids and teens who shoplift, or break noise ordinances, or run away from home, or abuse illicit substances, or any number of “boundary exploring” behaviors.

    A youth justice system is not the appropriate venue for dealing with “kids” so lacking in moral fiber as to deliberately and maliciously kill another person.

    If you're distinguishing by the type of offense instead of by age, you don't have a youth justice system, you have a minor offense justice system.
    Distinguishing by the severity of the offense is already part of the justice system.
    Youth justice systems explicitly consider the age and maturity of the offender, not just what they did.
    Also I'm not sure why a 15-year-old is a kid in one of your examples and a "kid" in the other.

    The tolerance we have for “youthful indiscretion” does not and should not extend to this degree of violence. A youth justice system is not an appropriate venue for those determined to be fundamentally irredeemable.

    This is not about tolerating behavior, it's about reforming people to become members of society instead of lifelong burdens for the justice system.
    Despite the severity of his action, brandishing kids as "irredeemable" not only throws away their entire future but also burdens everyone else with keeping them contained forever.
    That profits nobody.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 years ago

    I'm sorry, but at 15 you're old enough to know that stabbing a stranger to death is wrong.

    Yes? What do you think they're implying, that we should try to rehabilitate criminals... but only if they're still young?

    I think (and forgive me if I'm wrong) they're essentially saying that without a rehabilitory justice system, we're just locking people up for life and creating a net drain on society. Financially, culturally... it's a morale drain on our nation, even.

    Not to mention that as a society we're abandoning a person who, through a justice system built on rehabilitation and not some ye oldie Catholic concept of creating a punishing Hell on Earth, could actually flourish one day, adding to our society instead of taking from it.

    A prison system designed to simply incarcerate, punish and torture those it touches will never offer anywhere near the same benefits to us as one that is designed to attempt to rehabilitate.

    Not everybody can be rehabilitated, of course, but that's like saying we shouldn't try to treat cancer, because not everybody can be cured.

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  • [–] 96 points 2 years ago

    I actually read the article, and if you get all the way to the first sentence, you'll learn that he will be eligible for release starting at 28.

    A 15-year-old boy who followed a teenager he did not know through Birmingham city centre and stabbed him to death after a four-minute conversation has been jailed for life with a minimum of 13 years.

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  • [–] 12 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    What about the other teenager? The one who died?
    He never gets to go home, he'll never be part of society again.

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  • [–] 22 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    While that's obviously very sad and tragic the purpose of criminal justice should never be vengeance or an eye for an eye. It should be about rehabilitation and reintegration. Yes it's awful that a life was lost but functionally removing another life from society for forever is hardly a good solution.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Takes care of recidivism, though. But I wouldn't advocate it for that reason.

    Someone who will commit murder at the age of 15 is very badly damaged, and will need a great deal of help to not be a danger to others in the future. That's the compassionate route.

    Almost zero governments will want to spend the money. Sadly, it's cheaper to keep them locked up.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    I think punishment comes first when it comes to murder though

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (7 children)

    Is there any data showing that this is more effective for reducing future violent crime?

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