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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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[-] john89@lemmy.ca 18 points 20 hours ago

Good.

We should not let acts of violence like go unpunished.

We need to set an example for anyone else who may be thinking about committing the same thing.

[-] iknowitwheniseeit@lemmynsfw.com 3 points 3 hours ago

If your goal is to act as a deterrent then harsher sentences do not work, at least according to research.

At this point, we think it is fair to say that we know of no reputable criminologist who has looked carefully at the overall body of research literature on “deterrence through sentencing” who believes that crime rates will be reduced, through deterrence, by raising the severity of sentences handed down in criminal courts.

https://www.crimsl.utoronto.ca/research-publications/faculty-publications/issues-related-harsh-sentences-and-mandatory-minimum

[-] FJW@discuss.tchncs.de 28 points 1 day ago

It should not be legal to hand out life sentences to minors, period.

In Germany the maximum sentence for minors is 10 years and depending on your developmental state you can count as a minor until you are 21 (You are always treated as one if you are under 18). And that is how it should be. Locking people up for life helps nobody.

[-] NightShot@lemmy.world -3 points 1 hour ago

Why the fuck should he get a second chans on life when his victime never will ? If it where my son who where dead I wouldn't settle for anything else.

[-] roguetrick@lemmy.world 10 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

This isn't a whole life sentence but 13 years and then parole for the rest of his life.

[-] WaxedWookie@lemmy.world 8 points 17 hours ago

Your prescription seems to assume that either:

  1. Everyone can be rehabilitated, which no society has ever achieved.

  2. That it's preferable to push a well understood risk to people's lives back into the community than it is to keep that risk in the care of the state where they can't kill more people.

...but you strike me as too sensible to prescribe that kind of thing, so what have I missed?

[-] Valmond@lemmy.world 5 points 4 hours ago

Lots of/most/almost all prisoners are rehabilitated though?

We only hear about the very small minority that make attention grabbing headlines.

I'm in Europe BTW.

[-] john89@lemmy.ca 17 points 20 hours ago

When I was 15, I knew it was wrong to stab people. It's not like getting into a fight on the playground. When you bring out a knife, or any deadly weapon, you immediately escalate things way beyond what school administration can handle.

As a kid, I knew there were crimes I could do that were just "boys being boys." Smoking weed, petty theft, vandalism, even getting into fist-fights. I also knew there were crimes that were off limits, such as rape and murder. Just about everyone around me knew the same thing, too.

You're advocating for a culture that encourages kids to commit more crimes and more serious crimes than they otherwise would because they know they will get off easy.

[-] FJW@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 20 hours ago

It’s very obvious from your posts that you neither know what the purpose of a punishment in a legal state is, nor what the effects of them are.

The idea that a multi year sentence is “getting of easy” is insane. And from what you are writing I get very strong vibes that you are one of those people who still subscribe to debunked ideas of perpetrator types, which are unironically Nazi-ideology.

The world that you want to create is not a safer one, quite the opposite in fact. Rehabilitation is the by far most important aspect of a punishment and the idea that crimes like the one in question are committed by people who carefully weigh how many years they are willing to spend in prison and could thus be deterred is beyond ridiculous.

[-] frigidaphelion@lemmy.world 14 points 19 hours ago

Regardless of the veracity of your argument, it is not helpful to denigrate someone you are conversing with. Please just work with the information you have in the context of the discussion. There's no need to make such insinuations to establish your point.

[-] r_deckard@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

Nor is it helpful to cast Godwin so early........

[-] frigidaphelion@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

I have no idea what that means

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this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2024
349 points (98.6% liked)

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