Some years ago, there was a movie made and set in New Zealand and based
on a true case. In the movie, two young girls plotted and carried out
the murder of the mother of one of them. That mother had threatened to
separate the girls, and there were hints that the girls might have had a
sexual relationship. Unfortunately, I do not remember the name of the
movie.
Anyway, after the movie came out, it was reported that one of the girls
(her name in the movie was Juliet Hulme, and that may have been her real
name), after doing her time as a juvenile, had migrated to Great Britain
and had become the mystery writer Anne Perry. I have not read any Anne
Perry mysteries, but my wife has enjoyed a couple of them.
In thinking about possibly trying as adults the two juveniles who
reportedly have confessed to at least some of the recent wave of
robberies in Charles Village and Remington, I find myself asking myself
whether the two juveniles can be salvaged from a life of crime. I do
not know the answer. I do know that we in the U.S. deal much more
severely with crime than people in much of the rest of the world,
especially Europe. At the same time, a lot of our crime results from
the failed war on drugs. And unfortunately, our prisons often turn out
to be schools in which the incarcerated learn to be better at committing
crimes.
A difference between the two girls in the movie and the two just
arrested juveniles is that the girls presumably were younger, Also, the
two just arrested have committed armed robberies against the general
public, whereas the two girls in the movie killed the mother of one of
them in the likely belief that that was the only way they could be
together. Clearly, Juliet Hulme/Anne Perry turned into a useful member
of society.
My inclination, in the absence of more information, is that our
protection from the two who were just arrested requires more than a slap
on the wrist in a juvenile proceeding. At least while they are
incarcerated, they cannot commit any more armed robberies. I do not
know how successful programs run by Juvenile Services are at preventing
recidivism. But I am curious to see other opinions.
And in any case, I wish that we as a society were doing a lot more to
keep our kids away from crime. I am sure that prevention before the
fact is a lot more effective than punishment after the fact. Recently,
I spent part of an afternoon at Waverly Library tutoring a fifth grader
who still adds numbers by counting on his fingers, and I have been told
that there are a lot of kids just like him. At least he was coming for
tutoring. When we do not provide enough recreation centers to give kids
something positive to do after school, when we fail to educate our kids
to expect to be able to enter good careers, we are just sowing the seeds
for future problems.
Steve
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