The Fort Worth Star Telegram today reported that a 17-year old student who phoned in a threat that he would fire upon students at the rival high school was sentenced to 7 years in prison. He had nothing in his home that could be considered a weapon. He claimed it was a prank call and friends had goaded him into doing it.
In Vermont teens broke into the home of the poet Robert Frost and were sentenced to read his poetry.
There is no doubt that threatening harm to others is egregious behavior and worthy of severe punishment, but seven years in prison seems excessive. When this young person gets out, he will forever be stigmatized as a felon and probably face a difficult road trying to get a job. His prison experience will most probably have long term psychological and emotional scars. Will he become a greater threat to society after his seven years of exposure to hardened criminals?
Was justice served in either situation?
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3 comments:
More than likely this
school has a "Zero Tolerance" policy. If the school district did nothing, what is to stop other students from the same behavior and possibly with disastrous results? Where any other students punished in this "prank"? The punishment is excessive. a stint in a discipline alternative education program seems more warranted in this case.
As for the Vermont teens, this is the most ridiculous punishment I have ever heard of...
Cases like these make me wonder if there is a segment of the criminal justice system that has completely lost its collective mind. Phoning in a threat to go on a shooting spree is certainly reprehensible as well as criminal, but a 7 year sentence for that offense is beyond ridiculous. It is reactionary "justice" in response to the relatively recent series of school shootings such as Columbine and Virginia Tech. Throwing a teenage prankster into prison does absolutely nothing to address the actual problem of school shootings. It is obvious that this unfortunate youngster is simply being made an example of. One could argue that his sentence will serve as a deterrent to other kids, and this might be true if the American public, especially the kids, didn't have such a collectively short memory. In a few weeks, this story will completely die out and no one will remember it other than those directly involved in it. The end result will be a destroyed family and a young man being thrust back into society after being hardened by an extended prison sentence. This case absolutely screams for community service. A couple hundred hours of picking up trash on the highway would surely make a sufficiently lasting impression on this young man that what he did was stupid and unacceptable. Instead, in our already overcrowded penal system, we now will have a bed occupied by a teenage prankster for seven years. In all probability, this was just a stupid prank by a young man who did not grasp the seriousness of his foolish actions. There are other ways (e.g. community service, intensive probation, house arrest) to impress upon him the gravity of this situation without ruining his entire life.
Then on the other hand, we have kids who actually DID cause harm to a person or property, who are serving zero prison time. And to make things worse, the life's work of one of the pearls of American literature is being turned into a circus-stunt punishment dreamed up by a myopic and out-of-touch judiciary. What message does it actually send? The answer is two-fold. First, to the offenders, it sends the message that breaking into someone's home isn't really a big deal. Second, to the peers of the offenders, it sends the message that classic literature is so distasteful that merely reading it could be considered adequate punishment for a non-status offense. It also reinforces the notion held by many juveniles that due to their age they will not be held responsible for their actions.
Somewhere the Founding Fathers are looking down on us and weeping.
When I read more about the Vermont sentence, it gained greater credibility with me. They are having meetings on a regular basis to discuss points Frost made in his poetry -- choices and the roads we decide to take is one example.
It appears as if they also had to do some work in cleaning up the mess they had made. Nothing was permanently damaged and no manuscripts destroyed.
Group counseling over an extended period of time will probably do more for these young people than the 7-year prison sentence.
Many judges are coming up with unique sentences and it remains to be seen whether they are successful.
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