fatboystu wrote:
does it make a difference that he was a kid when he committed this evil act?
this week i've read the court report about what they did to that poor child, i've read the arresting officers interview in the paper and also his interview with panorama, last night i sat and cried reading what they had done. it makes my blood boil. to try in anyway to excuse their actions on the fact that they were children themselves and that they were abused is laughable!
there are plenty of abused children who grow up and never abuse. my own brother in law was abused, he grew up and became a social worker working in childrens services trying to stop the same things that happened to him.
j
At what point do you draw the line where do they become culpable, the abuse they suffered as children is not an explanation.
I have had a couple of cases recently which illustrate the pointlessness of your argument.
3 children growing up in a house full of Domestic violence. The best example is the dad who poured petrol on the the family cat and then set it on fire in front of the kids to scare and intimidate the family.
The eldest is 4 . When in foster care he tried to drown his sister aged 3 in the bath. Should he have been prosecuted for attempted murder
. Is his abuse not an explanation
3 children aged 7, 4 and 3. Living with a nutter ( my term rather than the PC version) who is mad on the military, martial arts etc. Brought his kids up to be tough. wants to go and live in America so he can get guns and live in a log cabin waiting for armageddon.
Kids in foster care now BUT are so violent towards each other they can NEVER live together or with other children, they have big problems at school fighting etc. The 3 year old has been assessed by child psychologist as having NO internal controls on his behaviour and an inability to respond to external controls. Are they to be prosecuted for what they have done
is there abuse an explanation.
In response to your comment about not every child who is abused goes on to abuse you are right. BUt reserach does show that of adults who have gone on to abuse children ( sexually) 50% were abused as children and 50% were not. It does however raise the issue of what else went on in their childhoods. It is not a justification but it is an explanaition of why things go wrong with kids.
Just out of interest a squaddie who comes back from Afghanistan suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome ( PTSD)and commits an offence is his PTSD and army experiences an explanation or a mitigation