(continued)
First, anyone who claims that a psychoactive drug (in this kid's case, Zoloft) can't have bizarre consequences is ignorant. NON-psychoactive drugs like isotretinoin (the acne medicine also known as Accutane for those at home) can fuck with the head, causing mood alterations in infrequent levels but still statistically noteworthy levels (0.1–1% of patients), and in some cases severe depression and suicide. At the very least, it likes to fuck with blood tri- levels, which has an inhibiting effect on the activity of the thyroid, which also leads to depressed mood, etc, etc.
That said, anyone who thinks that any
intended psychoactive drug can’t contribute to significant mood alterations clearly hasn’t ever been high before, and most definitely hasn’t been around people who have bad trips.
Another disturbing aspect of this is the fact that this powerful, psychoactive, anti-anxiety/anti-depressant drug was being used on a twelve year old. That, alone is scary—especially when the brain is still developing. If a 12 year old needs to be on Zoloft,
something is wrong in that family or in that kid's brain to begin with.
Second and most disturbingly is the fact a child—under the influence of a psychoactive drug or not—is being tried as an adult. Proponents of this argue as follows:
A twelve year old should know better than to kill people, but he can't in any way be expected to grasp voting, driving, drinking, signing contracts, getting loans, or killing/dying for his country. But, when it comes to crimes, he should have perfect grasp on morality six years after graduating kindergarten.
… riiiight. Most of the adults who run our country have no sense of morality even 40 years after kindergarten, yet they don't even get tried as adults for their misdeeds.
I don't know about you, but when I was in 7th grade (like this kid was when he killed his grandparents), I was convinced the vast majority of my fellow classmates didn't grasp the concept of being kind to their fellow human beings, and I definitely wouldn't have put it up to all of them and their early pubescent minds to truly understand the consequences of their actions in ANY field. Like many others were, I was constantly ridiculed for anything from my bad choice of clothes to something I said to the way I acted to the rumors that I was gay. Many of my classmates were evil little shits who will probably never do anything for anyone other than themselves. Did they know better? Sure, but did they understand the true consequences of their actions? Doubtful.
The way I see it is that if you can be held accountable as an adult, then you should get all the same freedoms as an adult, because you're expected to know better. However, if a government is unwilling to give the freedom entitlements of an adult to someone expected to behave as an adult, it's very much government trying to have its cake and eat it too.
If the only reason we're trying exceptional 12 year olds is for their maturity, then what about making exceptions for 11 year olds that can hold their liquor? How about some of the 14 year olds that would fit really well into the military? Maybe we can give licenses to some of the 10 year olds who can drive. Clearly, then, we should also give fiscally-responsible 13 year olds mortgages from the bank, as well.
There are age limits for a reason. By law, a two year old is a child, a five year old is a child, a 12 year old is a child, and even a 16 year old is a child. Until someone lowers the bar from 18 to 12, all children
must be tried as children-- period. The "he should know better" argument is about as much bullshit as saying the exact same thing to a seven year old who's stolen candy from the store, but we're not arguing that the seven year old should be sent to juvie. Even two year olds know they're doing wrong, but they will many times still do it anyway. Don’t believe me? Try having a sister who was one while you were a teenager.
Even better: What sort of social skills do you expect an incarcerated twelve year old to have once he hits 43? You know... when he gets released from jail? Most of the little shits who were mean to me in middle school go through vast amounts of socialization in high school, college, early jobs, graduate school, youth groups, church, marriage, and just general life experience. Instead, what, exactly, do we expect a 43 year old robbed of all of that to do? Think about it. He's sitting for 30 years in a place full of evil, evil men. For 30 years, the only meaningful contacts that this kid is going to have are ADULT murderers, psychopaths, rapists,
child molesters, thieves, junkies, and violent drug lords. Thirty
years. I’d kill myself after the first thirty
days if I was a teenager put in that situation.
…yet we expect him to learn his lesson and be a better person when he's released? If we're actually telling ourselves this fable, we are truly delusional.
Plain and simple, the kid will go into the system a child, and he will come out a cold-blooded, emotionless, raped, beaten, and violent criminal, who will only go on to fuck over society in his middle age-- trained by society's best of the worst.
In the end, we must face the music: children don’t need prisons—they need child psychologists.
Of course, these are all moralistic arguments. The real fun comes from the fact that we have the highest proportion of locked up versus free people, but we by far have the highest violent crime rate in comparison to any other first world country. Clearly, locking people up or killing them doesn’t seem to be working as a deterrent, so maybe we should be looking elsewhere.
Far be it from me in issues of causality to dictate the solution to it all, but fuck it, I’d like to try: maybe we could start with better healthcare, poverty control, and public school funding.
Personally, I’d take an extra 1-5% tax hike if it meant better health (both physical and mental to help crazies), less poverty (and less need to murder and steal to make ends meet), and more availability of quality public education (so that kids actually learn something other than sports).
Maybe then we wouldn’t have so many people resorting to violence to solve their problems in life.
