Car thieves steal car with 6 year old boy in the back and then shoot him to death

[csziggy]

48. A society that raises killers as young as 18 has failed

They are lost just as surely as the 6 year old is lost.

Certainly I have more sympathy for the loss of the 6 year old and the grief of his family. But if we do not make an effort to understand how the two killers became what they are we will continue to see this cycle and we will continue to lose both victims and perpetrators - both groups could contribute so much more to the benefit of our country.

Elizabeth George, the author of the Inspector Thomas Lynley mystery series, wrote a plot in which Lynley's wife was killed in one book of the series (With No One As Witness).

Her next book was What Came Before He Shot Her:

October, 2006
The brutal, inexplicable death of Inspector Thomas Lynley’s wife has left Scotland Yard shocked and searching for answers. Even more horrifying is that the trigger was apparently pulled by a twelve-year-old boy. Who is he? Where did he come from? And what were the circumstances that led to his final act of desperation?
That story begins on the other side of London in rough North Kensington, where the three, mixed-race, virtually orphaned Campbell children are bounced first from their grandmother to their aunt.
http://www.elizabethgeorgeonline.com/books.htm

George investigates in excruciating detail how the system failed the child/killer. After reading that book, I find it hard to simply want punitive measures taken against young killers. Something brought them to that stage and a normal society with healthy systems would not do that.

If anything is destroying our country, it is the failure of our systems to educate children, to give them the tools they need to lead their lives with some degree of success, and to help them when they need it.

Those two 18 year old killers are lost. They will go to prison (or to the death chamber) and will not be helped so if they ever get out of prison they can work on better lives. They are probably so damaged that no amount of work would make them able to lead productive lives (whatever that phrase might mean) but that should not blind us to the fact that we are failing the children of our country - and now the Republicans want to cut the budgets of the very systems that we need to strengthen to help them.

Yes, we could echo the cries of "Lock 'em up!" but how will just doing that prevent another tragedy like this?