A child's punishment should fit the crime

Aurora Mora, On-line Forty-Niner

June 25,1998

Headlines across the country are dominated by children who kill. Schools and playgrounds are literally becoming killing fields.

The trend continues to increase and there seems to be no viable solution in sight.

To sentence a child to 70 years in prison serves no purpose

except to expend resources to keep this individual alive.

The problem is that there are no adequate forms of punishment for these kids and the types of crimes they commit.

The answer of course is very simple: these kids should be executed no matter how young they are.

There are of course different laws that govern how children will be prosecuted. The laws vary from state to state. The determining factor of how a child will be prosecuted is based on his or her age directly.

Generally the following is true: a child of 12 or 13 can be prosecuted as an adult but cannot be executed.

This type of punishment does not serve society well. If a child can pick up a firearm and knowingly kill somebody that child must face stiff consequences.

To sentence a child to 70 years in prison serves no purpose except to expend resources to keep this individual alive.

A convicted killer who brutally murders another human being should be severely punished. The punishment should fit the crime.

The benefit of executing kids who kill is two-fold, it sends a strong message to other kids contemplating the same vicious crime and it allows resources to be reallocated to people who are actually worth rehabilitating.

There have been countless senseless murders in the United States by kids as young as 11. October of 1997 a 16-year-old boy, from Pearl, Miss., killed his mother then went off on a shooting spree shooting nine students, two of them died.

Dec. 1, 1997 in West Paducah, Ky., a 14-year-old boy killed three students at his high school.

On Dec. 15 a 14-year-old boy opened fire at a school in Arkansas and wounds two students.

March 24, 1998 in Jonesboro, Ark., two boys ages 11 and 13 killed a teacher and four girls outside their middle school, nine other students and a teacher were wounded.

In April in Edinboro, Pa., a 14-year-old shot and killed a teacher and injured two students.

The following day a high school senior in Fayetteville, Tenn., shot and killed a male classmate.

Two days later in Springfield, Ore., a 15-year-old opened fire in the school cafeteria and killed one student and wounded 25 others.

June 15 a 14-year-old male opened fire in a hallway at Armstrong High School in Richmond, Va., no one was killed but, two people were injured.

The latest shooting occurred in San Francisco on June 19, a teenager shot into a crowed playground in Chinatown.

An eye for an eye, the punishment should fit the crime.

This is the only way of deterring this type of violence.

Aurora Mora is a reporter for the Summer Forty-Niner.