Summary
A 15-year-old boy was sentenced to life in prison for fatally stabbing a stranger, Muhammad Hassam Ali, after a brief conversation in Birmingham city center. The second boy, who stood by, was sentenced to five years in secure accommodation. Ali’s family expressed their grief, describing him as a budding engineer whose life was tragically cut short.
What about the other teenager? The one who died?
He never gets to go home, he’ll never be part of society again.
While that’s obviously very sad and tragic the purpose of criminal justice should never be vengeance or an eye for an eye. It should be about rehabilitation and reintegration. Yes it’s awful that a life was lost but functionally removing another life from society for forever is hardly a good solution.
Takes care of recidivism, though. But I wouldn’t advocate it for that reason.
Someone who will commit murder at the age of 15 is very badly damaged, and will need a great deal of help to not be a danger to others in the future. That’s the compassionate route.
Almost zero governments will want to spend the money. Sadly, it’s cheaper to keep them locked up.
It also “takes care of” rehabilitation and redemption.
I’d agree, but only for crimes that aren’t fatal/serious enough. Deliberatly killing someone isn’t a thing society should forgive.
Well if we’re going to do tit for tat then let’s put this kid to death.
Oh no, someone died… I guess the only solution is to provide free housing and food to the criminal, while not providing anything else he needs ensuring he’ll stay a piece of shit that does nothing but steal from society and will likely end up killing more. /s
Even a death sentence would be better at this point! Playing the emotion card falls flat if your solution is even worse.