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This comes down to parenting (or lack thereof) as the root cause I think. Children with caring, loving parents seldom produce career criminal children. That's because they have an interest in what their children are doing, including what friends they are with, where they are going and when they'll be home.

It's a simple, obvious thing for a mind free of mental illness that pointing a gun at someone is not a good thing, unless you're a law enforcement officer protecting the interests of the rest of the community. If you're that "confused", you need to be getting some psychiatric treatment. Whether you're 16 or 66. If your parents don't teach your right from wrong, I don't think it should become everyone else's duty.

Confused or not, you had to know what you were doing was wrong, Americka. Stealing is wrong. Your parents are supposed to teach you that by the time you get to school.

Should you have been held at gunpoint for stealing? Well, maybe to scare you a bit. I know police officers use the scare tactic on young offenders to "try and scare them straight". But a gun to the temple is a little excessive, espically if you're unarmed. You WERE unarmed, right?

The dictionary defines "mistake" as : unrecognition of an error.

It comes back to right or wrong. You knew #$%^&#$%^&#$%^&#$%^& well you should not have been in there stealing, it wasn't a mistake, just like this guy knew he shouldn't be pointing a gun at people but did anyway.

I think the prison system has proved quite effectively that career criminals are nearly impossible to rehabilitate. I see no point in continuing to have to house and feed them if they are never going to be a useful member of society.

This debate will rage forever. Personally, I think people with coddling opinions of criminals are contributing to crime. Jail is not a punishment to most of them. It means security, 3 squares and something they're familiar and comfortable with. And they don't have to conform or earn their keep. They just have to stay alive. And we have to pay for it.

I personally think if you're convicted of a violent crime, you get death. Plain and simple. You kill someone, you're put to death, not in jail forever where law abiding citizens tax dollars are used to support you, so you can get a college education on our dime, write a book or start an internet business. That is NOT right. I subscribe to the old eye for an eye judgement.


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