Why are we still wasting time with this loser?

[JimO]

while i dont feel sorry for him why do we never hear the names of the other offenders, he wasnt there on his own but the other guys are able to get on with their lives without making the news every time they fuck up, he has huge media interest on him and that must have a bearing on his behaviour

[superman]

According to "those that know about these things", you've got about 5yrs from birth to form the child's personality. So if the child experiences a warm, safe, stable and loving home, it will be well adjusted and teachable by five, if not, you've got a real battle on your hands to alter behaviour. By puberty, if nothing is done, the requirements for change become very intensive and long term.

Yes, there are purely evil people who cannot be rehabilitated, but I would suggest they are a minority. Sadly I do agree the justice system is fraught with holes and inadequacies for a variety of reasons and we can't all help everyone.

Agreed with most of the posts above. The link between becoming a criminal and a bad childhood is far too strong. Even with psychopaths, it's a mental condition. Though I think usually with psychopaths we put them in prison instead of mental institutions because they're normal people except without emotions. And that to us is exactly what we find criminals to be, no matter if they actually have faulty receptors in their brain.

How about gladiator but with criminals. Then at least you can profit off their deaths.

[White trash]

while i dont feel sorry for him why do we never hear the names of the other offenders, he wasnt there on his own but the other guys are able to get on with their lives without making the news every time they fuck up, he has huge media interest on him and that must have a bearing on his behaviour

Do they fuck up though? That maybe why we never hear of them.

[MD]

The result is what we see today ....

I ask: what role did our society play in creating this person? At 12 years old we dropped him into a situation where he was surrounded by criminals - and wonder why he is the way he is?

Could we have done any better?

Please don't try and lay the blame on my doorstep. I've never meet the prick. Not his father, not his cuzzie, not his neighbour, not his friend, not his employer etc...

I'm sick of this lets 'blame the collective 'we' or 'society'.

If I get a speeding ticket tomorrow can I blame you and you will pay the fine?

[Dave Lobster]

Society has to do "something" with violent offenders, what would you suggest we do?

Put them in solitary confinement without food or water, until they die.

If I get a speeding ticket tomorrow can I blame you and you will pay the fine?

Only if you're 1/64th maori.

[Elysium]

A 12-year-old child who went along with older peers has been dropped into the corrections system for killing another human being ...

The result is what we see today ....

Kurariki will now be a problem all his life - and will probably be in and out of jail all his life ... and I agree, he probably should be.

I ask: what role did our society play in creating this person? At 12 years old we dropped him into a situation where he was surrounded by criminals - and wonder why he is the way he is?

Could we have done any better? He was 12 years old for God's Sake!!! If he was lead by his slightly older criminal peers, why didn't we remove him from that situation and give him better examples? Instead we dropped him in with even worse criminal associates. And we expected him to change? Get real ...

(And why is he taking up your time? Only because the news media think he's important - but he's just like many many others - who you don't hear about)

You should be asking his parents that.

[scissorhands]

Please don't try and lay the blame on my doorstep. I've never meet the prick. Not his father, not his cuzzie, not his neighbour, not his friend, not his employer etc...

I'm sick of this lets 'blame the collective 'we' or 'society'.

If I get a speeding ticket tomorrow can I blame you and you will pay the fine?

No matter how 'GOOD' society is, deranged narcissistic psychopaths will still be thrown up every now and then, its a numbers game

However, the media attention pumped this guy up and he aint gonna go down that slowly. He is already rotting in hell, and the only thing that can release him at this stage is sobriety and good company.

Why not give him a lobotomy and introduce him to some Hare Krishnas?

[Banditbandit]

Can't you read, he's just an innocent maori mate. Can't shoot him for that.

Naaa .. he may be Māori, but he's not innocent ...

While I enjoy most of your posts as I find them enlightening and thought provoking, I disagree with your original points here. Society is not to blame for this 12 year old scumbags involvement, his fucking parents are. Society is not to blame for every single choice these arseholes make. The arseholes making the decisions are.

I do not disagree with you in a specific sense. I agree that his parents are directly responsible.

Society became involved at the point he was convicted ... (I could argue that we all have some responsiblity - but I'll leave that one) .... and our response was to "lock him up". That's just got to be the worst response to a 12-year-old ... almost gaurantees he'll be a career criminal ... We did not do our best for him ...

I believe that we all have some responsibility for each other ... if you're really the libertarian that you seem to be, then you probably won't accept that position ..

Kurariki's clearly had some poor role models and a poor childhood - how about providing him better role models (instead of other criminals) .. how about addressing his likely lack of education (like that's going to be improved by locking him up) ... I refuse to accept that a 12-year-old boy is a hopeless case (unless he's a psychopath) ...

Surely we could have had a better response .. which would have meant he would not become a career criminal ... better for him, better for us all ... as we ceate fewer criminals.

He's not 12-years-old any more - and he's a career criminal ... I agree the best place for him now, in terms of the best for all of us, is in jail. It's too late for Junior Kurariki ... it's not too late for other 12-year-olds in the same place he once was.

[Banditbandit]

Perhaps "we" should have put him in a run of the mill foster home. Maybe next door to "our" families and kids? Hmmmmm, he took part in a beating a man to death, for a mere twenty odd bucks. I argue the apple was already bad by the time he made the choice to be a part of a very violent crime. I'd hazard a guess that if I said to my twelve year old daughter that we were both going to go hide in a dark alley tonight, then beat the fuck out of the pizza guy I'd rung to deliver some pizza and I'd go her halves in the twenty bucks we could get, she'd find it a repulsive concept and probably cry.

Yes. However, I don't think that a 12-year-old Junior Kurariki was capable of making the choice - as your daughter possibly is.

If you took her to the dark alley, do you think she would go along with what you were doing? She probably would - but would cry, woudd feel bad - would be torn by wanting to do what her father asked and knowing it was wrong .. I suspect that at 12-years-old doing what her father said would win out .. with devastating affects on her ...

Junior Kurariki would probably not be capable of making a choice - but would suffer some pretty devastating consquences.

In his first court appearance he looked scared and confused - in his next few (after contact with other crims in jail) he looked more confident and defiant. We should have dealt with the scared and confused 12-year-old .. now we have to deal with the confident and defiant criminal.

[White trash]

II believe that we all have some responsibility for each other ... if you're really the libertarian that you seem to be, then you probably won't accept that position ..

Egg's on your face mate, I've never even BEEN to a library.

Seriously though, you raise valid points. My question is though, there needs to be a punishment for his original crime, what should it be? What sort of message would it send if "we" gave a 12 year old murderer cuddles and a nice life with better education and opportunities? You'd have every disadvantaged kid in Otara thinking "Fuck this, I'm off to bust some caps, get me a high life yo!"

[Banditbandit]

I think it's something to do with the more communal outlook of the Tangata Te Whenua. But yes, does beg the question, "So where were you Banditbandit?".

Good question.

This is one of the reasons I work in education where I do. I get the chance to help people turn their lives around through education, self-improvement - all those wonderful warm and fuzzy words ... but it's real.

A lot of my students have come from backgrounds like Kurariki. I can tell you that many of them now have good jobs and stable lives. I can't tell you how many didn't go to jail because of how they changed their lives - I can tell you that some of my students have criminals records - and they have truned their lives around.

I can tell you how many of them stopped smoking dak during the timeof their education - conversations I overheard between peers where one talked the other out of some violent retribution for percieved grievances (where in the past both woul have just gone and done it) ...

So yes, I can, with some justification, claim to be working towards improving the lot of my people ...

What are you doing to improve our society?

[Banditbandit]

What is all of this 'we' business??? I didn't have anything to do with any of this and neither did anyone else I know. Some people make their own beds don't you know.

We have a lot to do with how our society functions ... "we" demanded longer prison terms for violent offenders ... "we" wanted Kurariki to go to jail ...

"We' think Māori are scum .. and so when one child (he was a child) commits and offence "we" demand that child is punished ...

"We" no longer support each other in a community as we once did, when I was growing up ...

[Banditbandit]

Egg's on your face mate, I've never even BEEN to a library.

Seriously though, you raise valid points. My question is though, there needs to be a punishment for his original crime, what should it be? What sort of message would it send if "we" gave a 12 year old murderer cuddles and a nice life with better education and opportunities? You'd have every disadvantaged kid in Otara thinking "Fuck this, I'm off to bust some caps, get me a high life yo!"

Hey man .. nice to see we are live on line together ...

You ask valid questions .. my immediate response is "fuck knows" ... because I agree - every kid in Otara would respond liek that .. but I don't find "fuck knows" acceptable. let me have a smoke .. and let's toss some ideas around ...

[oneofsix]

Hey man .. nice to see we are live on line together ...

You ask valid questions .. my immediate response is "fuck knows" ... because I agree - every kid in Otara would respond liek that .. but I don't find "fuck knows" acceptable. let me have a smoke .. and let's toss some ideas around ...

Butting in. When that cute little 13 year old was sent down these questions were discussed, usual non-answer. But it was decided that he was culpable enough that he couldn't be given just cuddles and had to go away. The hope of most of the nation was that as just a young offender special rehabilitation effort would be made and work. The effort was made, he didn't go straight to adult prison, but it didn't work or was undone.
Question now is ' is he savable?' from a social view point. Is he a sociopath? if so is it be nature or nurture?

[Spearfish]

Is "Corrections" an oxymoron when used to name our prison system?

or
I'm absolutely unsure about the abundant poverty and benign neglect he grew up in that could have contributed to him turning into a boring court jester and thinking he is a blameless culprit but then corrections is consistently inconsistent.