"Is it a crime to raise a killer?"

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http://news.yahoo.com/is-it-a-crime-to- ... 58283.html

Any thoughts? How far does parental responsibility go when your kid commits an awful crime?

I think it's baloney. Kids can do anything and even as a parent you may not expect what your kid can actually do. A kid may grow up without any problems and then bam you find out they shot someone. Even if your kid does have problems, how are you going to know your kid will kill someone? I could have taken a knife and brought it to school and stab another student and my parents would not have even guessed I would do such a thing. Does that mean all kids with any sort of issue should be locked away because they could commit a violent crime? Plus hospitals won't take your kid always when you try and check them in. What about normal kids too? They could stab someone. How many normal people out there have committed a violent crime?

I find it stupid to charge parents for their kids crime. Also parents do their personal best giving their kids treatment and can't always get it when they need it. I think people who blame the mother have never been in a abusive relationship or had a special needs child. This is just an example where people expect you to be god when you have kids. I think the mom is being biased about her kid though. Maybe Justin meant to kill the girl, maybe he didn't. Plus the family is grieving and sometimes when people grieve, they do illogical things and suing is one of them. I think Anita was strong to turn her kid in. I can't imagine how I would feel if my own child committed the same crime. I think I would be embarrassed.

What would you do?

Through John Hinckley's parents into the slammer - in the same cell with Jeffry Daumier's mom and dad?

What would that accomplish?

Generally no, unless it can be proven intentional or by way of gross negligence.

I think the case against the parents of the horrible brat who murdered the girl are deeply wrong.

Unless you're Big Daddy raising Hit Girl, then no.

Also, the 'beware of laws named after dead children' rule is in full effect with this one.

Gross negligence doesn't really apply to premeditated murder though...
But, kids have been known to be deliberately raised to be killers. The parent, usually the mother, uses the child for a proxy killing to try to avoid getting the time for it and pushing the punishment on to the kid.

And no, I don't think that people should place the blame on the parents like the normally do. The parents normally are typical parents who parented typically.

I once saw a movie on lifetime about one father put his 14 year old girl up to killing his girlfriend and made up a story and saying "If you really love me, you will do it" and he got away with it for a while because she took the full blame. Then he got arrested for it few years later. I forget what it was called. It was made in 1991 and made for TV. It was just one of those movies that takes place in different years and it does flashbacks to the time of the year the crime happened. I find it disgusting that an adult would put their child up to doing a crime for them and manipulate them to do it. When you're 14, you're still a child and you still believe what the adult tells you, especially if they say it's all okay to do. It's all sick. But I don't remember what happened to the girl in the movie like if she was ever released or not. I also saw on Dr. Phil of a ten year old boy being put up to killing his father by his step mother and he got away with it because they bought his lie about it his step mom told him to say to the police. Then the ten year old was now an adult and regretted his decision and for listening to her.

I find it very selfish and disgusting when parents use their kids to commit a crime.

Grief makes for terrible laws. Blessedly so far the legal system has been steadfastly against any such law (this has been raised before in previous murders). Such a law would be absolutely begging for unintended consequences. The unintended consequences start right in the comments section of the linked article with victim blaming (or rather victim's parent blaming). If the parenting of the murderer gets scrutinized in court, inevitably so will the parenting of the victim. The comments section gives a little taste of that. It's bad enough in a comments section. It will be pretty much mandatory as a tactic for the lawyer of the murderer's parents.

Then there is the matter of what parents should do to guarantee that they don't raise a murderer. This is especially difficult in the case of a child with a condition, as this one did. How much- legally- is "enough"? The parent of the victim says the parents of the murderer didn't do "enough" but in the case of conditions, what gets done is pretty much up to the school system unless the parents can pay-out-of-pocket for perfect schooling. And it would have to be perfect if they are to be held criminally responsible.

The parent of the victim says the murderer was taught to strangle by watching his own father choke his own mother. This may be true. But then again, how to prove? Parents are not the only influences in their children's lives and many psychs say the prevailing culture the child is raised in and the child's peers are just as if not more influential than the parents. But what if in this case it really was seeing the father choke the mother. That is a crime in its' own right and it did lead to their divorce. But if you start holding parents responsible for how their children interpret things, you set a very dangerous precedent.

The parent of the victim also says that the parents of the murderer should have known that since their son had a condition, he was liable to interpret things differently than an NT kid would (not that he uses the term NT). That sets the precedent of making a different set of parenting standards based on conditions. How do you enforce a law that is only broken in hindsight?

Here's a reddit thread on the subject.
http://www.reddit.com/r/TrueReddit/comm ... dy_in_new/