Reply #4: Ditto. Some crimes are so heinous, and clearly a "normal" teen would not do... [View All]

[Honeycombe8]

that punishment of life in prison may be justified, and the crime so heinous that society should be protected from the individual forever.

But even if there is parole after, say, 40 years...is that much better? What kind of a person would come out of an institution after 40 years of incarceration? Would he be able to cope with the outside world in a productive, non-criminal way? Work....paying bills....car trouble....relationship problems....all the trials and tribulations of a free life that someone incarcerated has never had to deal with. Someone who has never had to make any independent life decision in his entire adult life...I don't think would be able to cope.

I remember being age 13. Yes, I was a different person. I also knew lots of other 13 year olds, of course. We always knew the "bad ones." Those kids who had some streak of something not right...the kind of kid who would, say, hurt an animal, shoot a bird for enjoyment, hit a friend because of a minor disagreement. Most kids aren't wired to do cruel acts, and I certainly knew, even at age 13, what it meant to hurt another person, or kill another person. I wasn't capable of it. Most kids aren't. Those who are...they don't do that because they don't understand the cruelty or the pain or that it's wrong. They do it because there's something not right with them.