What to do with kids like these -- or their parents?

[theHandpuppet]

What is posted below is a follow up to the initial rape report. The 5 year old girl was so physically traumatized she had to be taken from the local hospital for treatment at another facility some 50 miles away.

http://www.portsmouth-dailytimes.com/articles/2007/07/14/news/local_news/1news_juvenrape.txt

Boys accused of rape arraigned

By FRANK LEWIS
PDT Staff Writer
Saturday, July 14, 2007 12:21 AM EDT


Lindsay Niegelberg - Daily Times - Scioto County Juvenile and Probate Court Judge James Kirsch sits in his chambers office Friday discussing options available to him in a matter involving two juveniles accused of raping a 5-year-old girl in Wheelersburg.

Two Wheelersburg juveniles accused in the rape of a 5-year-old girl July 6, appeared for an arraignment and sentencing hearing in Scioto County Juvenile Court on Friday afternoon.

One of the boys, who was age 9 at the time the alleged offense occurred, but since has turned 10 years old, was accompanied by his parents and attorney Rick Faulkner. The 11-year-old's parents were present at the hearing as well....

<snipping>

The mother of the 11-year-old boy said her son had been prohibited from attending summer school.

“They won't let him,” she said. “They say he's a disruption to the educational process.”

MORE

[glowing]

1. I'm wondering if one of the boys was raped/ molested?

It seems hard for me to think that 10yr olds would really know what they were doing, unless....

And what a red-neck town... I can't believe that anyone would want to defend theses boys? These are the people I want to send to a third world regime and let them understand why we have certain rights. Such bone heads.

[theHandpuppet]

3. That "red neck town" is where I was born and raised.

And the county votes democratic. Watch that broad brush, 'kay?

[Arkansas Granny]

5. Like you, one of my first thoughts was to wonder if these boys had

been sexually abused. This is not the type of behavior you expect to find in boys in that age group. I do not in any way condone their actions, but I believe there may be something in their past that may help explain it. When someone that young commits a crime of this magnitude, you just have to wonder what their lives have been like up to this point.

As far as defending these boys, one of those certain rights you mention is that even the guilty have a right to defend themselves in court. Even if you can't defend the actions of a person, you must defend his rights to a fair trial.

[Katherine Brengle]

2. I don't even know what to say...

everyone involved needs intense therapy, that's for sure.

I can't even imagine what that poor little girl is going through :(.

[theHandpuppet]

4. But can they afford it?

And there's the rub -- they all need therapy but they can't even afford lawyers, much less therapy or medications or whatever else they need. This what happens when the poor in this country are abandoned. The ones in need of so much when they're young usually aren't noticed until it's too late and they start committing adult crimes -- to everyone's righteous outrage.

[Sadie4629]

6. One thing I don't understand

They withheld the names of all the children involved, which is the right thing to do. But they named the mother of the victim, which obviously leads to the identity of the victim; but did not name the parents of the perpetrators. Why the different treatment? I think they should have either given out all the parents' names or none of them.

[China_cat]

7. Maybe the mother's last name is different from the boy's.