Posted by Nicholas | These truths we hold to be self evident. Seems to me I’ve heard that somewhere, or a least read it. It never impressed me that much because I thought in the main that it was just an easy way of not bothering to justify a belief. A rather pompous way of saying “If you have to ask, then you’ll never understand.” But not always. There are certain things that are, I believe, self evident. As an example, may I offer for your consideration the fact that there is no written law in Britain against murder. It is just an agreed fact that it is self-evidently wrong, and has been since time immemorial. Murder is wrong; no one can disagree about that. The written laws that exist there define murder, not its criminality, and set the penalty.
There is one matter which, I suggest, we all agree is simply wrong, and that is maltreatment of children. Not only the obvious ways of abusing them – violence and rape, for example – but unleashing on them the full majesty of the law that is normally reserved for adults. It is an abuse to take a child, an as yet undeveloped human being, pretend that he is an adult and, treat him like one. So that your eleven year old...
ends up in an adult court, is prosecuted as though he were twice his age, and if found guilty is given an adult sentence. In instances like this, prosecutors and judges are themselves child abusers, hiding behind the law that permits them to act this way the way a street corner flasher hides behind a greasy raincoat.
Most of the world sees this. The Convention of the Rights of the Child has been ratified by all the member states of the UN except Somalia and the USA, both of which refused to because they wanted to be able to continue to execute children. The age of criminality varies from one country to another, but most states acknowledge that at below a certain age children can not be assumed to have an adult awareness of the consequences of their actions. It is likewise ridiculous to punish a full grown adult for crimes he or she may have committed when a child. Unless, of course, one is motivated by spite and vindictiveness. It is vindictiveness that prevented a recent vote at the UN from being unanimous. This imperfect but well-meaning organization called for a move to end the sentencing of anyone below eighteen to a life sentence for any crime on the correct grounds that it is simply wrong. When the vote was taken it was 185 in favour and only one against. That one was the Unites States, where there are over seventy people serving life sentences without parole for crimes committed when they were 13 or 14. That’s right – child abusing prosecutors and judges consigned these children to incarceration until they die.
It is such a strange thing that a nation that would have us believe that it is at the cutting edge of humanity and the advance of civilization treats its miscreant children so foully. Do the ordinary people actually know what is being done in their name? Last year police officers entered a school not far from the town in Florida where I live and arrested two children, 9 and 10, for having painted in their drawing class what teachers thought was a picture that threatened violence. Unbelievable though it may seem, two kids painted a nasty picture so they were hauled away in handcuffs for it. This was not simply a matter of a small town police department out of control, even though it would be comforting to think that this was just a bunch of power-mad hicks going too far. They did it because the law said they could, and they simply had not bothered to think of any other way of dealing with the situation. Maybe it was beyond their abilities to do so.
The main opposition to changing the law that allows children to be legally abused in this way comes from conservative and religious groups – now there’s a surprise – who no doubt think that all true God fearing Christians are in favour of throwing delinquent children onto society’s garbage heap and forgetting them. Or at least making them as miserable as possible. Just this month, seven guards at a torture camp for delinquent children were acquitted of manslaughter after one of their charges a 14-year old boy, fainted in the heat of midsummer Florida and instead of seeking medical help they tried to revive him by kicking and beating him. He died.
The other objection to ratifying the Convention of the Rights of the Child is that t would infringe the rights of the individual States. When it comes to a matter of such obvious inhumanity I don’t give a monkey’s tits about States’ rights. The States should bloody well know better anyway. There is no justification for cruelty to children, and trying them as adults, chaining them up, and imposing life sentences on them is cruelty. The fact that such cruelty is inspired by judicial revenge is no excuse.
I do not believe, I simply refuse to believe, that the American in the street is fully behind this. The ones I know are loving, nurturing parents, all-round good people, humane and compassionate all of them. I wonder if they realise that the rest of the world has moved on and has abandoned these nineteenth century practices. I’m convinced that if they took stock of the situation, and thought about it carefully, they would let their legislators know that this state of affairs is no longer acceptable. How could anyone think otherwise? Think of a 10-year old of your acquaintance, and then imagine him being led away crying in handcuffs (handcuffs!) by a couple of fully grown men in uniform. Then try to justify why that isn’t obscene. There’s your self-evident truth for you.
This post also appears at A Gentleman's Domain
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