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Teenagers are more likely to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit because they are less able to make mature decisions, new research shows.
Experts have called for major changes to the criminal justice system after finding innocent younger people are far more likely admit to offences, even when innocent, than adults.
Those who carried out the study say teenagers should not be allowed to make deals where they face a lesser charge in return for pleading guilty. The study suggests young people are more likely to be enticed by these deals, and take what they see as an advantageous offer even when they have done nothing wrong.
Most criminal convictions in the UK and the USA occur as the result of guilty pleas, rather than trial. This means the majority of convictions are the result of decisions made by people accused of crimes rather than jurors.
The research was carried out in the USA, where a system known as "plea bargaining" is utilised, but the academics say their discovery has implications for countries across the world that allow teenagers accused of crimes to receive a sentence or charge reduction by pleading guilty. Specifically, the researchers recommend restricting reductions that may entice innocent teenagers into pleading guilty and making it easier for teenagers to change pleas after they have been entered.
Other research has found adolescents are less able to perceive risk and resist the influence of peers because of developmental immaturity.
https://phys.org/news/2018-03-teenagers-guilty-crimes-didnt-commit.html
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Saturday March 17 2018, @05:56PM (8 children)
Wait.
Spanking a child that has ignored multiple verbal warnings, timeouts and "consequences", but has continued with an unacceptable and publicly disruptive behavior is torture?
You must led a blessed life if you've never been in a market and encountered a child creating a major disruption while the parent just keeps telling them stop what they are doing and to stop knocking stuff off the shelves and shouting at the top of their lungs.
While I will agree that putting a dog collar on a child and chaining them up in the front yard because they won't eat their vegetables is unacceptably extreme. A single solid smack on the butt will enforce the conditioning that "break the rules==get punished".
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by unauthorized on Saturday March 17 2018, @06:38PM (2 children)
Welcome to cognitive dissonance. It's a bitch isn't it?
If your child behaves like that, then that raises some questions about how you raised them.
But to return to your point, what exactly disqualifies it as an act of torture?
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday March 18 2018, @12:01AM
Every snowflake is special, they are all unique and what works on all the snowflakes you've ever known may not work at all on another one.
Now, beatings, they generate a fairly predictable result - not a desirable one: fear, cowering, resentment, retaliation, explosive retribution...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday March 19 2018, @12:44PM
> what exactly disqualifies it as an act of torture?
The "excruciating" adjective prefixed to pain in the definition I have read on this thread, I guess.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday March 17 2018, @06:41PM (2 children)
No, it enforces the conditioning that if you're bigger than the other person you have a right to hurt them if they don't do what you want them to do. In other words, "might makes right".
You want to punish a kid who's causing a racket in the toy aisle? Take them out of the store as quickly as possible, without any toys. Let them scream and cry and stomp in the car all they want, you still won't get them the toy, even if you'd planned on giving them a new toy that day prior to the fit. That enforces the conditioning that "throw a fit==don't get what you want".
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday March 17 2018, @10:21PM (1 child)
Yes. "Spare the rod, spoil the child" is yet another example of Iron Age thinking that would be best retired.
Spanking is the wrong way to condition kids. It rarely works as supposedly intended, more often pushing the child into defiance and rebelliousness. Worse, it can break the spirit. And it can too easily be misused to feed an adult's secret sadistic streak or desire to take out their frustrations on someone who can't resist, rather than as a righteous consequence for misbehavior. Schools gave up on corporal punishment for all those reasons and more.
It also conditions the punishers, and corrodes society. It's part of the ancient East vs West debate, over which kind of society works better, a free society or a slave one? Over and over, people are tempted to go the slave route, as long as they get to be the masters. Funny how hardly anyone volunteers to be a slave. Apart from seeming more productive, it can also seem safer. But it infantilizes citizens. It's instructive to think about the tone Mubarak of Egypt took with the citizens, when he was falling from power during the Arab Spring. His whole attitude was that the citizens were ungrateful children. That's all too common with authoritarian leaders.
Sadly, Christianity has a decidedly authoritarian streak. The entire monotheistic setup, with a Big Man, the biggest of all, God, in charge of everything, the "Jesus is Lord" stuff-- these are the prayers of those who want their hands held and not to have to think for themselves, want to leave it all in God's hands. "Spare the rod, spoil the child" fits perfectly with such authoritarian thinking.
I won't forget the time the city taped a notice to my door, with the accusation that the grass in the lawn was too high. What really infuriated me was not the particular accusation, but the disrespectful tone of the notice. It threatened, intimidated, insulted, made unwarranted assumptions, even exaggerated to the point of lying, and most of all, talked down as if the recipients were naughty children who would be punished if they didn't stop misbehaving. I gave several city officials and politicians a long earful about that. I imagine most of my fellow citizens who receive such notices take a much more submissive and compliant attitude, more's the pity. The neighboring city actually escalated a lawn issue all the way to confinement, imprisoning a good citizen for the crime of not having mowed his lawn, and sadly, he didn't seem to think it was entirely unwarranted.
The way our law enforcement is handled furthers this mentality as well as feeds the Prison Industrial Complex. A finding such as this about teens adds to the pressure for reform. It's not just teens. Many an adult has also been pressured into confessing. See these articles about innocent suspects who were pushed into taking Alford pleas: https://www.propublica.org/series/ignoring-innocence [propublica.org]
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday March 19 2018, @11:12AM
>Sadly, Christianity has a decidedly authoritarian streak. The entire monotheistic setup, with a Big Man, the biggest of all, God, in charge of everything
then, why is He hiding?
A. because he does not exist?
You cannot criticize a religion basing on the rejection of its principles, because it's silly. You are already rejecting an impossible to verify statement, rationalizing the choice is a waste of time.
A. indeed, something does not compute...
This is better.
1. trying to wrestle authority from the god is trying to wrestle the dream from the dreamer.
2. among men the christian hierarchy is reversed, both in scripture which you obviously did not read and in tradition. Servus servorum.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 17 2018, @06:48PM (1 child)
Could you do that to an adult? Could a man slap his wife around a bit for disobeying him, as long as it didn't go too far? No? Then why the special pleading, here? Unless it's in self-defense or defense of another from physical aggression, violence is not the morally correct answer, regardless of whether or not you can get desirable results by using it. The ends do not justify the means, even assuming the ends are good.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday March 18 2018, @04:41AM
It has been a long time since a wife had even a perceived duty to obey, so of course corporal punishment for not obeying is out of bounds.