What do you do with a 13 year old rapist?

Stifler's - posted on 04/05/2011

I'm sure many rapists over 18 were sexually abused as children. Do they get special consideration too?

Emma - posted on 04/10/2010

Put him in till the jail rots then build an new one and put him in there.

I do not care about the age Rape is Rape ! end of story

By all means give him help in jail, but he should stay on the SOR for life if you could do something so dusting at such a young age i dread to think what you would be capable of doing as an adult.

I personalty think once a sex offender always a sex offender .



My son is only 2 at the moment but will be tought that this is wrong in any way shape or form. My Daughter is 3 and she already knows that we do not touch other people in there special places and one one should touch her's .

Lyndsay - posted on 03/26/2010

Just want to add... on the other hand, I think if a person (any person, regardless of age) has served their time, ends up back in the community, and re-offends they should be given the death penalty. One life for two lives ruined is a fair trade.

Lyndsay - posted on 03/26/2010

I think this is a really difficult thing to deal with. Abused children often becomes abusers themselves, because that is what they are taught. I think they need to give him the help he needs, but I also think he should be on the sex offender's list until he's at least 18. If he hasn't re-offended by then, they can remove it from his public profile like they would any other young offender charges.

Shannon - posted on 03/24/2010

I agree that the kid knew what he was doing, knew it was wrong & deserves a more severe punishment. Letting him off that easy is sending him a message that it wasn't his fault & that it wasn't even that big a deal. It WAS his fault & it IS a big deal...
I had an abused rough childhood too & I managed to never hurt anyone else.. It's just an excuse. I'm sure most of the adult sex offenders also had abuse & a hard life. Should we send them off with a warning too. NO. Because they will do it again & again. Just like this kid.....Lock him up with counseling..

Rose - posted on 03/24/2010

I think before they have a ruling they should put the kid through counseling to see if he knows what he did was wrong. But if it was my daughter i would be pissed and want the book thrown at him. With how young kids are having sex now a days he should of known better. If it happened to him why would he even want to put that kind of pain on someone else? He should be on the sex offenders list for alot longer than a couple of years.

Jessica - posted on 03/24/2010

I have to agree with Christy, if this was my child, my blood, it wouldn't change the fact that he did a horrible horrible thing. I would want help for him if it was some sort of mental disorder...but like I said before, if it turned out there was nothing wrong other then he was a horrible hateful little being, then yes, lock him up where he can't hurt anyone else. Sometimes there is nothing to help or rehabilitate. He may be my child , but that 3 yr old is someones child to...

Rosie - posted on 03/24/2010

i have huge issues with people trying children as adults. there's a reason why you aren't considered an adult until you are 18 in th united states. if a 30 year old man raped a 13 year old everyone would be screaming for justice, and how could they do that to that innocent CHILD. he is a CHILD. i'm not saying he doesn't have the ability to know right from wrong or what no means, but i don't feel children have the ability to fully understand what they are doing, and taking away from their victim when they commit these crimes. add on top of that the way this child was treeated all of his life, and it's no wonder it happened. obviously i know that not everybody that is negelected or abused will become a rapist, but statistics prove it makes them more likely to. this kid needs major help, and extensive counseling before he can be put back into society, but a harsh jail sentence with no rehabilitation is a joke.

Christy - posted on 03/24/2010

Heather you bring up an interesting point. i do think that if it was my 13 year old son i would want him to be locked up so that he can't do any more harm to himself or to other children. like i said before, i absolutely think he needs counseling, i just think that it should be done where he doesn't have access to any small children. i would still visit my son and let him know that he is loved but i would feel much more comfortable knowing that he no longer has the ability to harm someone else's child. and i'm not saying lock him up and throw away the key but i do think he should be contained for a minimum of 2 years and only let out after passing a psych evaluation from a number of specialists.

Jennifer - posted on 03/24/2010

We don't know the full circumsatnces but he's 13 not 3. He knew what he was doing and I think he should recieve the same treatment as any other rapist - prison sentence.

Lady - posted on 03/24/2010

The thing is with this boy is that it is very unlikely that he was the typical preditory rapist, grabbing his victim out of a need to feel the sense of power most rapists crave. He was acting out something he had been taught.
And I toltally dissagree that 13 year old are no longer inoccent children - my son is almost 12 and he and his friends are very much still kicking a ball about the park having innocent fun type kids as I think most children that age are, just because there are some who have grown up much too quickly doesn't mean that they all are.
Besides the fact that a lot of abused children are a lot less mature than others their age. their maturity levels are quite often stunted at the point where the abuse occured - this boy may well have had the maturity level of a 5 year old - should he still be tried and convicted like an adult?
Yes what he did was a terrible crime and he has to be shown that it was completly unacceptable behaviour that can never happen again and yes he needs some form of punishment - but I don't think locking him up and throwing away the key would help anyone.

Heather - posted on 03/24/2010

I am not saying that I agree with this boys actions in the least, and I feel he got off way too easy, but just for curiosities sake, what if this was your son who did this? many of you say that if this was your daughter you would... (fill in the blank) But what if your 13 year old son raped a child, would you still be as quick to lock him up...or kill him, as one of you alluded to. Would you push for some type of help? or would you want the judge to throw the book at him?....just curious...

Christy - posted on 03/23/2010

i really dislike the idea that a rapist of any age can go to court and have judge basically say "poor kid and his rough life" as though that justifies him raping a 3 year old girl. i don't believe for a second that this was a health issue and even though he may have been neglected as a child, it doesn't give him the right to rape a small child. neglected or not, by 13 years old you know right from wrong and since he chose to do the wrong thing i think that his punishment should fit his crime, child or not. i agree that he should receive counseling but like Alison i think that it should be done in prison or at the very least a juvenile detention center. running around doing community service will not teach this kid anything, IMO.

Sunny - posted on 03/23/2010

I agree with jessica, we dont know all the facts but some people are just for the lack of a better word 'bad' people. I was raped 3 times by a 15 year old who got a slap on the wrist and went on to rape and abuse 5 of my friends, they had seen what i had been through and gotten nowhere so they never bothered to go to court, it so sad. He had no problems other than he was simple evil. If that turns out to be the case here than i see no reason why he cant go into juvenile detention i mean shit my brother did when he broke into the swimming pool to steel some lollies at 13!

Alison - posted on 03/23/2010

13 year old boys know exactly what they're doing. People who commit adult crimes should be tried as adults in my opinion. The little girl will be punished for the rest of her life. He can receive counselling in prison.

Jessica - posted on 03/23/2010

This will most likely be an opinion people don't like, but it is just my opinion. Now in this case of course we don't know all the facts to actually judge whether or not what the kid did was acting out due to issues with things that have happened to him, but I do honestly think, that even at the age 13....some people are just genuinly bad people. People want to put a medical disorder on everything under the sun, when in some cases, people are just crappy, sorry excuses for human beings, who know exactly what they are doing, that it is wrong, and they just don't give a damn. I think this kid needs help, check him out mentally, find out what makes him tick, and if it turns out he's just a miserable little person who did this horrible thing, then he should get a full punishment for what he did, but if it turns out this kid is serisously actually screwed up then get him the help he needs.

April - posted on 03/23/2010

in the past, 13 year olds have traditionally been looked upon as children. however, 13 year olds today are participating in many adult behaviors and have evolved into people who know what they're doing and show clear intent. they're not these little girls who play with baby dolls or these little boys who play in the mud. they're girls and boys with real babies and instead of "spin the bottle"...they're drinking beer out of it. psychologically, they've become older than the 13 year olds that were around when I was a baby. in my time, 13 year olds still wore shoes with velcro!

Jenny - posted on 03/23/2010

A fully functioning 13 year old does not rape 3 year olds. It is not that he was being "bad", he is broken somewhere. I think we should develop facilities that are a combo of a jail and research centre. Get teams of people who specialize in child physcology, whatever brain scientists are called, medical doctors, life coaches etc. and bring these specialties together to analyze what is happening. So the person commiting the crime is still deprived of freedom and would be "jailed" but perhaps society could then take a postive from the situation as well.

Jackie - posted on 03/23/2010

Jenny I will agree with you in that families need to step up before it gets to this point....but they didn't, adn that doesnt mean at all that he should then be allowed to run free in a couple years. Yes he needs intensive help mentally, but he also needs intensive punishment. What he did is horrible beyond words.... He's not 5, he's 13, so you won't convince me that he was too young to know what he was doing was wrong...yet he did it anyways.

Jenny - posted on 03/23/2010

You cannot punish a health issue out of someone's head. You could jail the child for thrity years and still not make any headway on WHY he acted like he did. Can we stop being so reactionary and start working on these issue BEFORE we get a 13 year old in front of a judge? If he had such a harsh upbringing surely somebody could have intervened? Families need to step the fuck up and take care of our youth.

Lady - posted on 03/23/2010

I'm very surprised at the harshness of everyone, the boy was clearly damaged as a young child and is still a child himself. He was obviously acting out something which has been done to him, which is the case in most of these crimes. He probably was not aware of the damage he was causing because he had been so badly screwed up from what had happened to him. No I don't think he should be let off with it, I do think he needs punished and made to see how severe his crime was, but trying him as an adult and giving him jail time would not do him any good. I'm sure if it were my child then I might feel differently but then that's why the parents of the victims don't make the deccisions about punishment an impartial judge does. And although it doesn't say so in the artical I assume he didn't just wander in off the street to commit this crime I assume he was some sort of foster child or something so the parents should have been aware of his back ground and protected there own children better.

Jackie - posted on 03/23/2010

If it were my daughter, and I caught him in the act, he would have never made it to court. Just sayin...
You can make up every excuse in the book but what he did is horrific and he should be tried as an adult. How many sex offenders have you heard of that have been "reformed?" NONE! He's just getting an early start. I wouldn't get caught up in WHY he did it, just that he DID IT!

Jackie - posted on 03/23/2010

he should be treated like any other rapist. Heinous crimes deserve equal punishment, I don't care what the age is....its TOTALLY uncalled for. There's NO reason why a 13 year old can say they didn't know what "no" meant.

LaCi - posted on 03/23/2010

Unfortunately, when I worked in juvenile detention, we had MANY 13-17 year olds in for child molesting. It is sick. I don't think that punishment was harsh enough.

Christy - posted on 03/23/2010

nope i'm sorry, i think this is totally sick and if my daughter was ever raped i would want justice no matter how old the offender was. this doesn't seem like justice to me. the boy gets a slap on the wrist and some counseling but this little girl will be scarred for the rest of her life. this boy will probably grow up to rape others because he will think the consequences are minor. i think he should have to go to a juvenile detention center for two years to mirror jail time for adults. all i can say is if i was that little girl's mother i would be FURIOUS at the lack of justice...

Lady - posted on 03/23/2010

It sounds as if he's had a really hard life and needs help, I hope he gets it as does the little girl he assaulted. I think the judge has probably doen the right thing but I think he should probably be on the sex offenders regitery for a lot longer than two and half years. He is going to need to be continually watched and the treatment he will need in order to recover is going to take a lot of time. I think getting him to do community service as a punishment is probably a lot better than jail time in this case and as long as he's on a refferal order then any further crimes will mean he's pulled in right away.