“Ethan Crumbley will be sentenced in a hearing Friday for killing four students and wounding seven others when he opened fire at Oxford High School in Michigan in November 2021. Live news updates.”
“Ethan Crumbley will be sentenced in a hearing Friday for killing four students and wounding seven others when he opened fire at Oxford High School in Michigan in November 2021. Live news updates.”
He killed four of his classmates and wounded seven others. 15 years old is old enough to know how terrible the impact of his actions would be. There is certainly more that we as a society could have done to help him with his mental illness, but that does not erase his agency and make him not responsible for his crimes. He has more than earned his punishment.
What does the punishment accomplish, in your view?
Also, what would you say is the age cut off, roughly, where kids who commit crimes are not fully responsible for their actions?
Punishment, in this case, is used to attempt to dissuade others who would try to replicate his actions. It’s not going to work for a lot of people but it will for some. On the flip-side, one could argue that if he was helped by the authorities after his incident then some may see replicating it as a path to their own healing process… Pretty fucked up. I still think it would be better for society if this person was sentenced to the help they needed to reenter society as a functioning and contributing citizen.
As for your second question, I don’t think there is one straight answer for that or at least I’ve never heard a satisfying one.
Did he have much agency in this case? He texted his mother about hearing demons and ghosts and she did nothing. He kept a baby bird’s head in a jar and tortured other animals and his parents sought no help for him. Instead, they bought him a fucking gun. He very clearly has some form of schizophrenia and/or sociopathy. When the obvious signs are there and the people responsible for him (his parents) actually enable his violent tendencies, can we really be surprised that he acted them out?