harmony wrote:JAK wrote:Minors have some responsibilities. None of these supersede the responsibility of parents and parenting. Legally, parents have responsibility for minors. They are certainly responsible for where they place their children.
Children, yes. Teenagers aren't children. Which is why under some circumstances they are tried as adults. And it depends on the behavior, if the minor is responsible or not. Illegal activity is always going to be the minor's responsibility (and the parents', if they knew about it and did nothing, at least in some states).
Did GoodK “kill someone”?
I wasn't referring to GoodK in that paragraph at all. Those were general rhetorical questions. I'm wondering why you sought to direct them to GoodK?
Why raise the issue? Specifically, what confirmed information is there regarding what GoodK did? What objectively reviewed detailed information is available to legal authority?
Because teenagers, which is what GoodK was when he was sent to the facility, have been known to engage in all of those activities,
and be tried as adults.
So... is it possible GoodK smoking tobacco? Maybe he was smoking pot or using drugs? Was he drinking? Was he drinking and driving? All of those things are illegal for teenagers. On a sliding scale, getting caught with tobacco would only get him a slap on the wrist and a fine, but if he was drunk, drove his car, and killed a pedestrian or another driver, he would not be tried as a juvenile; he would likely be tried as an adult and would serve his sentence in an adult correctional facility. And in some states, his parents would have some legal responsibility if they knew about his actions and did nothing.
While many would not agree with his parents' decision, if his behaviors spilled over into illegal activity, it's not hard to justify their decision.
If his parents “shipped off” this teenager to a place where no access was permitted in either direction, the parents are entirely responsible for what they did.
And the teenager, while there, is solely responsible for his/her behavior there, and the resulting consequences.
The larger issue here is how is this “facility” held accountable by the laws of the federal or state government. If there is no oversight, no inspection, no subordination to the laws of the state or federal government, the “facility” is operating deliberately beyond the reach of the law. Why?
I think Jersey has shown how the system works in Utah. If you need a refresher, just scroll back a few pages. She laid it out quite plainly.
Any parent who places a minor in a place which makes itself invisible to legal authority takes a great risk with that minor. If a minor kills someone, that minor is subject to the application of the law.
I don't see how these two sentences are related. Would you explain how you think they are?
If this “facility” attempts to hide its treatment of minors from parents and from the law, it’s a highly questionable “facility.”
I don't think anyone is disputing that, JAK. Why are you?
Teenagers are minors. You don’t refute that. Parents are responsible for their teenage children. They are responsible for where they send or place their teenage children.
I directed no questions to GoodK. You speculated with “kill someone” in the discussion. It was irrelevant unless you were applying it specifically. You continue to refer to “GoodK” who was the person connected with the discussion of a “facility” which appears to operate in secret.
Your references are to “GoodK.” Your questions are not merely “rhetorical.”
The issues surround the extent to which any “facility” as described in these discussions is subject to federal or state laws.
harmony states:
“And the teenager, while there, is solely responsible for his/her behavior there, and the resulting consequences.”
If a “facility” operates in secret and in hiding from the law, what that “facility” does to any “teenager” holds
responsibility. The teenager is not “solely responsible for his/her behavior there…” as you argue. If that teenager is abused by those running the “facility” and that abuse is concealed from the law, the parents, and objective scrutiny, that “facility” has
responsibility for responses and reactions it produces from a “teenager.” To state without qualification “solely responsible” is not supportable.
The “facility” has
responsibility to the laws of the state and to federal laws. Absence of transparency is a sharp indicator that the “facility” has something to hide. Failure of the state to investigate a “facility” that houses teenagers for weeks or months is an abdication by the state of
its responsibility.
It was you, harmony, not I who introduced the phrase “kills someone.”
I responded to it. If a teenager “kills someone” it becomes the
business of the law. It was in the context of your rejoinder.
The primary issue is secrecy employed by a facility. In a period of weeks or months, anyone could become ill and require medical attention. A “facility” which prevents access of any youth to parents or parents to that youth for weeks or months as a matter of policy places its self at risk for charges of neglect or abuse or worse.
Your last line is non sequitur. A “facility” which takes in teenagers has responsibility for what happens to those teenagers in that “facility.”
JAK