posted on January 27, 2004 01:00:38 AM new
Lionel Tate, who at age 12 stomped to death a 6-year-old playmate and was sentenced to a mandatory life sentence in Broward County, Florida, is scheduled to be released under a plea agreement after serving three years.
posted on January 27, 2004 04:27:14 AM new
I highly doubt this young man got the help he needed sitting in prison and I highly doubt his anger has dissipated there. He had to be one angry individual to commit this act. Unless he got the psychological help he needs, he's going to be a danger. IMO you do everything you can to save a child even if it means years of psychological therapy. Only when you find that that child cannot be helped do you lock him away and toss the key. Children aren't born killers. They aren't born angry. Something made him that way and it didn't disappear while he was sitting in prison.
posted on January 27, 2004 05:02:15 AM new
That's all fine and good wanting to change him. The reality is the shrinks are not much advanced in their craft from a hundred years ago. They may as well be wearing masks and shaking juju rattles at him for any real idea what the kid is thinking or feeling.
The people who decide to release him will not be the ones living next door to him and assuming the risk. In fact if he kills somebody the very next day they will just say OOps we made a mistake and pay no penalty at all.
Who else will have to die so they keep him locked up?
This is the first thread that I started here in 2001. Many posters then were sympathetic to this boy. It's unfortunate that he had to spend time in an adult prison for this accident. I hope that he will get the help that he needs to recover from that experience.
