Teen burns down school; forced to pay full cost of repair

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I'm a fiscal consevative Libratarian and think this is a shame.
Regaurdless of what the law says an 18 year old is a kid and as long as he has honest remorse that should be taken into account.
Plain and simple kids are or can be stupid.
If the kid wasn't remorseful or didn't repect the court they in my oppinion had a duty the throw the book at him.
That being said I don't want to foot the bill for this.
If the kid was remorseful make the dummy work in a burn unit for a while and garnish his wage.
If we don't hand out stiff sentences we are asking for more.
mech
 
WOW, tough call. So many ways to look at this. As a parent, from the community, the schools perspective (employees workers school children etc), the law, morally, was he an adult or a child, etc.

The verdict will more than likely be appealed, more than likely the sentence will be lowered.

Regardless of that, my question would be what does this verdict actually accomplish other than take a young person who made a huge mistake and turn him into a life long criminal. Do you actually believe the system will turn out a person that is going to go out and find a job just to pay back millions of dollars? Not a chance. Do you believe the system will teach him a lesson? He may or may not serve that entire sentence but rest assurd that money will never be paid back. So the system accomplished nothing, if anything it will create more of a problem.

A more appropriete sentence would have been a prison time long enough to reinforce the fact that he made a huge errror in judgement, life probation (with zero tolerence, no drinking, no drugs, no troubles at all, ever or jail it is, this would keep him from screwing up again) and community service which would be to go to other High Schools and speak about the mistakes he made and how to avoid them so others may think twice before making the same mistake. This sends a powerfull message. To me his talking about it and saving just one teenager from making the same mistake is worth more than the cost of the damage. Creating another life long criminal accomplishes nothing.
 
With this in mind Scott. If society turns a blind eye to this kind of behavior be it from an adult or a young adult (I believe he is an adult) what message is this sending to the youth of today. It's alright to do what you want as long as you are remorseful about it. Please no that I am not trashing your views, they are yours, I just see too many people getting away with things while there are people in jails who are rotting for crimes they did not commit. And no, I do not know anyone in jail. I just feel very strongly on this point.
 
cobaltbabe:
With this in mind Scott. If society turns a blind eye to this kind of behavior be it from an adult or a young adult (I believe he is an adult) what message is this sending to the youth of today. It's alright to do what you want as long as you are remorseful about it. Please no that I am not trashing your views, they are yours, I just see too many people getting away with things while there are people in jails who are rotting for crimes they did not commit. And no, I do not know anyone in jail. I just feel very strongly on this point.
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From two perspectives I hold:

I come from community of many, many, many prisons. Most of my friends are prison guards (both state and federal) of various ranking up through to my dive buddy that is a Warden. I hear about exactly what the systems turn out. For a young man to spend that kind of time in prison the odds are he will be a life long criminal as that will be all he knows or ever sees. Making another criminal in my opinion just does not help society at all. I understand the need for setting an example and I agree with that to a point. Set the example but do not make another criminal. (It's a fine line). Prison time with "life" probation and community service will send a powerfull message, will not create another life criminal and will help other teenagers from possibly making a mistake.

My second point would be that this was a mistake, albeit a big one. The mistake was getting drunk in the first place. But it does not appear to be premedatated which in my opinion says a little about the guy. He was having fun (to much fun) got out of control and did something stupid, irresponsible and wreckless. He has to pay, yes, but the sentence given in my opinion helps no one and after it is handed down and the public forgets about this young man than there is no more lesson to be learned. His speaking at high schools will linger for many many years.

Just my opinion and I also respect yours.
 
jonnythan:
http://cms.firehouse.com/content/article/article.jsp?sectionId=46&id=27302

So this 18 year old kid set fire to the high school gym while drunk on New Year's Eve. Convicted of burglary and arson, sent to 4 to 12 years in jail.

Pretty standard, right? What's not standard is that the judge ordered this kid to pay the city of Cohoes the entirety of the $1.3 million in damages to the school.

Imagine being this kid. You go to jail straight out of high school. You're there til you're 28, and you're released. You now have to find a job as an ex-con, probably making close to minimum wage, manage to pay rent, gas, transportation, food, beer, and, oh yeah, almost a million and a half dollars.

This kid messed up and is going to jail. I don't dispute that. What I dispute is a *criminal judge* ordering a teenage felon to pay over a million dollars IN ADDITION TO a prison term that fits the crime. This guy probably had an argument with his wife or something, and now he's basically condemning this kid to a life of petty crime just to have enough post-garnishment wages to eat and see a movie once in a while.
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I say "Judge, well done". People don't give enough thought to what they do and say these days and then when the heat gets turned up, pardon the pun, then eveyone wants to find blame somewhere else. BS...take responsibility for yourself and your actions. Why in the world should the insurance company, if insured, pay for the damages when this kid did this damage intentionally? If not insured, then the city has to pay for damages, probably having to raise taxes on everyone in town in order to accomplish the subrogation of damages.
 
jonnythan:
As an aside, executions cost the state quite a bit more money than life imprisonment, interestingly.

What do you think would be an appropriate sentence for the crime? No one was hurt, and no one could have been hurt, BTW.
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Very bold to say that "no one could have been hurt. How do you know? If they were hurt, burned or killed, would you have a different opinion of poor old drunk Mr. 18 year old kid? Maybe it was a friend of yours or a relitive. Any changes?
 
Scott, I thought in the article, he admitted that his intentions were to damage the building, but even were that not the case, "not premeditated" doesn't say a little about the guy, but a lot. If he's in the habit of making decisions like this, then it's a little too late to avoid "creating" a criminal.
 
Age irrelevant, he should know that there is actions and consequences. Punishment? I think he should get some lockdown time, say 6-12 months to get his head back on his shoulders, then he should spend the rest of his sentence working for the school system as a janitor or maintenance guy. Pay the guy enough to live, maybe even board him on property so the place has security as well. I dont see how he's going to work off over a million, most americans are lucky to make that in a lifetime, waste of time sentance there by the judge.
 
Unfortunately, we, Joe public, can not step into this "childs" mind. There are very strong opinions on both side of the issue. The chances are, there is no insurance in place and if there is it won't be the child who pays but his parents. That isn't fair either. Taxes will be raised to rebuild the school. I for one, am very happy no one was injured. I know our schools always have someone in them, whether it be a janitor or security.
 
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