I understand punishment but 10 years in prison will release them in there late 20's early 30's without an education, without any ADULT skills that they can turn into a profitable career to contribute to the society and under their belt is 10 years of angst against the system and learned ignorance due to the fact that they were subjected to the worst people who truely will never amount to anything...
Obviously it is hard to judge who is going to be a promising person and contribute to a community...but past practice will often times predict the future...
As a young adult I made mistakes..at 20 in the Military I got caught for underage drinking, which I was doing very frequently, almost to the point of it being an issue...I could have had the book thrown at me and spent time in jail..however due to the fact that I was a good person and the judge deemed I was someone whom would not benifit from jail time...he decided in manual labor(picking up garbage and cleaning around the on post bars), an Alcohol outpatient treatment program, confinement to my barracks for 45 days in which I could not go anywhere without letting my supervisor know and could not go off post and an embarassing punishment of placing my face on posters around the post with underage drinking is not allowed...it scared me and made me realize that one little slip up could change my life forever...what if I got in a car and drove?..what if I drank so much that I died....
I was 20, a legal adult and more mature than those 17 year olds...however I made a mistake, which I knew was wrong before hand and peer pressure got the best of me...much like I am sure peer pressure to speed got the best of them...however I am glad I did not recieve jail time and had the punishment I did...it made me realize that drinking is a serious responsibilty that I was obviously not ready for even though I was nearly 21 and now at 25, I barely ever drink...maybe every 2 months or so...and not to the point where I am drunk...just enjoy it responsibly as a legal adult...I think if I was jailed for the offense I may have not learned my lesson...
Different punishments work for different people...What do you feel would be a fitting punishment?
OMG...Their willful, wanton disregard for the lives and safety of people is reason enough for them to get prison time, let alone the fact that they KILLED someone. Hey, a skilled prosecutor may have even gotten a 2nd degree murder conviction, based on their age (they should have know better), and the fact that a reasonable person should have KNOWN that racing can, and often does, end in death of innocent parties. I get so tired of the squishy, touchy-feely in our society who are afraid to assign blame and punishment. I shake my head in disgust. So tired of it. When will it end?? When??