I guess I read this blog post very differently from many other commenters. I don't see this as being entitled or avoiding responsibility for his actions. He's just telling his story. He knows he fucked up. But he also knows the system is fucked.
If you can't possibly understand how growing up without positive influences can lead someone to a life of crime, you're probably too privileged to be the target audience of this article. Just move on.
LOL, yeah, because the jail system works so well, and it's totally not a completely broken, crime ridden society, with crime levels, murders, and so on, the worst among the western peers, despite having the biggest ratio of inmates to general population among them.
Let's keep that, as it's obviously working so well!
> He's just telling his story. He knows he fucked up. But he also knows the system is fucked.
Here in the UK we have something called Joint Enterprise [1] which is controversial for a numnber of reasons, I've read this chaps blog, I can relate to his circumstances in a number of ways having grown up with the rave culture in the 90's, I've seen many people turn a blind eye and escape prosecution, mainly because its too hard to prosecute, demonstrating the laziness of the police as evidence gathers and the judicary.
What annoys me is how these so called law abiding people manage to remain in their job. People claim to live in a democracy, none more so that many in the US, and yet AFAIK noone gets taught law as a mandatory subject when growing up. If you are not taught something how can the public even debate it? Is this the legal system applying a form of Darwinism on the population in a dictatorial fashion? Is this a form of intellectual torture being applied on some who want to enjoy themselves in non-alcoholic ways?
If I had the money I'd get a Judicial Review to find the reasons why judges dont want people to be taught the law as a mandatory subject for a number of reasons, and for adults to be kept up to date with legal changes in a TLDR fashion, that doesnt rely on the opinion of the state broadcaster and other news outlets.
Some people are too busy to watch/read the news, which is the only en-masse way to keep up to date currently, and there is also the issue of why is legal conformity pushed on people if they are doing no harm? Just what exactly is a democracy and do you really have a say?
If Roe v. Wade (1973) can mandate a change across a country like the US, are these judges who shy away from making a countrywide decision to keep people abreast of legal changes, not only undermining the idea of democracy, but also just keeping themselves in a stealth sado masochistic schadenfruede-like position of authority with accompanying lucrative income?
Has any scientific study measured the dopamine receptors of judges or serotonin receptors or testostorone levels when they pass a judgement? Has the scientific community shown they derive pleasure from controlling other peoples lives in non scientific ways, because I see the reoffending rate is quite high, and the system is clearly not fit for purpose.
To the original poster, just remember there are some people who agree with your actions, enjoy the mental mind games of programming, it can keep you occupied even when not in front of the computer. :)
Sure I'm not in jail and on the surface I have my act together, but my entire life has been fucked up by what are now called "ACEs" and it's a miracle I'm as stable as I am.
I'm not going to let people off the hook, but I am able to sympathize...especially knowing the wrong person or event at the wrong time would have quickly sent me down the same path.
I'm not whining, but I do think you should try to understand why people end up the way they do because it's almost never as simple as them being a bad person from the get go.
Attitudes like yours aren't helpful and we could make society a far safer place if we could identify problems earlier in people's lives and intervene.
>Many more people then you might think have had a unsatisfactory childhood. However, most of them get their act together at some point during growing up
Dιδ they have the same exact family circumstances, growing up experiences, psychological capacity, and so on? Or at least very close ones?
Or are you comparing different cases and expect them to have handled things the same?
>Pointing at your past as an excuse for criminal acts is pretty fucked up, IMO
It's not an excuse, it's an explanation, and a description of the forces and circumstances which led you there.
People's family and early life circumstances are hard to overcome, and just because some percentage of people manage it, doesn't mean it's easy for the rest, or that the people that did do it wouldn't also have slipped if they didn't have some lucky breaks (from psychological perspective all the way to the people they met, the connections they had, some rare good mentor or a good friend influence, etc.).
I was deep into rave culture at that age. Lets just say I know the "deal". However, I always knew I would never sell, because, surprise, I knew the penalty was not worth it.
So, I actually know what I am talking about here, and still lack sympathy. Risk taken, game lost. Simple.
It's great your ability to judge risk and reward at age 17 was so solid, but for many it is not. Brain development does not stop that early. I think the difference in culpability between a bad decision at age 17 and say, a bad decision at age 23 is huge.
More importantly, the fact the GP believes the risk was not worth it shows that their situation was far better than that of many people. Crime is a risk worth taking in many cases.
If you can't possibly understand how growing up without positive influences can lead someone to a life of crime, you're probably too privileged to be the target audience of this article. Just move on.