In my personal walk with God, I put Him above any other man, woman, child, or law that exists in this world; I let HIM to be the judge, and He says we aren't to judge others, lest we be judged ourselves. Yes, we are to follow the laws of the land. However, if those laws contradict the Bible, then my faith comes first. My Savior comes first, and He teaches love and forgiveness. Not an acceptance of sin, but one of love and forgiveness. These boys, yes, they committed wrongdoing. But was their intent to commit a crime? Hardly.
I worked as a security officer in a retail store for a while. If someone attempted to steal merchandise that amounted to over a certain dollar amount, it was considered a felony. A group of thirteen year old kids came in one day and one was caught with that certain amount in merchandise. He was thirteen, and was gonna be a felon for the rest of his life. Would to go jail, and all this other stuff.
My boss talked to the kid, asked him why he was doing it and the kid was very remorseful. My boss knocked the amount of merch the kid stole down to a misdemeanor, instead of a felony. His foster mom was called. His parents had been killed a couple years before, and he was too old to be in an orphanage so he was sent to live with foster parents. He'd been troublesome since they'd had him.
Does this excuse him stealing things? Course not. But the kid was hurting inside. Because he was so young(if he had been 17 or older my manager would not have done this) my manager lessened the charge down to a misdemeanor. The kid was still taken into the police station by the cops, etc. But he didn't go to jail, he wasn't going to be classified as a felon for the rest of his life.
Some things are mistakes. My husband had a situation when he was sixteen. He was driving down the road in his parents car(it wasn't a sports car, but it was a nice car), and didn't see a stop sign because of some low hanging branches. A woman, who was going 45 mph in a 25 mph are, broadsided him. The police showed up. The woman said he had been speeding(which he had, but he was only going four or five miles an hour more than the speed limit. She'd been going MUCH faster), and because he was only sixteen, the cop was going to throw him under the bus. He wasn't even done with HS, and the cop was going to have him sent to jail for five years, with an obscene fine to boot. DH got a state councilor and she managed to get them to drop those charges, as long as he didn't get a ticket for a whole year. The woman who was speeding? She wasn't ticketed or fined or anything.
Sometimes, kids and teens make mistakes. They are, after all, kids and teens. That doesn't excuse bad behavior, but nor does it mean they should be treated as though they're an adult. We're talking about a generation who's graduating HS, while barely able to read and write, and yet you expect them to behave like adults? And, moreover, want them tried as criminals like adults? That makes no sense to me. According to that line of thinking, my husband and I wouldn't even be married right now, because he only would have gotten out of jail two years ago, for something that wasn't even entirely his fault. It was a mistake.
Yes, these boys were harassing these girls. Yes, they should be punished. But they aren't criminals. They don't need to go to jail, they don't need to be labeled sex offenders. Punish them, yes. But don't be so quick to throw them under the bus. THAT WILL ruin their lives. Give the girls counciling, and the boys, help them to know what they did wasn't right or acceptable just because they saw it in a movie, and move on. Sometimes kids and teens make mistakes.
