Is anyone else outraged at the fact that these boys are being charged with a sex crime for slapping the butts of a few girls in the hallway at Jr High?

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/base/news/118524932323282 0.xml&coll=7

I'm not excusing their behavior, but butt slapping in Jr High is not a sex crime, nor is it even sexual harrassment. Simply put, this is NOT a criminal case and the DA has no business charging these kids. Their behavior was inappropriate and the school applied the proper punishment of a 5 day suspension.

Luckily, many people have stepped up to offer finacial help to these middle class families, who were going to have to refinance their house to fight these spurious charges. One of the families even had their phone turned off because of mounting legal bills.

Where was the ACLU?

Dennis Prager talked about it on his national radio show this morning, which is broadcast locally on 910 AM.

Herb

This is a typical example of over zealous prosecutors seeking notoriety for political purposes. It happens all the time.

This is hardly a sex crime. All they need to do with boys that age is get them to stop clowning around. If they don't there are much less serious forms of punishment to make the point.

This is like the Duke rape case where the idiot district attorney cared not what he did to the students or their families, just so he could gain political points with a certain portion of the population.

I hope the News-Register has enough gumption to make a lot of not so desirable publicity for this prosecutor.

The people of Yamhill County should get this guy out of office.

The boys also admitted grabbing girls' breasts.

I think we are over reaching on these things. Really, this is a social growth / development problem, not a criminal one. There are a lot of things that can be done to help set the right social norms.

Bringing up charges on this stuff is simply not warranted, until those things have been done.

The reason why is that a problem has not yet been demonstrated.

As a parent, I'm frustrated with this growing dynamic surrounding kids. When a person is young, they are not yet complete. So, they are going to make mistakes, push boundaries and be kids!

Holding them to adult standards is not justified for this reason alone, IMHO.

Having worked through the problem OUTSIDE OF CRIMINAL COURT, and still seeing the problem then warrants some greater action, but not before.

And where is the ACLU on this one? Seems to me it's a solid case for resetting some expectations in this regard.

I think some of this has to do with the place you live too. In my district, we had repeated incidents with some boys doing things to my older daughter. It took multiple incidents and a *lot* of pressure to even get the courts involved at a low level. I can tell you this event would have passed without any court involvement at all where I live.

It's almost the other extreme, frankly, which suggests to me we need some serious education among those people handling these kinds of things.

What's even worse is the damage caused by jumping the gun. If this goes straight to criminal court, not only does the potential exist for a kid to be labeled and changed seriously for the worse, but no potential then exists for that kid to get the help they need, because the label then escalates things beyond the stage where the kid is actually at!

We are there now, in this case, no matter what anyway. Maybe somebody can stop the damage and let the families recover somewhat, but that's about it.

Stupid --really stupid.

>>>"The boys also admitted grabbing girls' breasts."

And that is wrong and needed to be stopped immediately. But several days in jail when their parents couldn't even talk to them. And their parents being thrown into financial hardship, possibly losing their homes to pay legal bills. Get real. Were you ever 13 and did stupid things?

I hope the media gets as tough on this as they did the Duke case and put the prosecutor behind the 8 ball instead just like they did Nifong.

Re: Breast grabbing.

Ok, that's worse, but still this has escalated too far. Them admitting it, is actually a good thing because it can be addressed along with this incident. Boundaries need to be set and managed with these kids.

(and we think boundary issues aren't important --starts at the top people.)

Where is the behavior modification plan? Where are the councilors who can assess the kids, get information to the parents, help the parents actually? There are processes in place that are there for a reason, namely we are at a learning stage, not a fully formed criminal, should have known better, adult fully accountable stage.

If we are gonna hold kids to that standard, then really we are saying we don't differentiate kids from adults. So, let 'em drink and vote and be done with it.

I agree that even with the admitted breast grabbing, the boys have been punished enough.

33DD's said>>>
Where was the ACLU?

Watching out 4 you....

I'd be interested to see what Dennis Prager would say. Will he side with the prosecute and punish them no matter what crowd, or does he poo poo the idea of an over zealous government official picking on 13 year old kids?

And, any bets on the DA's political persuasion?

Robin Quivers (Howard's sidekick) actually mentioned the story on Sirius this morning. Needless to say, the Yamhill Co DA was soundly spanked by Howard & crew for the lengths he's taking to prosecute this one.

Dennis Prager soundly denounced the DA on his program this morning and talked about getting a fund going for the boys.

Herb

Truth be told, little boys can't keep their hands off little girls and vice versa. This will only happen again in another part of the Country.

SCHOOL is for LEARNING, not GROPING. I can stop all this right now.

Make a law prohibiting all touching, including holding hands. No more dancing of any kind in P.E. class (if schools even do that anymore). What goes on, off school grounds is up to the parents.

I think that law would do more harm than good.

Really school, in this context, is about learning, not to grope!

If touching is off the table, no learning can be done, no boundaries are then established and we raise a generation of social morons.

I have to agree with Missing.

This really isn't that complicated. I saw a video of these boys and they're just slightly immature 13 years olds who used poor judgment. Schools should also be teaching proper social behavior in public as well as the 3 R's. We don't need more laws, and we don't need prosecutors grabbing what they think is a political opportunity.

The school did just fine in handling it in the first place. 5 days suspension, get the parents involved. That would have straightened these boys out. If it didn't, then it can be taken to the next level, but that level doesn't include being held multiple days without their parents being able to communicate with them.

I hope the voters of Yamhill County remember this incident come election time.

Totally.

There are 4 primary means by which we regulate behavior. They are (I know again, but hey, it's important stuff!):

-law [we write stuff down and use it to judge people and apply dicipline]

-money [it costs money to do stuff, so we discourage bad behavior by increasing it's cost]

-social norms [if others look poorly on you for doing something, this pressure if from a social norm]

-physical means [locking a door is a good example of this kind of regulation]

Again, I think we as a society have focused too much on the law. That's a problem, particularly with these goofy zero tolerance laws and policies.

The schools really need to be leveraging social norms huge. Same for parents. Writing new laws, or really enforcing them, particularly where kids are concerned, diminishes the impact of the effort as a whole.

A solid regulation involves as many of the 4 core means as possible. Over use one and the results could easily be less, or quite different than intended.

There is a lot of ignorance on this we really should be working to fix. I was in this camp until some deep reading, on a seemingly unrelated topic, introduced these four to me. (Lessig - "CODE")

Prior to that, I really didn't see how this dynamic worked and tended to focus on law as some all powerful fix all. It really isn't, particularly with kids, who by their nature, really cannot be held accountable in the same way adults can.

And that's key really. This lack of accountability, in terms of real punishment, diminishes how we can use the law for the right results. Ideally, applying the law to someone comes with the implication they can understand it, have learned about it and are capable of all that comes with doing those things.

Kids are none of these! They are still developing, growing, learning, etc... They don't have a large enough body of experience to know better and that's where the law breaks down for them.

If you disagree, then just let 'em drink and vote.

Everybody says the same things: They can't drink because they can't handle it. They can't vote because they don't know enough to contribute in a real way.

So, if those things are true (and you can bet they are), our treatment must reflect that; thus, the charges from this DA are completely unwarranted.

Hope they nail him hard for that.

This whole affair has hosed up a lot of lives for something that really didn't do major harm. It is also unlikely they did any enduring longer term harm as well.

There is no reason then to harm them in the same fashion.

Sorry...

Put it real simple. We, as the adults, are responsible for building great people for the next generation right?

How can we do that, if the building we do also causes harm?

That's what everybody involved in this really needs to be asking. It might also be the core of a legal argument for somebody like the ACLU.

To me, this matter highlights some child rights issue violations or maybe just some clarification on what it really means to be a kid and the implications of that where our regulating behavior is concerned.

Growing up, I experienced two kinds of corrective behavior, largely differentiated by the harm they caused.

Short term harm was forgotten. That's spanking, grounding, working, yelling, etc...

Seriously, none of that really mattered in the longer term.

Longer term harm was not easily forgotten! That's severe spanking (I still have a little scar ok?), loss of personal items of great importance, ones criminal record (thankfully, I have none), diminishing of ones person (injury, loss of perception, psychological damage), etc...

IMHO one could call this abuse, vs, reinforcement as well.

Touching a hot stove can easily cause longer term harm. So, kids only do it once, right?

Ok, extending that to our actions, where does correction justify long term harm? Should we burn a finger, to keep them from doing it themselves later on?

This case is like that.

Good for Prager. I don't agree much with him, but on this I sure do.

Sexual assult is wrong and illegal weither the person in 14 or 32.

It is also against the law.

Nwokie, I'll bet you haven't watched the AP video story on this. These were little boys. I believe they were 13. One of them broke down a cried over the issue.

They didn't take a girl in the closet and take her clothes off, all they did was some immature patting on the butt and apparently touched one of the girl's breasts. Immature childish clowning around. The school handled the issue properly.

Now they are in the criminal justice system, held without benefit of council or their parents for several days, ruining their parents lives and causing them great financial harm for something that should have been handled in a simple manner.

This is a classic case of the system run amuck, just as in the Duke rape case.

In the Duke case, the suspects were innocent of the accused behavior and the DA knew it.

In theis case the boys are guilty of the accused behavior, and they know it.


I have 5 daughters, and at a minimum, these boys need to be suspended from school. Young girls need to be protected from this predetory behavior.

>>>"at a minimum, these boys need to be suspended from school."

They were before the DA got into it. The school had taken care of the issue.

Of course the girls need to be protected. I would not call this "predetory behavior". It was young boys clowning around in an unacceptable manner.

Do the immature antics of a couple of Jr. High kids need to destroy the lives of their parents and throw them into financial ruin and also mark the kids for for life? Or is there a better way to get these boys to realize this is not acceptable?

Their behavior is not a criminal issue, end of story.

Sexual assult is criminal behavior.

So, Nwokie, if a 2 year old reaches up and touches a teenage girls breast, they should do hard time, right?

A 2 year old isnt expected to rationalize, a 14 year old is.

You cant tell me a 14 year old didn't know that was wrong.

Two little girls in California set fire to a kitten last week. They giggled and laughed with great amusement and glee. A boy who heard the chortles and the cat screaming in pain, came to the rescue of the animal and told an adult. Those two kids are now in a great deal of trouble, but they were a blip in the news and disappeared.

I can certainly say that this sort of behavior is more indicative of future problems for those violent youngsters than utterly inappropriate grabbing. Odds are, those two kids in McMinnville would have hosted a knee in their jewelery store had they continued unabated.

Many girls are equipped to defend themselves, but animals are a whole other matter. While the two girls from Cali could potentially do the same thing to another small creature, including a child of their own, the Oregon boys will no doubt be more cautious and reasoned in the future. Only time will tell.

In both of these cases we need to take a thorough look into their environment at home, measure up the roots of the behavior, and take steps to prevent it. I think being a stupid horny little boy is far less damaging than being a bona fide sadist in training. Apparently, the media does not.

Think about it in the long term. A future mate to one of the "Yamhill County Butt Slappers" will probably have a good laugh about it over a beer in college. She will be spending time with a matured and smarter young man. He might still be embarrassed, but will have grown up.

No gentlemen will be comfortable courting a "California Kitten Burner" at any point in her future development. There is no context for an "innocent and curious factor" or a chuckle on a date. It will not endear a mate, unless, he is a violent character too. This is how these cycles go on for generations.

To echo many, "Where are the parents?"

(add)

I just received an e-mail from Steve. In response to the question, he made a very good point. The parents are probably working three jobs. Like many, they are scrambling to house, feed and clothe the kids. Rearing them is a full-time job with part-time hours.

Slapping butts in the hallway of a Junior High is NOT sexual assault. Inappropriate, yes, criminal, no.

And last time I checked, a 13 year old isn't expected to rationalize, that's why their called minors.

The News-Register links the AP video on the boys.

http://www.newsregister.com/

Here's what the girl's attorney says:

"Brandt said he thinks the whole matter of prosecuting the boys criminally has spun wildly out of control.

Yes, the boys offensively touched his clients, he said. But instead of being threatened with 10 years in prison, he said, "they needed a stern talking to, some community service and to be told not to do it again.

Once again, he said, he sees the legal system being awkwardly deployed. "Where's the judgment?" he asked."


The girls attorney has the same feelings about the case as I do.

And here's what the boys attorney is saying:

"In a separate motion, Lawrence is also raising a prosecutorial misconduct allegation against Debra Markham of the Yamhill County District Attorney's Office"

Bet this would sound familiar to a Mr. Nafong in South Carolina.

"Bet this would sound familiar to a Mr. Nafong in South Carolina."

Amen to that Deane.

If a District Attorney really wants to guide young people, he or she should coach a little league team or volunteer at a school.

I wonder how many public tax dollars will be spent on this craziness? Too bad Turkey Rama didn't get this kind of publicity with the private $100,000 grant from the generous Mr. Bohnsack.

Lets see, the kid in question was warned THREE TIMES what he was doing was a no-no.

The Dad said something akin to 'if they're gonna enforce the law like this we'd ALL get thrown in jail.'

To that Dad, I say this: Nope, we wouldn't all get thrown in jail, YOU'D get thrown in jail. YOU have an atitude to adjust. This is why your kid has these problems.

Should the kid be labeled a sexual abuser? Not yet, but if he does it ONE MORE TIME, that's it.

As for the Dad, I'm, glad you had to spend $10,000 on attorneys, maybe now you'll tell your boys to keep their hands off girls because lawyers are expensive.

You're outta line, pal. You sound like an overprotective father of a teenage girl, and there's nothing worse than an overzealous father.

Slapping butts hardly justifies the parents having to shell out $10,000 to defend their kid from bullshit accusations. Even the girls themselves and their parents say so. A 5 day suspension was more than appropriate.

Disagree. If you're a Dad of a son, you should be telling him, HANDS OFF the bodies of girls. Period. The kid in McM got FOUR CHANCES and his Dad still doesn't get it. Do you?

Let's see your proof of these "four chances". Maybe you know more than I, but these boys had never been suspended before. And even so, this is nothing more than school horse play, not a criminal activity, and it should be treated as such, and was, until the small-penis-big-badge DA came in on the scene. To revel in a family having to refinance their house to hire lawyers because their kid slapped some girl's butt in school is lame and pathetic. Sounds to me like you've got something against the boy's father.

"Sounds to me like you've got something against the boy's father."

Yes, I do. He let his son become a bully. He should have kept his "We'd ALL be in jail" comment to himself if he wanted my sympathy. His aititude on the topic is sadly reflected by the behavior of his son.

I didn't say the kid was "suspended" before, I said he was WARNED at least three times (three different indidents prior to this one) that his behavior amounted or approached sexual abuse.

Whether or not there is a problem with the DA is not my concern. The citizens of Yamhill county can recall the DA if they wish. My main concern is ensuring that parents understand that the behavior exhibted by this 13 y/o kid is NOT "part of growing up" and is in fact, illegal. Talk to your kids, tell them "hand off -- you COULD go to jail".

Hopefully, THIS kid will turn out ok even though his Dad may never understand that he's part of the problem.

ps: sexual abuse of kids is my area of expertise.

That's hard to believe it's your expertise, because butt slaps are not sexual abuse. You are overreacting just like the DA, which makes you as dangerous as the butt slapping kids.

>>>"sexual abuse of kids is my area of expertise."

And, you admit this. Wow!

If someone walks up to you, and grabs your breast or butt or crotch, they can be arrested for 3rd degree sexual assult.

I see guys on the basketball court patting each other on the butt all the time. If that's sexual, then there sure are a lot of gay guys in sports.

It comes down to wanted or unwanted action.
If you have sex with your wife, and she says no, that is still rape.

Here is a actual case of someone being tried for "improper touching" as sexual assult, the case was overturned on a technicality, but sent back for retrial, not dismissed. http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/A113852.htm

WAAAAY too many words.

deane sez: "I see guys on the basketball court patting each other on the butt all the time. If that's sexual, then there sure are a lot of gay guys in sports."

Gay? what does that have to do with anything? One does not have to be gay to sexually abuse other boys.

Just because "everybody does it" doesn't mean its okay. There are kids (or adults) who don't like their butts slapped. Without a doubt here are some that avoid team sports because they don't like getting their butts slapped or the sexual-related verbal abuse (often while taking showers) that sometimes occurs.

There may come a time that "butt slapping" on teams is a no-no. There is a promient (and previously respected) 35-year swim team coach going on trial around here for getting a little bit "touchy-feely" with kids. Coaches really have no reason to be touching kids.

"Hands off" will easily resolve this troublesome issue in our society. It will happen, just a matter of time folks -- as old-world relics die off the planet.

"Hands off"

IMHO this would be a regression.

I am not a social scientist, or a father, but I think that repression is always the cause of more harm than good. More appropriate touching -- sports, dancing, etc. -- fills the need for touch that is crucial to all adolescents. It does not build to the level these boys displayed, and if it does, then it is nipped in the bud. In my opinion, these kids were given at least three too many warnings without discipline. In a small town, with a small school, you do not act like that forever. There may well have been "corrective measures" in store for these guys -- from two angry Dads.

These boys did an awful and stupid thing, but the school finally woke up and addressed it. Sending two boob grabbers to MacLaren will only bring us two more violent juveniles. They will be in "group study" with drug slingers, burglars and car thieves. They will learn those trades. They also could be potentially molested by the staff, or a more extreme sex criminal. What they did was reprehensible, but I do not think it merits this kind of legal action.

little, the problem is we cannot trust adults to behave -- from priests to prominient swim coaches and Dads that think touchy-feely is part of growing up.

I think its better if let our kids decide if they want to be touched or not. They can choose to go to dances, play sports with a lot of touching (ie basketball or wrestling) not forced to partipicate in a ritual demeaning to some or taken advantage of by others.

How about a pat on the shoulder when you send players off onto the field? Why the butt?

It used to be that butt slapping was often tolerable around the workplace, but that has changed.

I'm not saying maclaren is the place for this particular kid, but if the dad can't control his child, society will and it could be maclaren.

Society has not yet tried.

There is a lot of help options open to these kids, yet to be exercised.

As for the kids, they get to decide now.

Remember, four means of regulating behavior.

Make it a felony offence and you will still see 13-somethings touching.

At some point, we all just need to deal, talk and work things out.

There is law, social norms, money and physics all needing to play a part here.

Putting the kids away, for this, is giving up on them. Can't do that without exercising all the options.

I can tell the discussion on this is slowing down, but I have a few things to chime in with.

First, this is the same McMinnville School District that had the Duniway Middle School girls' underwear search in the locker room a few years back. Additionally, most of the coverage I've read about the current incident said most of the school also does the same bad behavior, it sounds like the school district might've waited to act until they found some candidates that they thought would be unable to fight back.

Second, I think the school should have every right to have their own disciplinary system, up to and including expulsion, but that ought to be enough. Now, if something like murder, rape, or something else violent was involved, that would be different, but that's not the case here.

However, I'm not letting the parents off the hook entirely. They (as well as all parents) should be teaching their kids that their own parental rules apply only in their own home. When they are in public (including school, a retail establishment, restaurants, friends' houses, etc.), they are on someone else's private property and that organization or individual has the right to have their own rules, and disciplinary structure if said kids don't want to follow those rules.

Additionally, the kids should have to be made aware that their parents won't always be able to come to their aid if they get in trouble. I know there are overbearing parents out there that yell and scream at someone if their kid comes home with a frown on their face, but that kid will need to realize that if they lose a job or get in legal trouble in their 20s because they don't understand the rules of society, their parents have no legal right nor responsibility to come to their aid.

As for the breast grabbing "confession" - I have firsthand experience (due to an irresponsible sibling) of how those types of schoolhouse interrogations work - you're in some obscure office, with some police officer threatening that if you've ever done anything wrong you'd better say it now, or if it comes up later they'll put you away for longer (yes, they really do/did say that). I wonder if the kids had any idea that the school and/or the DA was going to charge them with a crime and if they knew they had the right to legal representation at that point.

Overall, I think a compromise between what the parents think and what the DA thinks needs to be made. Sending them "up the river" for 10 years and a lifetime as registered sex offenders will probably mean their future will involve asking us for change on SW 5th and 6th Aves. when they get out; where a sensible punishment (i.e. permanent expulsion from that school district & the parents must send their kids to other schools) would mean they have a chance to learn from their mistake, practice good public behavior now rather then later, and still have the opportunity to be valued members of society, not the cesspool of society as I described above.

Comparing a swim coach inappropriately touching children to 13 year old boy's tom foolery behavior in a school hallway muddies the waters.

The school handled them fine, 5 days off. There was no need for the DA to become involved in this case to begin with, because the criminal element here is ZERO. Most kids I know would have had their asses kicked by their folks after receiving a 5 day suspension for such acts, and lesson would have been learned.

The criminal element came from grabbing the girls' breasts. The boys also admitted to acting out sexually, so touching the butts was more than child's play.

How would you like your daughter or niece being treated the same way by those bullies?

I wouldn't want anyone to be subject to being bullied, yet, I still do not feel that there was criminal intent to do harm in this case. They were mimmicking something they saw in a movie that they thought was funny, and don't believe there was sexual intent worthy of a felony.

Now if the school had already disciplined them for such behavior and these actions were repeated, then maybe getting the authorities involved would be okay.

"I still do not feel that there was criminal intent to do harm in this case. They were mimmicking something they saw in a movie that they thought was funny, . . ."

Really? Are you sure you want to make is okay for kids to use this as an excuse to avoid a future felon rap?

We'll be watching these two kids closely. Based on my 17 years experience reporting on the subject, they WILL do something like this again and the Dad WILL blame that next occurance on the "law being too strict" again. I've seen it happen too many times. Unfortunately, with a Dad like this, this kid is on a fast track to JV hall until the FAMILY gets counseling. Hopefully this is actually happening.

On the plus side, school adminstrators nowadays are quick to report occurances to avoid being sued by victims. As a result, many kids are caught early enough (their first incident) and can get useful counseling to prevent growth into a full stage bully.

Regardless if one thinks the DA in Yamhill county went to an extreme or not, quite a few people and kids got an education on the matter they won't soon forget -- and that's a good thing.

Well, I'd have to say that you're disqualified to discuss the subject objectively because you obviously have a beef with the Dad that is affecting your bias towards this case.

And, I'm not saying that I want to make it okay. I just don't think this case had any criminal elements to it, therefore the DA had no business getting involved in what is essentially a school matter. With a 5 day suspension from school, I felt that this was punishment enough for what occured. These were 13 year old immature little boys immitating things they saw in a movie, not a gang rape.

Thou shall not watch "Jackass" and "Don't do these things at school!"

I wonder if there are any posters on this forum who did stupid things when they were 13. I certainly did. More than a few when I was older than 13.

Kids don't have mature judgment. When people want to apply mature adult standards to juvenile behavior, it doesn't compute.

I still believe this is the product of an overzealous prosecutor thinking it would help him with his political future. He should be removed from office at the first opportunity.

Deane, I learned early from my parents how to treat women. Apparently you did not, sadly.

I agree with Deane on this one. If 13 year olds were mature enough, they would be able to drive, vote, and drink alcohol.

13 year olds are sexually mature before they are mature enough to drive, vote or drink.

Its not a "beef with the dad", its a case of the parent being part of the problem. The poor kid was clueless.

When I was 13, I tried to come to the defense of those being bullied. I know my daughter does too. I most certainly did not do something stupid like this kid did when I was 13 (or any age for that matter).

We'll just have to agree to disagree.

>>>"Deane, I learned early from my parents how to treat women. Apparently you did not, sadly."

I still haven't.

Just got the bulletin from kgw.com: A judge on Friday dismissed charges against two McMinnville middle school students accused of sex abuse.

(raises hand)

LOTS of stupid things at 13. Paid for most all of them dearly too. No criminal charges, just hard work, some long lectures, the occasional spanking (which I very likely deserved), etc...

Good on that Judge.

Looks like the two kids still face harrassment charges. The judge refused to throw it out. The saga continues . . .

I did a lot of stupid things when I was 13 too, heck according to my wife, I do stupid things now.

But I knew then not to grab a girls body, without her permission.

The entire case has been dropped.

http://www.katu.com/news/9260441.html

Heads at the Yamhill County DA's office should roll as far as I'm concerned. What a waste of time and taxpayer money, not to mention the emotional and financial distress this caused the families.

The girls were paid off to not testify.

$250 is hardly being paid off. Even the girls themselves knew that the case was bunk, and the prosecution knew that a jury would NEVER convict these kids after witnessing the cross examination of these victims plus all the school video footage that was obtained by the defense pretty much showing the entire school was touching each other in the hallways, including girls touching boys.

Simply put, there was no case, which is why it was dismissed.

The $250 was the official amount. They also settled outside of the court for much more in private deals each.

How is this case any different than the thousand other times kids get in trouble for inappropriate touching every day?

It works like every other repeated offense in school- first you get detention, then you get suspension, then you get expelled. Problem solved.

Why does the law need to get involved?

The Oregonian's story about rural offenders sheds new light on the matter. Worth a read.

Why does the law get involved? Because the kids wouldn't stop, even after being told numerous times.

My beef is failure to apply other means available. And there are plenty of options besides telling them to stop.

And people wonder why some parents still keep a spanking well within the range of disciplinary options.

Kids only stop doing bad things when it becomes more worth it to do good things. This is flat out a parenting challenge that was not met.

In most of these situations it is the "Parents" that are in need of a good "Butt Slapping"! Pay attention and take action with what your kids are doing which they shouldn't be! NO MORE spare the rod......use it to redden their butts with, take away their X-box, cut-off their internet, something other than "Oh that's naughty, don't do that again, want a cookie"!

Well, the public sent a message to these guys that is it OK to slap and grab, so in about 5 or so years we can expect to see them back in court again after the rape charges are filed.

I agree that the kids should be reprimanded and punished so that they know that what they did is not permissible.

But the people who really need smacked (upside the head with a boat paddle) are the lawyers and media who blew this WAY out of proportion.

The public sent a message that it's okay to slap and grab? What planet are you on? Do you even think for a second, after all these young kids have gone through, that they will EVER attempt to even touch another person? Talk about a lesson learned the hard way. And to somehow connect the dots from Jr high horseplay to rape is complete and utter bullshit.

Furthermore, if as Skeptical says, these kids were warned several times, WHY DID THE SCHOOL NOT SUSPEND THEM OR CONTACT THE PARENTS BEFORE THIS HAPPENED? If there was such a serious criminal element involved with what was going on, why was nothing done by the school in advance? No detention, no suspensions, no parent contact???

Face the facts, the judge is probaby the only one with half a brain out in good ole Yamhill County that could see that the whole entire situation was WAY overblown and that there was no need for further prosecution as the point has been made to these young kids that what they did, while not criminal, was inappropriate. I hope the DA gets fired for this.

You know Vitalogy, I'm beginning to think you have something in your own background you are hiding.

I'm not hiding anything, I just think what has happened to these kids is WAY over the line and when I hear people comparing them to rapists I think it's crap. I can't help but to get fired up when I see obvious injustices in people's lives.

I just heard on the Radio that the attorneys for the two boys may be filing a lawsuit against the prosecutors in the case.

Herb

I hope they do, good for them!