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For criminal justice, a gradual approach is needed. People of similar ages shouldn't be treated completely different just because the older one has reached an age limit. I reckon a drastically more lenient approach for minors encourages people to commit crimes early on, before the law takes it seriously. Rather, sentences should be based on the probablity of rehabilitation. The young are more likely to be rehabiliated. Hence, they should be given shorter sentences. This doesn't violate the principle of equality under the law, because the same period of time feels longer to a child, and because prison should be mainly about protecting society and rehabilitation, not punishment. And they don't have to make their own decisions, as they can defer to their parents. Apparently, after I turned 18, my mother wanted me to let her make medical decisions on my behalf. But the current system only gives people the right to make their own decisions when they come of age. This basically treats them as the property of their parents and enables abuse. As for education, I wouldn't just abolish compulsory education and put nothing in its place. I'd replace it with the right to education. Compulsory education is absolutely ridiculous. How can it be a crime to refuse to do something just because it's good for you? A 13-year-old was forced to choose between school and prison, so she killed herself. Everyone ought to have the right not to go to school. It's actually a serious health risk, due to the early starting times. There's no such thing as truancy. Sometimes a person has mental health reasons not to go. Sometimes they have physical health reasons. Cheree Peoples was arrested for not sending her daughter with sickle-cell anemia to school. The education system really needs to be improved, and making education voluntary is how, because that way, schools will need to convince children that they need to go to school for the schools to make money. Education also needs to be made voluntary because kids must have the freedom to choose their own path. Under compulsory education, there's a curriculum that dictates children's paths. This is actually bad for society, as it does best when everyone takes the path they're interested in. We should value diversity. Even if we abolish the curriculum and just say that the kid/their parent's obligated to get/give them an education, what's an education? I don't want the court to be able to decide that a child's path isn't an education, so therefore they or their parent is guilty of truancy. Another thing, with things like drugs and gambling, prohibition doesn't work. For any age. It creates black markets and is messed up for the same reason compulsory education is ("How can it be a crime to refuse to do something just because it's good for you?"). And drug addiction is a health problem, that only really harms the addict in any significant way, so criminalising it makes it harder for them to get help. People say using illicit drugs harms others because it causes distress to your family or makes you violent or something, but in that case, just charge violent criminals with violent crimes, doesn't matter if it's drug-induced. Distress to your family? Like how incest ruins the family relationship, right? For both drugs and incest, prohibition makes it worse. I'd be more distressed if my drug-addicted family member was in prison, then if they were outside of prison, getting help without fear of prosecution. |