Teen Forums - Teen Chat, Teen Help, Teen Advice & Support

No, the murder was apparently the result of her long running dispute with her mother.

She committed a crime. Put her in prison.

Nerd, how do you know she's mentally unstable. Plenty of mentally stable people murder.
She just did it because she wanted to.

Killing is actually perfectly normal for addictions. If people want something bad enough, they'll kill for it.
Plain and simple.
Her mother wouldn't give it to her, so she killed what got in her way.
Remove what's in the way. If you have a goal and something is blocking it then you need to get rid of it.
She chose to kill. She chose to go through her obstacle, not around it like most people do.

If she was mentally unstable then she would have exhibited signs of insanity before this moment.
People kill for many reasons, love, lust, money, addiction, kicks, laughs, giggles, whatever.
Killing to get what you want isn't insanity. Killing for laughs, sex, and sport is... but not to get what you want - no, that's just nature.

Not that it makes it any less wrong, that is.

Even if the murder was the result of a dispute with her mother and the trigger of the murder was the restriction on her internet use, no stable individual would result to murder. For the sake of remaining on topic, let's remember that the murderer is a 14-year-old girl. On top of the very young age, the murderer is a female. Females tend to be less violent. All of this must be considered, and with all of these consideration the obvious conclusion is that there's some mental instability in play here. Mentally stable 14-year-old girls don't murder their mothers over a few arguments and internet restriction.

She committed a crime. She should be punished. But she's obviously not in her right mind. What she needs is help for her severe psychological issues. Throwing her in a cell will do nothing to help her. Why should she be helped? Well, we can help her, so why not? What do we as a society accomplish by refusing to help somebody who needs it and can be helped?

She's 14. She's a female. The reasons for the murder are so ridiculous. No sane 14-year-old, especially female, murders a parent over a few arguments. She has some deep psychological issues. How many times have you heard of this happening? Not many. Actually, parents being murdered by their young children isn't very common at all, isn't it? Why is that? Well, because not everyone is psychologically out of it. This girl is a psychological mess so she was able to murder her mother for no reason at all.

Again, this leads to mental instability or illness. No mentally stable child will murder their parent(s) because of an internet restriction. No sane person does that.

First, not necessarily. Second, how do you know she didn't?

Killing your mother at the age of 14 isn't human nature - it's insanity.

Shouldn't all murderers then be placed in mental institutions, not prisons if murder is a sign of mental instability?

And I find it amusing you'd judge her based on her age or her gender. Why are females somehow less capable of murder than males?

If all murderers are 14-year-old girls who murdered their mothers over an internet restriction, then yes.

Do you not think age is relevant? During adolescence the brain is developing. We're maturing and only beginning to comprehend the concepts of consequences. As children, we're not fully aware of the consequences some of our actions bring. But even considering our neurological and psychological development, we know that murder is wrong and that the punishments are severe. Most children couldn't bring themselves to murder even if they didn't fear or understand the consequences simply because of their moral makeup.

Her gender is relevant because females are less likely to commit violence crimes (read: http://social.jrank.org/pages/1253/V...Offenders.html), It's relevant because it establishes the rarity of such a situation, and that there must be a reason beyond 'she's a murdered, plain and simple'.

I don't know about you, but I couldn't bring myself to murder anybody- even a person threatening my life. This is the case with almost all people of my (our) age. We consider this normal psychological stability. This girl murdered her own mother over the internet. That's not normal. She has some deep issues and needs help more than anything.

But she did murder, that is plain and simple.

I don't care if it's her mother or some random person, murder is murder - that's it.
I don't give a damn what studies say, those are stupid and stray away from the real issue.
You are making this too personal, because she is a young girl. Young girls are capable of murder, anyone is capable of murder - just because they don't do it doesn't mean they can't.

She's 14, she's old enough to know what she was doing.

I already said that people do this all the time with addictions. Doesn't matter with sex or age.
All people are equal in the eyes of the law, making light just because of age or sex will only let others know they can get away with it.

She murdered. That is that. She thought about it and could have stopped herself. She walked to the kitchen, got a knife, never caring about anything more than the internet.

Besides, if she is crazy then it's all the more reason to lock her up.
Why risk her doing the same thing. Many people fake insanity to get away with murder you know. Because they'll get a lighter sentence and all that.

Anyone who murders is crazy, that doesn't mean they don't deserve to be locked up though.
She killed someone, she committed a criminal act. She thought about it and could have stopped at any moment, but she didn't. That makes her a murderer.
A dangerous person to anyone who gets in the way of her addiction. She's a danger to society and should be locked away.
She won't be any more sane in 10 years because the addiction can always be reintroduced and this will happen again because the internet is everywhere.

Sane, insane, we are all insane anyway - there is no such thing as sane, only levels of insanity.
We are all insane, that doesn't mean it can be fixed. She has an addiction, someone got in her way, she killed them.
That makes her a criminal.

For once we completely agree!

But you see, I'm arguing that she should be locked up in a psychiatric facility in order for her to receive some sort of rehabilitation. She's obviously insane, so it's better she get treated - because in the end, she will be released. The only different is if she's put in a psychiatric facility she will receive treatment and will be less harmful when she's released.

I am NOT excusing her actions or saying she should not be punished. She is fully GUILTY of what she did and she SHOULD be punished. I'm just saying it's more beneficial for all of us if she's put in a psychiatric facility where she can get treatment instead of a prison where she will receive none.

Can't be bothered to read what else has been said...seems like a debate of some sort.

Anyway, on a similar topic;

It's in dispute what her motivation was, so I don't know why you keep claiming it's over an internet restriction. She claimed she's had a long history of problems and they never detailed those problems, so there could be abuse involved in this case.

The brain continues to grow and development well into adulthood, close to mid-20s in fact yet we choose, arbitrarily 18 as the defining line in legalese between adulthood and childhood. Being 14, she's too old to be considered an ignorant child. Still developing? Sure. Old enough to know murder is wrong? You betcha.

These are reported cases. There's bias in the statistics based on that alone. In fact, there's been reports that reported teenage female violence is actually on the rise. There is no relevant reason why her gender makes it any more likely she's mentally unstable. It's completely arbitrary unless you can give me a concrete reason her gender makes her less prone to violence, not just some reported crime numbers. If we relied on crime numbers, I'd be able to make a silly claim like "black people are more violent as a race than white people". See how stupid that sounds?

I don't make such rash claims about myself. I can't claim I wouldn't murder if provoked enough. All it takes is the right push and I'm confident, even in speculation, that it's true for everyone. Human beings are quite capable of many things when properly motivated.

And again, not to beat a dead horse here, but there's apparently more to this story than just losing the internet and without that information you're arguing on uneven ground in this particular case.


Lotta ifs in this. How do we know she'd get better? Rehabilitation is only marginally successful and many criminals become repeat offenders, particularly of the larger crimes like murder, rape, and grand theft. Also, at least here in the states, someone could be released early from psychiatric care and not actually be rehabilitated.

Of course, this is assuming she's unstable to begin with.

I'm not going to assume abuse because it normalizes her actions. There was no mention whatsoever of so much as suspected abuse so I'm going to reasonably assume there was no abuse.

Thank you for repeating what I had just written I suppose.

Unless you're been completely oblivious to your surroundings from the time of your birth you'd know from observation alone that females tend to be much less violent and aggressive than males. Such extreme violence towards one's own mother is suggestive of mental instability.

Alright, you'd end a person's life in self-defense. But would you murder your own mother over something so trivial?

A few rough times with her mothers and a handful of arguments. That changes nothing. Again, there was no mention whatsoever of even suspected abuse. There is absolutely no reason to assume abuse.


We don't. We trust the doctors who work in the facilities and hope when she gets out she's not flooded with murderous thoughts.

And what do you propose? Send her to prison where she will undoubtedly leave much worse and violent than when she arrived? That's... a great plan you have there.

All of that is completely irrelevant to this discussion.