What Kids Say Should Happen to Murderers

(Art by Wolfgang Carver)

Adults have been running things for forever, and look at what a good job we’ve done with ending war, domestic violence, and world humorlessness. Why not give kids a have at it, see if they can do better?

This week, we ask two teens and a nine-year-old what should be done with murderers. They suggested everything from branding to working with sick bunnies to weekly visits to their victims’ graves to crucifixion to having a cousin who loves you. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Wolf is 17, autistic and evangelistic.
Sadie is 9, a cheerleader and a gymnast.
Max is 16 and defines himself as “having evilness inside him.”

VICE: What should happen to murderers?
Wolf: If somebody was cruel enough to kill people in a fire, then they should be crucified to death. If they’re a Christian. If they’re an atheist, they should just go to jail and suffer without food. Starve to death. But they should get a chance before that, a chance to be nice.
Sadie: If you kill people once, you should get a chance. But if you kill people twice, then you should die.

But what about the executioner? Once they’ve executed twice, should they then be killed?
Wolf: But it’s their job.

So it’s OK to be an assassin, but not OK to be a passion killer? You just have to do it cold-bloodedly.
Wolf: [sighs]

So is it OK to kill if someone in authority tells you to?
Wolf: No.

But that’s what an executioner is.
Wolf: You could send the cruel killers to an island to kill themselves by starving.
Sadie: I think they should stay in prison for like five years, and then when they get out, if they kill again, it’s forever.

What do you think is going to happen in those five years that’s going to stop them from killing again?
Sadie: They’re going to realize that it’s a bad thing they did and they’ll also realize that they don’t want to go back there.

You know who they’re going to be hanging out with for five years, right? Other violent people. Will other violent people teach you that violence is wrong?
Sadie: If you see all the violent people in jail every day you’ll think, “Oh, I’m one of the violent people.” And then you’re going to think, “Anyone who is violent is in jail, so if I’m violent again, I’m going to end up back here.”

So if every day they re-learn that their identity is one of the violent people, how are they going to get the strength to get a new identity for themselves as peaceful, and where?
Sadie: They can just tell themselves, “I’m different than all these people around me.”

It would take a really strong person to realize that under those overwhelming conditions and not be influenced, looking around, to think the whole world is just a bad place, and it’s kill or be killed.
Sadie: So you think they should all just be let out?

Definitely not. A government needs to make sure its citizens are safe, and you’re not safe if violent criminals are all around. But once you remove them from society, I think you have to have a way to get it into their head and into their daily actions how to be a peaceful person. You don’t kill because you think it’s the best choice. You kill because you don’t know how to manage your anger or fear or impatience. I think hard work is good, to work with the land or animals, having to take care of things. Then maybe they can see themselves as someone who gives life, who is part of life, instead of someone who has to sneak by, who has to take life.
Wolf: Yeah, if anybody needs my help, I’ll help them.

You want to hang them on a cross! Either that or starve them to death!
Wolf: Maybe I could help the murderer first by taking him to the animal shelter and giving him a job with the bunnies. After the first murder I’d take them to the shelter so that they could feel happy! Happiness and joy. Helping the animals, they would realize they’re a nice person.
Sadie: So then the people who kill get a reward and the people who got killed get nothing, they’re just dead.

But the dead people are dead anyway, regardless. If you can turn violent people peaceful, then you protect the still living.
Wolf: Give them one chance to help the animals and become a nice person, but then if they get drunk one night and kill again, then it’s the cross or the starvation.
Sadie: If they’re so crazy they’re going to kill everybody they see, they should go in this little place with no things they could kill people with. And somebody should talk to them through a hole. Or you should give the crazy killers medical help.

Back to your point about why killers should get a reward: Why should they get so much help? What if a crazy killer killed me?

Sadie: They should have to go to your funeral and see everybody crying. And then they should have to visit your grave once a week.

Keep my killer away from my grave! They’re probably going to dig me up and gloat over my bones!
Sadie: No, after they get help, they’ll leave flowers and they should feel sad.

So you believe in the fundamental goodness of the human soul.
Sadie: Maybe everybody isn’t good, but everyone has some good inside them--it’s whether they want to use it or not.

When you’re forming as a child and you’re abused and terrified and you don’t see the goodness in yourself or in others, you only believe in badness, what should happen when someone like that does bad things?
Sadie: You should have someone tell you that you’re good, that you have good inside you, so you get confidence.

But these bad apples are probably acting out and overpowering others even from a young age, and being dishonest, stealing, you can’t count on them, they’re always late. So good people don’t want to be around them. How is anyone going to love them and show them kindness?
Sadie: People who actually mean it. Maybe somebody who was bad and they got help, and now they can help other bad people see that they’re not the bad things they do. Or you can find one person to really believe in them, like their cousin or something, who knows what they’ve been through, and knows they’re not really a bad person.
Wolf: Or what if you put them in a room with a very nice family?
Sadie: The whole family would probably get murdered.

Well I don’t think we’ll send them in there with a machine gun.
Sadie: Maybe they’ll just punch ‘em. Punch ‘em to death.

The whole family? Yikes! Max, what do you think?
Max: I’m a big fan of branding people. Pedophiles should get branded on their faces, and murderers.

Are you looking at it from the perspective of punishing people for what they did, or protecting innocent people from them in the future, or rehabilitating them?
I think anyone who would rape or kill anyone is beyond rehabilitation. But there was this one kid who killed his brother over some Pokemon cards, which was really stupid, and I think that shows he was out of his mind. So that kind of person should be rehabilitated and not branded. But if someone’s in his right mind, he should get tortured and branded for what he did.

So the silly murderers go free?
Pretty much.

What about soldiers? Is a soldier killing someone murder?
Absolutely. But if they’re commanded by their government and they kill other people also trying to kill them, it’s OK, they’re just doing their job, and I don’t think they should be punished. But soldiers killing civilians should be considered murder.

How about hired assassins? They’re just doing their job. Is that OK?
I think anything that would make an awesome movie is OK.

Previously - Weather and Sleep