[tacticalogic]

Sounds to me like bad Law, it is far too easy for a child to be manipulated, and to hold someone of that age to a LWOPP sentence under these circumstances. I think you are going to without question wind up trapping what could be decent kids in bad situations under such guidelines. Not saying the kids in that sort of situation should walk without consequences, but in and of itself, I have a hard time with the verbage of this law, at least as presented.

If legal system gives them a break because of their age the gangs just use that to help talk them into it. They can tell them nothing really bad will happen if they get caught because of their age.

[HamiltonJay]

I never said nothing really bad should happen to them, I said LWOPP in the instance described, being a lookout or driver when you had no idea what your “conspirators” were doing for a 13-15 year old is going to ensnare kids who aren’t the hard core you need to put down.

I work with kids this age every day, and the overwhelming majority can be very esily manipulated by someone with nepharious intent if they would choose to. You are talking about 7th-10th graders here. I am not suggesting no punishment should occur or that blanket passes should be made in every case. However you cannot ignore the case where a truly bad person convinces a kid to do something they shouldn’t and may have had no idea what was going on, and treat it as though they were an adult in the same situation every single time.