Muhammad Hassam Ali, 17, was killed by stranger after a four-minute conversation in city centre

Summary

A 15-year-old boy was sentenced to life in prison for fatally stabbing a stranger, Muhammad Hassam Ali, after a brief conversation in Birmingham city center. The second boy, who stood by, was sentenced to five years in secure accommodation. Ali’s family expressed their grief, describing him as a budding engineer whose life was tragically cut short.

  • @WaxedWookieEnglish
    9•1 month ago

    Your prescription seems to assume that either:

    1. Everyone can be rehabilitated, which no society has ever achieved.

    2. That it’s preferable to push a well understood risk to people’s lives back into the community than it is to keep that risk in the care of the state where they can’t kill more people.

    …but you strike me as too sensible to prescribe that kind of thing, so what have I missed?

    • @ValmondEnglish
      6•1 month ago

      Lots of/most/almost all prisoners are rehabilitated though?

      We only hear about the very small minority that make attention grabbing headlines.

      I’m in Europe BTW.

      • @PaddzrEnglish
        1•1 month ago

        Not really. Look up the life of car thiefs. Most gain inside knowledge after leaving prison with fresh connections.

        Prisons are almost like a networking opportunity. Mark Cann made an interesting video about it.

          • @PaddzrEnglish
            3•1 month ago

            I’m too stupid to have the right answer. I can just make noise and hope someone smarter comes up with better solutions.

    • @lepinkainenEnglish
      1•1 month ago

      “Western” countries don’t have a way to deal with the handful of truly irredeemable criminals. They will not and cannot be members of society ever.

      But what do we do with them? Lock them up forever? Kill them? Nobody knows.

      • @WaxedWookieEnglish
        1•1 month ago

        I think it’s pretty straightforwardly reasonable to say that we should above all else, remove their ability to continue to do harm. There’s going to be a range of views on exactly what that should look like - mostly based on your view of how punitive we should be. Options would include confinement, exile, medication, lobotomy, and execution.

        Personally, I think ending someone through death, lobotomy, and the like is unnecessarily barbaric. Confinement in one form or another seems like the most reasonable option, and I think consentual alternatives are debatable.