Nowadays, teenagers are committing more crimes. Countries around the world try hard to avoid youth crimes.
The parents of a US boy were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter (过失杀人罪) because they didn’t stop their son from shooting (枪击) at school in Michigan, US. They were sentenced (判刑) to 10 to 15 years in prison on April 9 while the boy was sentenced to life.
This is the first time in the US that parents have been punished for what their child did in a mass shooting. Prosecutors argued that the parents ignored (忽视) clear signs of their son’s mental health problems and they even bought the gun he used in the 2021 attack. The boy was 15 years old when he killed four students and made seven others wounded at Oxford High School in Michigan.
“Opportunity (机会) knocked over and over again, louder and louder, and it was ignored,” Judge (法官) Cheryl Matthews told the court.
When kids do really bad things, like shootings, it makes people all over the world think about how to stop the tragedies (悲剧) from happening again. While most countries and regions have made 12 or 14 the lowest age for being held responsible for a crime, some tried to lower the age of criminal responsibility (刑事责任).
In 2010, Denmark lowered its age from 15 to 14. But it didn’t stop 14-year-olds from committing crimes. Instead, punishment made it harder for them to go back to school. That led to worse behaviors and an increasing number of youths committing crimes again. So, two years later, Denmark put the lowest age of criminal responsibility back to 15 years old.
In Germany, the government focuses more on teaching and helping young people who commit crimes, rather than just punishing them. As noted in a 2018 paper published in the Justice Evaluation Journal, they try to educate and guide young people to live better lives, instead of just putting them in prison.
【小题1】How might the judge feel according to her words in Paragraph 4?| A．Bored and tired. | B．Angry and sad. |
| C．Afraid and nervous. | D．Stressed and lonely. |
| A．Youths over 14 years old behaved better. | B．There were fewer crimes by youths. |
| C．Denmark lowered the age again. | D．More teenagers committed crimes again. |
| A．Never punish them. | B．Put them in prison as long as possible. |
| C．Help young criminals improve. | D．Give them money for a better life. |
| A．The causes of youth crime. |
| B．The roles parents play in youths’ development. |
| C．Governments’ responsibility for youth crime. |
| D．Youth crime and governments’ ways of dealing with it. |
