Themightyspurs comments

This is a truly sad case, made all the sadder in that it could have been avoided by people just talking. The teacher screwed up by not hearing the call for help in his journal. Those who apparently witnessed the acts of bullying made no mention of it until it was too late. The parents clearly could not read the signs that their own child was in a bad way, or perhaps chose to ignore them. In such an atmosphere, who can the young, insecure and vulnerable turn to?

On the wider topic of juvenile crime, why not lower the age that the law deems you to be an adult from 20 to 18? Anybody that completes the full schooling system has at least been in the position to be furnished with the rationale and awareness of an independent person and this should be recognized in law and therefore in court cases. Might such a move in itself act as a deterrent to those of later teens knowing that they'll face the full force of the law? And for those very few that leave school at high school age and get a tax-paying job and have no criminal intentions, I cant think that it's right they wait 5 or more years to become an adult.