Give 14-year-old 14 years

How is a life sentence for one person supposed to deter another born years later? The second person has never heard of the first.

The teen years are so difficult. I cannot see putting someone away for 50-plus years for a crime committed at the age of 14 or 15 or 18. They should at least have a chance at rehabilitation and returning to society.

How about if no one is sentenced for longer than their age at the time of the crime — 14 years for a 14-year-old, for example? Life without the possibility of parole is just too awful to contemplate for an adult, but it probably is not meaningful to a teen.

— Cornelia Williams, Camarillo

Law needs to be changed

I strongly disagree with trying juveniles as adults. They do not think like adults, and science has proved that they cannot. Their brains are not developed to that point.

We should let our juvenile-justice system do its job.

We should not be sending 14-year-old kids to be with hardened older criminals to get raped or murdered in prison. We can rehabilitate adults — why not kids who are so impressionable and moldable? Why mold them into tough criminals, which is all we are doing in sending them to adult prisons?

We make a point of knowing where sex offenders live, and we do not want them near our children, yet, we are going to send a child to live among them. What are we molding them to be?

Warehousing youths with hardened criminals is not the answer.

The law needs to be changed.

— Medardo Canales, Ojai

Another vote

I believe that juveniles should not be tried as adults.

— Ruth Cooper, Ojai

Praying for a second chance

Re: Pete Kossoris' March 23 commentary, "Tony Throop deserves no sympathy":

I read with interest Mr. Kossoris' commentary on Tony Throop. I know Tony's mother and stepfather and a few of us have been writing to Tony for more than 10 years.

Yes, he committed a heinous crime as a 17-year-old juvenile. But we firmly believe that God gives second chances and this is what we are praying for, for Tony.

— Rose Mary Kane, Camarillo

Society's big problem

I attended a lecture recently by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, sponsored by the Boys & Girls Club of Camarillo. Grossman is on the road 300 days out of the year calling people to action against TV, movie and video-game violence. He presented many facts linking media violence and teen violence and showed us pictures of actual changes in the brain.

Some facts: Repeated exposure to violence stunts brain development and reduces cognitive brain function. The good news is, after a period of "detox" from violence, the brain goes back to normal.

Our society has a very big problem. Our children are no longer safe in school. I am very concerned as a parent. There is hope, thanks to Grossman and others like him. We need to take action, though.

The violent children in our society now are the adults of the future and it will only get worse, as we are seeing now.

Grossman stated that our biggest problem is denial. We need to acknowledge the link between violent children and violent media. Study any of the school killings and the link is there. Are we going to do anything about it or let the killing escalate?

It's up to all of us.

I encourage anyone who works with children, is a parent, or concerned citizen to go to http://www.killology.com for more information.

— Susan Talmadge, Ventura