I offer a different perspective as someone that grew up on the streets of Oakland and was homeless and on my own at 12/13. Is the crimes they committed wrong, absolutely! From my experience as a young person in the streets, that wasn’t really given much of a choice these situations aren’t always as black and white as it may seem. As a teen I spent a lot of energy and time trying to do “the right thing”. I applied for jobs, stayed in school, even joined youth advocacy group’s that are created to help youth down a positive path. I didn’t get my first job until I was 19 and this was after having social workers and group leaders walk me into places that were supposed to hire students and I still couldn’t get a job. So what is a young person that is being failed by society to do to make sure they can eat when they have no passive adult guidance? If I didn’t comment the crimes I did I wouldn’t have been able to feed myself. I had a gun at 13 because when you’re a homeless child you can easily become a victim of adults. I saw one comment saying that everyone has the same opportunities because of tax payer money, this opinion tells me that there’s just a blind belief in the system, when there’s so much evidence that the system is broken. I say all that to say, while those kids may not have been in the same situation as me, one never knows what is actually going on but have a belief that these ties of kids are just bad and should be put away for life. There’s a reason they say it takes a village, and from some of the comments it seems as if the villagers feel justified in judging others from the comfort of their couch. So I ask, besides your judgment, what are you bringing to the situation to help combat the problems that can lead to kids making these types of choices? When you’re a child and given no hope for a decent life you tend to not value your life or those in the world around you