We had a big week in Bastrop, I heard about it all
the way out here an attempted bank robbery, a
bomb scare at Wal mart and then a fire at the federal prison.
Can't cut it without daddy Michael Powell
ousted from FCC.
Can cut it with daddy UN Annan will not
investigate son for taking coins for oil to Iraq program.
Prince Charles
and Camilla's engagement
Every wonder what happens when winner of
red states meets a real Communist red or two crazies don't make a
right: Crazy Kim Jong of Communist North Korea says they have nukes to
protect them from right wing crazies? HUH!
What followed was a national outcry, partly because of the boy's death, but
also because one of the carjackers was 17 and couldn't be charged with a crime.
Since the dragging death, Congress has taken preliminary measures that would
strengthen penalties for adults who involve children in crimes, and it has
debated lowering the criminal prosecution age to 16. For now, though, police say
they still feel handicapped by the law.
"Some of these guys we are fighting now are 10 or 12 years old,"
said Rodrigo Oliveira, a civilian police commander who heads a special
operations unit that fights gangs inside the favelas. "I might know of this
kid that is doing a criminal act, but under the law, I can't consider him a
criminal. Nowadays, the gangs are using kids under 18 to do their worst crimes
because they know they won't go to jail."
Instead, they are sent to juvenile justice centers, where they spend a maximum
of 45 days before being enrolled in a state program designed to educate and
rehabilitate them. The maximum sentence for juveniles is three years in those
programs, but maximum sentences are rare. Most young offenders spend weekdays in
a rehab program for several months and are free to stay at home on the weekends.
At the Padre Severino Youth Detention Institute in Rio, about 185 boys crowd
into 10 dank concrete cells every day. The inmates are assigned cells not by age
-- they are all between 12 and 18 -- but by which gangs control the favelas they
call home.
The other day, Marcos, an angular 17-year-old with a quick smile, sat on one of
the stone-framed bunk beds at the center. He described himself as a drug dealer,
a robber and a killer, and said he has been sent to Padre Severino five times
since he joined the Red Command, Rio's largest drug gang, at age 12. In
February, police raided his house while he was sleeping and found unlicensed
guns.
Marcos had always known gang members in Cantagalo, a favela overlooking the
famed Ipanema beach community. He said that when he was 11, he tried to join the
gang but was rejected for being too young. So he launched a charm offensive,
snatching necklaces from women in Ipanema and bringing them back to the favela
to show the gang members what he could do. By the time he was 12, he said, they
took him in as a delivery boy. Sometimes he carried food for them, sometimes
drugs. He always carried his own .38-caliber pistol.
"I moved out of my home when I was 13, and the gang became my family,"
said Marcos, whose last name is being withheld because of the detention center's
policy. "If we went dancing, we went together. If we went to the beach, we
went together. If we decided to rob someone, we did it together."
He quickly became a dealer, pocketing about $125 a week, he said. He recently
became a manager controlling all drug sales within a specified section of the
favela. His income roughly tripled. Instead of a pistol, he began carrying a
machine gun loaded with 7.62mm bullets.
Marcos said he was 14 when he first killed someone. A guy in the favela had
gotten a virgin pregnant, and a gang leader ordered Marcos to administer lethal
punishment. He said he has since killed dealers who have stolen from the gang,
as well as others who tried to rat to the police. He doesn't always like doing
it, he said, especially if the victim is someone he considers a friend. But they
all know the rules, he said, and had agreed to play by them.
"I don't fear death," Marcos said, smiling slightly. "I make fun
of it. If it's time for me to die, I'll die."
In the Crossfire
Joel Ferreira Silvestre, 17, sat on a concrete step outside his house, around
the corner from a small cluster of men slamming at the sidewalk with pickaxes.
They were laying a new length of PVC pipe to deliver water to one of the houses.
That's the way things work in the favela -- people do not call a public utility
when they need such work done, because utilities don't serve them. Nor do the
police, which means that the young man sitting on another step several yards
from Joel could lean to his left and light a joint from the end of his friend's
cigarette, secure in the knowledge that no one would try to stop him.
NEXT
Life is like a game of cards. The hand that is dealt you represents
determinism; the way you play it is free will.