Teen Arrested For Carjacking, Attacking 74-Year-Old At Hamden Plaza

What about the extra charges for injury/assault to an elderly person???
I favor throwing the proverbial book at these criminals who prey on the weak and elderly. A message has to be sent. Stop enabling and molly-coddling criminals; no matter their age. That's what jail is for.

Absolutely agree with CityYankee. These crimes are not occurring because they are hungry, or because the city isn't providing activities. These crimes are occurring because there is little fear of consequences. Until we demand that change, the most vulnerable in our society will continue to live in fear.

@cityyankee

First-degree robbery by definition involves theft which "causes serious physical injury to any person who is not a participant in the crime". He's being charged for the injury.

Anyone who commits a crime such as this, should go to jail. There is no excuse.

First degree robbery sentences may be suspended, assault on an elderly person is a mandatory five years, not suspendible.
https://law.justia.com/codes/connecticut/2005/title53a/sec53a-134.html
https://law.justia.com/codes/connecticut/2013/title-53a/chapter-952/section-53a-59a/

Wasn’t it this very organization that ran a story with your leader and the mayor of Hamden snickering about crime in the Hamden plaza?
Oh yes it was

The accused when convicted should go to prison for a long sentence. His victim will suffer injuries for a long time.
That this senseless, violent criminal would attack a senior citizen attests to his criminal mindset. This crook deserves to be incarcerated for a long time.

Assault on an elderly person should be included in the charges. We have to protect our vulnerable elderly and young children from abuse and attacks. I would also like society to classify car jacking and mugging as violent crime.
When the person committing the crime is 18 and under, for violent attacks and second time offenders they should be put in a secure, restrictive supervised program with intensive rehabilitation and therapy with trained professionals in adolescent therapy and family therapy. I would recommend ankle bracelet monitoring and family and adolescent therapy for first time offenders of non-violent car theft.
Putting them in adult prison with no rehabilitation or age appropriate intensive therapy will only turn out more hardened criminals when they have served their sentence. This will only create more havoc when they are released with little to no therapy or rehabilitation.
We must protect society, and not simply release these offenders to their guardians or parents over and over again with police not having access to their prior offense records, but neither should we be locking them up with adult convicts and throwing away the key.
We have been taking these two differing approaches for some time now, with no productive results, because we are not addressing the root causes of this behavior.
Often these offenders have dysfunctional family relationships and mental health issues and negative influence peer groups. If society focused on treating the cause of these anti-social behaviors, and on rehabilitating and changing the negative influences and to create more positive relationships then the cycle of violence could be broken. If you interviewed convicts and former convicts as to the reasons why they made their negative choices that led them to be incarcerated, you would find a great deal of history of pain, loss and anger with little to no support systems or intervention.

To Heather C

Anyone committing this type of crime is already a hardened criminal. The act alone negates the use of counseling and in this case the emphasis should be on punishment. This criminal needs to be away for a long time and he can change in prison if he wants to do so. Punishment first. Juvenile holding areas are more violent than adult prisons bc of no consequences for the act