Had they been more intelligent, or hung round with better people, then they probably wouldn't have done it, would they? Because intelligent people tend not to think that stabbing people is a good thing to do. If they were better educated they might have been more intelligent.

This isn't rocket science. As long as you keep ignoring the fact that prevention is better than cure, you'll just look like someone who wants to appear hard on criminals, rather than someone who wants there to be less crime.

Nobody's saying they shouldn't be punished now, apart from non-existent caricatures of people who don't immediately suggest that every suspected criminal should be summarily locked up for ever. There appear to be a lot of these, but in my experience they only exist inside the heads of hang em flog em types.

Furthermore, I don't really know what that last post actually means. Are you suggesting that they're all inherently and irrevocably evil from birth? Because that's what it sounds like.