Treating children as adults

Dangerous Magical Thinking

Trying the 12-year-old“Slender Man” stabbers as adults is as illogical and barbaric as they are.

Last week Waukesha County Circuit Judge Michael Bohren ruled that two Wisconsin teenagers will have to stand trial as adults for attempted homicide. The two girls—both 12 at the time—stabbed a 12-year-old classmate 19 times last year. They said they did so to mollify a cult fan fiction character called Slender Man, who is about as creepy an imaginary figure as there can be.