If this judgement were given to a black kid from a troubled home in a run down part of town, you'd probably be applauding the decision. Saying finally contributing factors were taken into account, he's only 16, he's going to rehab and is on a long parole.

I think the decision sucks. At the very least he should be in juvie jail until 18 and then with the same restictions afterwards. But if this is where you want justice for minors to get to, thismay be a poor first start but a start none the less.

He can't go to jail for 20 years, I'm sure his future executive job skills will be needed.

"poor man's affluenza."

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The way that our educational systems work in the US is absolutely ridiculous. I can't afford to pay for an education that will allow me to move up into a better social class, but at the same time earning $10 an hour qualifies me as making "too much" to receive assistance with this process. I work full time to support myself AND go to school full time with an almost perfect GPA and this is how the govt rewards people like me? Frustrating to say the least.

this is how I am rewarded. REWARDED.


EVERYONE GETS A TROPHY.

So basically if they'd used the word "perceives" or "compartmentalizes," instead of "rewards," it wouldn't be a problem?

And that's what this affluenza seems to be. Plain old immaturity that's relative to one's surroundings.

I know a kid that suffers from this disease. She's not rich though - just raised to believe she's allowed to be the center of her own universe.

These people always have, like, the GREATEST divorces. So fun to watch.

I don't think that's quite the same.

I feel like it is, but how do you figure it is not?

Affluenza, a portmanteau of affluence and influenza, is a term used by critics of consumerism. The book Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic defines it as "a painful, contagious, socially transmitted condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste resulting from the dogged pursuit of more".[1]

Proponents of the term consider that the prizing of endless increases in material wealth may lead to feelings of worthlessness and dissatisfaction rather than experiences of a 'better life', and that these symptoms may be usefully captured with the metaphor of a disease. They claim some or even many of those who become wealthy will find the economic success leaving them unfulfilled and hungry only for more wealth, finding that they are unable to get pleasure from the things they buy and that increasingly material things may come to dominate their time and thoughts to the detriment of personal relationships and to feelings of happiness.