Madman, what I mean by that is a few things.

1. I have worked with kids (11-19 year olds) for over 16 years now. I have many good friends who have worked with youth for as long or longer than that. My wife is an elementary school teacher. Almost without fail, when you find a kid who is screwed up, you can trace the cause back to a screwed up family. Parents (or other adult figures) are almost always the cause of a kid's dysfunction. This is not to take the blame off this kid at all. Rather, it is to say this...

2. Kids become what they are trained to become. Whether its from bad parents or no parents at all, 9 times out of ten... no scratch that... 999 times out of 1,000 kids are doing what their parents (or other adult figures) intentionally or unintentionally taught them to do.

3. Youth want and need structure. Ever read Lord of the Flies? Sure it's a fictional story, but my experience would say that there's a ton of truth in that book. Kids left up to their own devices will seek structure and leadership. Without sane, stable adults around to teach these kids what that structure is supposed to look like, it devolves quickly into survival of the fittest, or more likely, only the strong survive and to hell with anyone else.

I said there are no winners because the Sherriff's Deputy's family has lost a son and husband. The SO has lost a brother. The killer's family has lost a son, who they once held in their arms as an infant. And society as a whole has lost more of its security and hope in the future. We've all lost another young person, another person who could have been a strong leader, father, neighbor given a stable household and upbringing. And now we all have to pay our taxes to keep him in his three-hots-and-a-cot for the rest of his life, provided that he doesn't get shanked. We all know the Corrections System doesn't actually "correct" anyone. It just keeps them locked up so they can't make more mistakes on the outside.

That's what I mean. That's why there are no winners.