Approx. 20.000 juveniles were arrested for murder or attempted murder in 2020 (per the US Dept of Justice) Shall we put them all down, as you say? Just to be safe?
Calling your position utilitarianism is interesting, in what way is really, actually murdering a child (never mind the massive amount of legal, ethical and emotional complications that entail) to prevent a hypothetical future murder maximizing utility for anyone?
Hmmm, yes, let us murder this child before he has a chance to murder us. This is what a society does.
Because the world is so much easier to comprehend when you convince yourself some people are just naturally bad and thus undeserving of compassion. To some this is preferable to thinking that an impressionable child may be pushed to violence by their environment.
Never mind that the child was likely mimicking his father (who had attempted to murder his mother on several occasions) and was raised in the kind of environment where a loaded weapon was just left around for him to grab.
I’m not explaining away anything, nor denying that dangerously violent or even psychotic children exist. I was specifically railing against the idea of condemning a real, life human child because you have decided that they were “born bad”, in face of the plentiful evidence that they were raised in a violent environment.
For what it’s worth I’m sorry you had to go through that, but you’re not the only one who grew up with someone unstable and violent. I would not presume to speak to your experience, but in my case I was all too privy to the neglect and abuse they were put through and it’s left me convinced that barring any actual inborn neurological damage the only way a child turns violent is if something is pushing them to act that way.