Is afluenza a real thing?

It was used to excuse vehicular homicide committed by a young man in Texas. The young man is white. If he had been a minority, I seriously doubt he would have escaped a prison sentence.

It will probably will not keep him out of jail for breaking parole, it will not keep his mother out of jail for taking him to Mexico. She could see five or ten years.

He could receive the full term of his sentence ten years.

I believe it is a real thing, but I don’t expect it to be used much as a legal defense.

It is not a valid legal defense by any means. I am certain the judge who allowed it was bribed, coerced, drunk, or on drugs.

But it exists as a description of spoiled people who think laws and human decency are for little people.

It’s a thing and I think most americans and europeans have a small amount of it.

Keep in mind his defense of “too rich to not know the laws or think the laws applied to him” was actually successful. It kept him out of prison. It is absurd.

I agree with @johnpowell that it’s absurd.
Unless a child is home-schooled and not allowed to socialize, they know there are rules and consequences for not following them.

The judge in the affluenza case should have, at minimum, ordered 30 days shock incarceration.

@ibstubro 30 days for killing four people? That would be easier than the 10 years probation he got!

The law now says that it is; therefore, it is a thing.

The judge in the affluenza case should have, at minimum, ordered 30 days shock incarceration.

After the trial the judge retired at age 59.

^Big surprise there.~

There really are kids raised in an entirely different environment from the rest of us. Just as ten year olds are clueless about phone booths there are wealthy kids who are clueless about consequences, toilets with no seats, and having no defense but their own skills if someone wants to rape them.
Still, there should be an introduction of some sort. Maybe they could be ordered to switch lives with some person the same age, gender, grade level, etc., but an entirely different social class. Maybe one week of every month for a year.

Did they catch that idiot kid? I’m away from home and missing out on the news.

Yes, @jca.
Both the boy and his mother were caught in a Mexican resort (Puerto Vallarta) and are expected to be returned to the US Wednesday, 12–30.
He was reportedly tracked by his cell phone.

@jca Yes they caught him, in Mexico, in a tourist attraction.

I’m glad he’s in worse trouble now. Hopefully they throw the book at him and his skanky mother.

Affluenza kid caught in Mexico.
Investigator says ” we think they drove to the border and then crossed the boarder.” Ya think?

They could have flown or taken a cruise. They might have crossed the border normally before anyone realized the brat was AWOL.

I think it is an excellent and apt term to describe the stupidity, insensitivity and entitlement of sociopaths to the manor born. But I think people often make the mistake of believing that since certain behaviours become so recognizable that they earn a label, that this somehow makes these behaviours legitimate or acceptable. NOT. As with many diagnoses, such as the manic side of bipolarism (a suspiciously popular diagnosis these days) and criminal sociopathy, once the behaviour becomes abhorrent, or intolerable—or even just annoying as hell—the person should be notified in whatever society’s conventions demand. Afluenza is no more an excuse for destroying another person’s life—physically, emotionally, or in any other way—than is growing up poor and abused.