Analysis Of Juvenile Crime: Minors Should Be Tried As Adults

Whether or not we should try juveniles as adults has always been a controversial issue. First of all, “juveniles” are children who fall under the age of 18. However, the legal age varies within certain states across the USA. Despite the age difference, some juveniles are still tried as adults. Does convicting a juvenile as an adult, turn out to be a better problem-solver, and how is this affecting the deterrence of crime?

On the fateful day of July 28, 1999, six year old Tiffany Eunick was beaten to death by a 6 foot tall and 160 pound Lionel Tate. The autopsy report showed that Tate reportedly stomped on Eunick so hard her liver was lacerated, and the young girl sustained multiple bone fractures so severe that she was pronounced dead at the hospital hours later. Tate was controversially convicted of felony murder and thus sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole. Now why was this sentence so controversial? Because Lionel Tate was only twelve years old at the time of the murder. How do we determine mental competence of someone whose brain is still developing? How could someone who has not even finished puberty possibly understand the sever implications of such a brutal crime? How can we possibly try a juvenile as an adult when juveniles are proven to have diminished impulse control? This paper will discuss the history of charging juveniles of adults, discuss the issues that make this practice wrong while negating opposing arguments, and explain the various consequences that come with charging juvenile offenders as adults.

Finally, I believe that by being rehabilitated the juvenile will have a better chance at life because eventually they will be back in society.

There are times juveniles should not be convicted as adults because sometimes the “crimes” may not harsh enough to be charged as an adult. For example, if a 8 year old saw a gun in their mother's purse and thought it was a toy and grabbed it and began to shoot who would be at fault ? Plus children in adult prisons are 10 times more likely to be taken advantage of in their time. Research shows that children prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system are more likely to reoffend than those held in the juvenile justice

Over 1/3 of the 11,000 index crime arrests were juveniles under the age of 16.

There is much debate over whether or not juveniles should ever be tried as adults. Juveniles are defined as children under the age of 18. In the past, juveniles have been tried in a separate juvenile court because of their age. However, trying juveniles as adults for violent crimes is a trend that is on the rise. Age is supposed to be a deterrent for placing those under 18 on trial and giving them stiffer punishments that are often reserved for adults. Many debate whether or not juveniles really should have less severe punishments or if trying some juveniles as adults will lower juvenile crime rates.

Joshua Smetzer Mrs. Charlton English 1314.2 5 December 2017 Should Juveniles Be Tried As Adults? Young people are more intelligent and have greater access to technology, and with the increase in knowledge and technology you can't take anyone, even the young for granted. If a person is aware of what they are doing and taught the difference between right and wrong by a family member or society they should be punished for their actions. Now a teenager would typically not be considered insane, but if he is he should be institutionalized just like an adult that is dangerous to society.

Teens being tried in the adult court system is becoming more common today. The Juvenile court system was first established in 1899 for teens to be treated through police, court, and correctional involvement instead of punishment. It was handling juvenile offenders based on their youth rather than their crime. Eventually, that all changed when teens were starting to commit more heinous crimes such as robbery and homicide. For fear that these juveniles would be a harm to society, many states such as Georgia, Michigan, and Texas have now made it easier for certain teens to be tried as adults (Tipton 2017).

Should teenagers be tried as adults? Many people say that they should be try as adults because they are teenagers doing adult crimes. The bigger the crime, the more eager they are to call them as adults. Many of the teens that have commit crimes killed someone. The family of the victim would want justice, so they would demand the court to send them to life in jail for killing the person.

Kids should be subjected to the measures of punishment that our judicial system is giving to them. Kids who show lots of enmity should be tried as adults. It is the only way to protect the innocent children. These kids know right from wrong, but they choose to do the wrong things and violence is wrong. As the laws have gotten stricter on discipline the kids have gotten wilder. When we let society tell us how to discipline our children then violent children is the result.

“The dead won’t bother you, it’s the living you have to worry about” By John Wayne Gacy. This quote means that it is hard to trust someone you thought you could trust. Kids/Teens are hard to trust sometimes. Sometimes kids/teens are good and trustable, others not so much. A high school teacher states “it is hard to understand how hard it is to accept the reality that a 16 or 17 year old is capable of forming such requisite criminal intent. Juveniles should be convicted as adults for violent crimes because if that adolescent felt like an adult then they should have the same consequences as adults.

Crimes are most associated with adults. Murder is especially most associated with adults. When a teenager commits such a crime such as murder they must be tried, and they should not be treated with leniency and coddling, but with the full force of the law as an adult.

As more minors are committing violent crimes, the question of whether they should be tried as adults has arisen. Children as young as 13 or 14 are committing violent crimes such as murder, rape, and armed robbery. Some of these children are being tried as adults while others are being tried as juveniles and receiving milder punishments. A juvenile offender may receive a few years in a juvenile detention facility and possibly probation following his release at age eighteen. An adult committing the same violent crime will receive a much harsher penalty, often years in jail, possibly a life sentence, with little or no chance of parole. The only difference between the two offenders is the age at which they committed the crime. Juveniles over

However, the transfer laws do not lower the juvenile crime rates. For example, in New York a law that sent violent juvenile offenders to criminal courts did not have an effect on violent juvenile crime. Serious crimes presented before the adult criminal court included murder, assault, burglary, rape and arson. In other cases, young offenders become aware of the consequences once tried in the adult courts. When committing the crimes, they think that they will receive light punishments imposed by juvenile courts but when referred to adult courts, the youth tend to become more responsible. Therefore, prior knowledge of resultant punishment plays role in crime reduction among the youths. Subjecting the young offenders to face adult courts brings to their attention the seriousness of the matter at hand (Jeff, page 8).

I do not think it is a good idea to lock juveniles up in prisons with adults. For a child to set down and plan a murder for instance, there would have to be some kind of deep emotional problem. On the other side of this, if the child knows right from wrong and he can sit down and plan a murder, then you could say if he is old enough to kill someone then he is old enough to die. The juvenile criminal is rooted much deeper than right from wrong. It starts back from when they are small children. Most of them are usually outsiders or outcasts. Who can you hold fault for that other than society? If juveniles don't fit in with the popular kids in school they are considered an