Can Children Under 10 Commit Morally Virtuous Rights

The court decision was influenced by Graham and Roper cases that established for sentencing reasons children are different from adults under the constitution. Children lack maturity and have no developed sense of responsibility. This leads them to be impulsive and reckless. In Roper it was held children are exposed to outside pressure and negative influences from friends. Therefore, they have less control of their environment because the child’s nature is not2 well informed. Graham and Roper emphasized distinguishing traits of children weakening justification for inflicting harsh sentences to juveniles even when they commit outrageous crimes.

When it comes to kids, we tend to baby them. We organize their lives and set limits on everything. If they want to do something outside those limits we tell them they are not old enough or they have not experienced enough of the world yet. After all, what can they possibly know about love, major decisions, and what is best for them? Yet somehow, despite all this, when they commit a crime we turn into hypocrites. Magically, they are geniuses who know everything about the world. In society’s eyes, they are no longer a child, but a monster.

As a toddler develops into a child, he/she becomes aware of what is right and wrong. A child desires to find out what morals are and why their parents make the decisions that they do. Coles articulates that “… any parent who has listened closely to his/her child knows that the girls and boys are capable of wandering about matters of morality…” (2003, p.439). Coles suggests that if a parent is willing to pay close attention to what his/her child asks, a parent will realize that children are indeed able to and need to ask those challenging moral

It is understood that at an early age, it is impossible to some advocates, for children to have the mental ability like that of a normal adult, to plan and execute a crime and moreover to understand the consequences of it. Therefore it is controversial where or not to try them as adults. During the adolescent years, it is asserted that a child becomes mature and begins to understand important concepts like society and expectations they are still trying to deal with society, their own inner battles of peer pressure, lack of direction, impulsiveness and lack of identity, according to the Legal and Justice Center. At

While murder is taken as one of the most offensive crime, children of six years and below are not punishable under the law. The category is believed to be incapable of planning and executing crimes regardless of the magnitude of the crime committed. Between the ages of two to six years, the child is engaged in many trial activities which he does not understand their consequences. Again, the brain of the child is at the stage of developing high memory capacity. Unfortunately, the most permanently stored information is that of activities undertaken and which involved emotional feelings. They are, therefore, likely to remember and act by their feelings and not much about their thinking. At the age of six, the children are eager to understand why the rules exist and how they operate. The brain is at the stage where it does not configure much and can, therefore, fail to control the actions of the body. Also, the age represents the child most unstable emotional stage. When angry, they do not know how to solve it and what lies as alternative problem-solving methods.

Juvenile incarceration has been a controversial issue long before the formation of the Juvenile Justice system. During the 18th century, Americans adopted Great Britain’s English Common Laws, which believed in “malice supplies the age” (Blackstone, 1769). This meant that children as young as seven years old could be convicted of crimes to the same degree as adults. During this period, the courts did not acknowledge the variance in cognition between children and adults, so they were tried equally. As a result, children were incarcerated with adult offenders, where they were exposed to risk of maltreatment and corruption (The American Bar Association).

In the 1800’s, children were considered property of their parents. If a juvenile committed a crime, the parents would shell out the punishment, and the court system was not involved at all. Parents believed that youth were vulnerable, fragile, innocent and in need of protection and understanding. The Juvenile Justice system was developed with this same concept in mind. If we already acknowledged that children should not be able to be tried as adults and we created a juvenile system to correct this, why would anyone want to try juveniles as adults? The answer is simple; we shouldn’t. What we need to do is improve our juvenile system. There are people who believe that juveniles should be tried as adults for any crimes that they commit and should not be treated any differently. This paper will explore the arguments for and against trying juveniles as adults.

In today’s society there has been an increase in the crimes committed by juveniles. Most juveniles have underlining factors that have caused them to choose this type of lifestyle. Many children in the juvenile system have come from impoverish stricken neighborhoods and are festered with gang activity which has made them a product of their environment. The minds of adolescents do not allow them to see how they are affecting their lives. A study was conducted, and according to the article, “Adolescents in Adult Court: Does the Punishment Fit the Criminal?”, when children mature, they will look back at their past and possibly leave their surroundings. Think about two people committing the same crime, both with the same thought process and ability to make decisions, except one is a juvenile and the other is grown. Due to the lack of experience in decision-making or the time to evaluate the situation like the adult, the youth should be viewed as irresponsible. The fact that a child’s mind is still maturing should reassure people that they will not be the same person incarcerated a few years later.

Over recent years there has been an increasing approval in Britain and elsewhere that children and young people should be involved more in decision making which may affect them. Recent years have seen an increase on the focus of children 's rights which include ways of getting young people and children involved more directly in decision making that impact their lives. In research terms, this has been mirrored in a linguistic shift from talking about 'research on ' to research with ' and now, increasingly, to 'research by ' children and young people (Kimmel, A.J., 1988).

Do you believe that children know right from wrong the moment they start to lie? I do, because the moment they don’t listen to you or do something wrong knowing it is wrong but they do it anyway, that’s when they know right from wrong. Two to thirteen year olds are a prime example. But the biggest example is teenagers. Teenagers do crazy stuff that can get them in trouble just to be cool. That’s mostly why we have so many teens going to jail.

The ethics of care may be a normative moral theory: a theory concerning what makes actions virtuously right or wrong. It's one amongst a cluster of normative moral theories that were developed by feminists within the half of the 20th century. Whereas consequentialist and deontological moral theories emphasize universal standards and non-partisanship, ethics of care emphasize the importance of response. Ethics of care contrasts with additional well-known moral views, like consequentialist theories and deontological theories. This kind of outlook is what feminist critics decision a justice view of morality. A morality is a care that rests on the understanding of relationships as a response to a different in their terms.

Everyday we are hearing more and more about a child or teen that has committed some horrible act. On Tuesday April 27, 2004 a twelve-year-old Georgia boy was arrested for allegedly using “his hands to strangle a third grader who disappeared while riding her bicycle”(McLaughlin, 2004). In February, a twelve-year-old girl was beaten to unconsciousness by a group of adolescents and young adults while at a birthday party in Baltimore. The question we must ask ourselves is where are the parents? Sadly, in the case of the Baltimore girl, one of the young adults was the parent of one of the children. How do children learn that violent and socially deviant behavior is acceptable? Both of these scenarios

Care Ethics (Feminist Ethics) is the importance of caring relationships in life whether its human or animal related. The main goal of care ethics is to maintain and promote caring relationships. Care ethics involves helping both yourself and the world around you. It gives you the motivation to care for others beside yourself. Care ethics according to the article is more a “general approach” than a theory in regards to other ethical practices. The goal of care ethics is to show that women have the same equal rights as men and that they both have freedoms of their own. This is important as this is helping to address equality among the human race. Care ethics as a whole revolves around emotions.

A child does not have its own morals, they are passed down by the parents and often the consequences will drive the moral decision a child make. In other words, a child knows that lying is wrong because he was taught by his parents and if caught lying will result in a punishment a negative outcome tied to being bad in a child’s mind. As a child becomes a young adult the sense of belonging and relationship will drive his moral choices. Lastly as adults, we are often conflicted between our inherited morals and the moral judgements we make based on acceptance, our emotions and often times judicial systems and rules and associated consequences. You steal, you get caught you go to jail. In some cases not all, this will persuade the adult to refrain from stealing and act morally.

This is not to say that children did not commit criminal activity during the Middle Ages, but rather that the concept of juvenile delinquent was not part of the vocabulary during this period of time. If a transgression occurred, then punishment was meted out regardless of child or adult status. (Bradshaw, 1995)