Research Paper On Why Juveniles Should Not Be Sentenced As Adults

Supreme Court ruling Graham v. Florida (2010) banned the use of life without parole for juveniles who committed non-homicide crimes, and Roper v. Simmons (2005) abolished the use of the death penalty for juvenile offenders. They both argued that these sentences violated the 8th Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. While these landmark cases made great strides for the rights of minors passing through the criminal justice system, they are just the first steps in creating a juvenile justice system that takes into consideration the vast differences between adolescents and adults. Using sociological (Butler, 2010) and legal (Harvard Law Review, 2010) documents, this essay will explicate why the next such step to be taken is

Crime and punishment seems to be the hot topic in modern society. People from different age ranges go to different levels of prison, depending on what they have done. Sometime juveniles are tried and sent to prisons suited for adult crimes if it’s serious enough. Should we tried juveniles as adults if the criminal act is severe enough? What impact does it have on the juveniles? Would juveniles being tried as adults than being tried as juveniles yield a better outcome? Is there a benefit from juveniles being tried as adults?

Most of the time, the system has proven itself to be unsuccessful in dealing with juvenile crimeMost often, the system is unsuccessful. “There are kids who are five times more likely to be raped or otherwise sexually assaulted in adult prisons than in juvenile facilities. The risk of suicide is likewise much higher for juveniles in adult jails.”(How to reduce crime Pg 3). When juveniles are sent to jail, they are still relatively impressionable from people in the prison, and may go back into crime after they’re released, hindering rehabilitation and just creating another violent criminal in the world. The court sentencing the criminal is also at

At the end of the 19th Century, the U.S. made legal history when the world's first juvenile court opened in Chicago(Horwitz-Prisco). The court was founded on two basic principles. First, juveniles lacked the maturity to take responsibility for their actions the way adults could. Second, because their character was not yet fully developed, they could be rehabilitated more successfully than adult criminals. More than a century later, these principles remain the benchmarks of juvenile justice in the United States(Horowitz-Prisco).In recent years, however, a growing number of juvenile criminals are being tried as adults. In part this stems from public outrage against children who are committing violent crimes. Many young children in America are

Over the last few decades there have been more and more violent crimes committed by children and young adults. Some of these children are under the age of 15, committing violent crimes such as robbery, rape, murder, gang violence. Some of these children are being tried as adults while others are tried and punished as juveniles. A juvenile offender may receive a slap on the wrist being sentenced to house arrest or parole while others are being sent to adult prisons without the possibility of parole. An adult committing these same crimes would receive a more sever sentenced.

There are more than two thousand cases of teens where they are sent to prison for life without parole after murdering other people. Most cases were of juveniles killing their parents or guardians after their knowledge of abuse. Juveniles that get sent to either juvenile hall or to be tried as adults do not receive fair defense teams, have prosecutors that are very manipulative, and experience physical and emotional trauma, which affects them for a very long time. Juveniles that get punished and sentenced do not have a very good source of rehabilitation or a place of rest after their crime. They are sent to trial within six days of their crime, out of shock and previous physical and mental trauma. Considering the potential dangers of juveniles

Many young children in United States are imperiled by abuse, domestic and community violence, and poverty. Without help, these children suffer, struggle, and fall into despair and hopelessness. Usually minors cannot manage emotional, social, and psychological challenges of adolescence and eventually engage in destructive and violent behavior. Today, juveniles are lucky enough that death penalty was abolished and said to be and cruel and unusual punishment by the Supreme Court. However, juveniles who commit murder can be put in a prison for life without a possibility of a parole.

The United States stands alone as the only nation that sentences juveniles to life without parole for the crimes they’ve committed. Some of these crimes include shootings, murder, and bomb threats but what causes these children to commit such heinous crimes. Although we have juvenile facilities, charged juveniles who commit these crimes are placed in adult prisons. In agreement with the majority of Supreme Court justices, we should abolish mandatory life in prison for juveniles who commit crimes due to the fact that these juveniles have brain development that is vastly different from an average adult, that their backgrounds should be accounted for when charging them, and that it’s morally wrong to put them in adult prisons.

Just how many juveniles are currently behind bars serving a life sentence? According to an article on Huffington Post, “Nationwide, there are roughly 2,500 inmates who killed as juveniles that are serving life in prison without parole, including 309 California inmates serving such sentences, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.” (Elias). This begs the very question if juveniles should be charged as adults. There are many factors to contemplate when considering that very argument. You have to consider if the juvenile has control over what they are doing and knows it is wrong. However, you have to also consider at the same time that it is possible that their thought processes are not fully developed and they could be rehabilitated to function in society in the future.

Should Juveniles Age 16 be tried for murder as an adult? In the United States it is popular for many juveniles, mostly around the age of 16 to be tried as an adult for murder. Two assumptions that make this easier for juvenile to be tried as adults, are because they will receive sentences in the adult criminal system. This will make their punishment for crime much harsher and more "proportional" to the crime committed.

Treating juveniles like they are adults in any shape or form is completely wrong. Previously I stated that I believed juveniles who commit violent crimes should be tried as adults, but after careful thinking and research, I feel very differently about this matter because they are still children mentally. They do not have the mental capacity to make informed decisions like adults. According to Albow (2014), when we allow our justice system to treat children or adolescence as adults so that we can be more punishing of their acts, we show no commitment to justice. What we show is our own contempt for the truth. Most juveniles between the ages of 14-17 are sometimes incapable of

Juveniles can be seen as a danger to society. Many people dislike childish kids that do not behave and that are a bother to society. But we should stop and think and ask ourselves, do we really know what they are going through in their household or at school? Society should not judge the juveniles by the way they look, dress or even by the way they interact with people. A juvenile should be should be convicted as an adult by court until found guilty.

“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.

Many adolescents were tried as adult, therefore given them the same punishment as adult. Juvenile court reformers argued that justice system should offer treatments that cure juveniles of their antisocial ways. People believed that criminal punishments should be based on the culpability of the person as well as the harm he or she causes. Development researchers clarifies that juveniles should not be deemed as culpable as adults since they are immature, this does not mean these juveniles are innocent whose crimes should be excused, this known as the development model. People should take in consideration that teenagers and adults are different. In areas like decision making ability, future orientation, personal identity and response to peer pressure.

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