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Should Adolescents Be Tried As Adults Essay

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Everywhere around the United States, there are troubled adolescents who are able to either get away with crimes or have little consequence if they are caught. According to the office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention, there were about 300,000 violent crimes in the United States. These crimes include manslaughter, murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. Although, the number is lower than two decades ago, the number is still present. There are punk kids out in the world who take advantage of the criminal justice system. They may be violent offenders, but the justice system takes it easy on them. I believe that teens should be tried as adults in the court of law because the adolescents have control of themselves, if a children commits a heinous crime they should not be taken easily, and children understand crimes at a younger age. There was a boy who killed his English teacher, this is a horrible thing to do and the boy received 70 years in prison, but in April 2006, a twelve year old girl killed her entire family with the help of her twenty-three year old boyfriend Jeremy Steinke. The girl was convicted of multiple first degree murders, but she was only given 10 years. Meaning, a girl who was willing to kill …show more content…

If a person believes that the crime outweighs the risk because they will not be charged tough, the person will commit the crime. Kids today need to be frightened enough to not commit a crime, there is a television show called "Beyond Scared Straight". In this show, there are kids who commit crimes like assault, battery, or drinking alcohol, they are opted into this program to try to straighten them out. They get real prisoners to scare them. The kids start out acting touch, but eventually they crack and begin to cry and beg to go home. More often than not the children get back on track and do not advance to worse

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