Monique Gonzales Mancia 11 May 2012 Minors Should Not Be Tried as Adults in Court “In the United States, children are treated as different from adults, except when it comes to criminal law; We see them as in need of protection from the outside world and as insufficiently mature to justify being treated as adults” (Barstow). Children are not allowed to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, or even vote until the age of 18 or 21 yet when it comes to criminal law they are looked upon as an adult and prosecuted as adults. Experts from attorneys to Supreme Court justices still wrestle with the issues that appear when discussing this topic. Current policies and procedures seem to create more controversy with each new case of a juvenile tried as an adult. Minors should not be tried as adults in court because they lose the chance at receiving rehabilitation services, the recidivism rate is higher, and the stigma of a criminal past on an adults’ life.
Disability Discrimination Act 1995 influences me because this shows that you should not discriminate children and that if you need to make any changes to any activity or in the classroom so that they do not have any disadvantage to the other children in the class. Race Relations Act 1976 influences me because it shows that you are not aloud to discriminate a child just because of their race, sex, religion, nationality, hair colour etc, intentionally or unintentionally. This means that everyone should treat children the same to their needs. Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 influences me because this means that no child(or adult) whatsoever with any type of disability should be discriminated. This means not to treat anyone with a disability different, and to treat them right according to their needs.
The question really is why the parents would be held responsible for the crimes or actions of their children. People who disagree with me will say that since the parents are responsible for the child that they are responsible for the child’s actions. What I say to that is, parents should not be held responsible for their children’s actions and/or crimes because the parents cannot control every decision of their minor children. A parent can teach a child to do the right thing but that does not mean the child will always do the right thing. A parent cannot control everything that their child does.
Rebuttal: If a juvenile has chosen to commit a violent attack on someone, then they have made the choice to act in an adult fashion. The justice system should treat the juvenile as the adult that they were trying to be at the time of the crime. Harsh sentencing can act as a deterrent to the juveniles who may consider on committing a crime. Giving light sentences does not teach the juvenile the lesson that they
No one wants to convict an innocent man or woman of a crime they didn’t commit, so surely no one wants to convict a juvenile—without knowing. The process of the juvenile court system all depends on the seriousness of the offense/crime and whether the juveniles denies involvement or claims involvement. If the court finds that the juvenile is involved, or the juvenile claims involvement, the court will then decide the juveniles punishment based on best interest for the juvenile. For adults, the goal of the court is to punish the adult if found guilty of committing a crime. Juveniles, however, are much younger and may require a different approach.
Checkpoint: Terrorism and cyber crime The fourth amendment is to protect the people from search and seizure, which mean that it protects a person from being arrested or from being search with out the proper evidence of the crime committed. With terrorism I do not see how the fourth amendment could be interpreted, unless a person or people try to terrorize an area, and there is no proof that they did it or not. The government can not just go and search there premises or arrest then without the proper evidence. With cyber crimes and the fourth amendment is also difficult to interpret, since with cyber crimes officers need to invade the privacy of the other persons just to be able to catch a person committing a crime on line, for instance a police officer pretending to act as a under age child to catch a perpetrator. In these case there needs to be some boundaries on invading a persons privacy and being able to search there home, or any personal belongings and if they have wire tap a conversation to receive probable cause of a crime of these severity then it has to be done.
Smacking/Spanking of Children Should Not Be Banned A very debatable issue is if spanking children should be banned or not. Many people are on both sides. Some think that it is a form of discipline, and it will help the child to behave. Others think that it is a form of abuse, and if adults cannot hit adults, it should be illegal for adults to strike them. There is a difference, however, between punching your child in the face, and spanking him on the bottom when he is misbehaving.
Should schools be allowed to drug test students? No it should not. Imagine yourself having to take a mandatory drug test just because the school suspects you might have done drugs. It would be a huge violation of your privacy. Random drug tests should not be allowed in schools because they are a violation of our privacy, it is against the fourth amendment, they do not deter use, and the drug tests are not always accurate.
For example: if an adults wanted to end their life they would not get away with it, as the right to live law would not allow the adult to get away with this. This law also prosecute murderers for taking an adult’s right to live away. The right to education helps by giving every human a given right to have an education, for example: if an adult was not allowing their child to attend a school and not have education when the child wanted to and needed to, the child or another adult would be able to report them as they are not following the rights. The person who is not allowing the child go to school will be prosecuted. The freedom of thought, conscience and religion helps to safeguard adults by allowing them to have their
Under the Fourteenth Amendment, it prohibits the execution of mentally retarded people. The issue at hand is the standard of decency to help mark the progress of society. This issue will help determine which punishments can be sentenced with out it being cruel and unusual punishment. The Supreme Court of the U.S. affirmed that it is cruel and unusual punishment to impose the death sentence on a juvenile who has committed a crime under the age of 18 through the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendment (Cornell, 2009).The reasoning for the rejection of the death penalty on juveniles is that can not be classified as being the worst of offenders. Juveniles are way too vulnerable to conduct in behavior that is too immature and irresponsible (Cornell, 2009).