Should Juveniles Be Charge As Adult In Criminal Cases? “Draft paper” Delvitta, Reid Post University CSS101.58: Learn Across Lifespan 10/3/12 Instructor: Erna, Krieger In my draft paper about should children be charge as an adult in criminal cases. To me it depends on the case and the ages of the child have done. Today around the world there are many children going to jail at the age of 12 to 14 .I have seen child charge as adult at the age of 12, and still in jail doing time for killing someone he didn’t like in school and he shoot him in the face. To me the children of today don’t care if they kill someone and they would not go to jail because their age.
Minors should not be tried as adults because they have not experienced the world like adults have, and they are not competent enough to go through or understand a trial. Many argue that minors should be tried as adults because they know what they are doing, and since society is changing and it’s not how it used to be 10 years ago, minors should be tried as adults for the reason that they need to learn their lesson and realize the crime they did was wrong. But in a recent study examining the mental health of minors after being tried as adults says, “66% of youth processed in adult criminal court had at least one psychiatric disorder and 43% had two or more types of disorders”. Another study was done for adults and it said, “less than 35% of adult males have a psychiatric disorder compared to 64% of transferred Youth”. I compared the two studies, and you can see that minors being tried as an adult have more of a chance to at least one psychiatric disorder.
Youth that hang around people their age that are making bad choices and not abiding the law will involve in crimes with friends who are doing the same. Their environment can cause them to act out in negative ways, the lack of positive adults, abuse and neglect, and too much idle time and not enough planned activities. Children should not be tried as adults. “The United States Supreme Court has ruled that there are limitations on the punishment juveniles can receive even when they are tried in adult court. The law considers youth crimes to be less culpable than adult, therefore juvenile punishment should not be as severe as those available for adults, even for the exact same crime.” The punishment of a 14 year old, Arkansas teenager who wasn’t the triggerman at a video rental store that he and his robbed was fair.
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. The adult criminal system has no special programming and treatment needed for the rehabilitation of convicted youths. The American Government spends money for the prevention of juvenile crime, the rehabilitation, and transitional services for young offenders convicted in the juvenile judicial system. Young adults should have an opportunity to take advantage of these programs too, not shoved into an overburdened, underfunded, and inefficient system. Resulting in perhaps additional or false convictions from the lack of positive reform needed to rehabilitate young minds.
Yet the law fails to distinguish between adolescents/children and adults when it comes to spending the rest of their lives in prison for crimes they have committed before their 18th birthday. Adolescents/children who break the law must be held accountable, however we cannot give up on the possibility that a still developing young person will reform. Justice and financial responsibility both demand a more thoughtful approach. When adolescents/children commit crimes, does he/she instantly become an adult? Or does he maintain some of his/her childhood, despite his/her actions?
He did not only kill his father’s pregnant fiancé, he also murdered their unborn child. Why would they give Jordan special treatment because he was 11 years old? Yes, he is young, but he was at an age to clearly set apart right from wrong and what he did was definitely wrong. The way I like to look at it is that murder is murder no matter the name or the age of the person. Jordan committed a serious crime and he should have to pay for his actions.
This is why I believe parents should not be able to check their teen’s social media accounts. I understand that parents are also concerned with their teens safety. We hear a lot about the dangers of the internet and sharing too much information through social media. But as teenagers, we are expected to be more responsible and deserve some privacy. Parents rummaging through their teens’ social media accounts may do more harm than good as it shows no trust.
Two hundred and fifty thousand juveniles are tried and sentenced for their crimes as adults every year in the United States. It would seem that courtrooms are taking these juvenile cases with the significance they deserve but with only half of the average yearly rate of juvenile arrests being tried in an adult courtroom, questions about how seriously public safety has come into consideration in the United States. Juveniles who commit violent crimes should always be tried as adults in the courtroom. These numbers have had an extensive impact in the United State’s juvenile judicial system. Semple and Woody (2011) stated that with a rise of violent crimes committed by juveniles, 49 out of the 50 states transferred their juvenile offenders
Many prosecutors use the threat of the death penalty as a way of getting a plea deal to get the offender off the streets. (Ewegen, 1994) Yet using the death penalty this way does not make it a deterrent against crime, it just keeps the judicial system from spending more money on trials. The death penalty has been abolished in many developed societies. The death penalty has no deterrent effect on capital crime. More over, the risk of executing an innocent person is unacceptable.
No. How did a violent act cause them to cross over a line that is defined by age? The major crimes such as murder and assault committed by youth are most times disputed in criminal court, which is adult court where children as young as ten are being tried and convicted as adults. Youth, that are not considered adults when it comes to voting, drinking, driving, are being sent to adult prisons for serious crimes. This is not justice; they can not try children as adults because they are not adults.