Should Juvenile Offenders Be Tried And Punished As

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Should Juvenile Offenders be Tried and Punished as Adults? Omar Firpi ENC 1102 Professor Simmons 6/10/2010 Period 3 Firpi 1 Should Juvenile Offenders be Tried and Punished as Adults? Children killing children is what this world has come too. It’s so sad when parents have to worry and wonder whether there child is safe, if their next door neighbor’s child is a killer. The fact that some crimes are committed by individuals who are not yet mature enough to vote, drive, or even drink should not be ignored. Punishment for an adult can be unfair when applied to a child in some cases, especially when they don’t understand the consequences of their actions. When it comes to judgment of these crimes it should vary on a case to case basis. It should be taken into account whether the defendant’s crime was malicious, accidental or they could not understand the magnitude of their actions. Juvenile offenders should be tried and punished as adults do to the nature of the crime. “The adult justice system says that the defendants who are found guilty are responsible for their own actions and should be held accountable and punished accordingly”. Adults who have been found guilty but are not as responsible for their actions often get a much lesser punishment. Because the level of maturity of minors it may be fair to say that they are less blameworthy for the same crimes that an adult commits. If for example adolescents that are of a certain age who do not realize or understand the consequences of their actions and are unable to control their impulses they should not be held as culpable for what they have done, like you would hold an adult (Steinberg 5). “In 1993, two year old Jamie Bulger living in Bootle, England was taken by two 10 year old boys and was mutilated and murdered. The two boys then laid his body on a railroad track Firpi 2 with the intention of

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