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Can juveniles be sentenced to life
Effect of juvenile crime society
The increasing number of juvenile crimes
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Allison Hamerski Ms. Gamache ERWC Period 1 May 3, 2014 JLWOP In the article On Punishment and Teen Killers by Jenkins, sadly brings to our attention that kids are sometimes responsible for unimaginable crimes, in 1990 in a suburban Chicago neighborhood a teenager murdered a women, her husband, and her unborn child, as she begged for the life of her unborn child he shot her and later reported to a close friend that it was a “thrill kill”, that he just simply wanted to see what it felt like to shoot someone. A major recent issue being debated is whether or not we have the right to sentence Juveniles who commit heinous crimes to life in adult penitentiaries without parole. I strongly believe and agree with the law that states adolescents who commit these heinous crimes should be tried as adults and sentenced as adults, however I don’t believe they should be sentenced to life without parole. I chose this position because I believe that these young adults in no way should be excused for their actions and need to face the severe consequences of their …show more content…
There is no hope for these young adults, regardless of what they do to repent their actions or to change themselves for the better or maybe even come to realization with the depth of the crime they have committed, they will simply never get a second chance. Juvenile crime has already made obvious progress, “in the mid-1990s, violent juvenile crime declined, and it has continued to decline through the present day." (Garinger) This quote pulled from the article Juveniles Don't Deserve Life Sentences, really draws attention to the fact that a decline has been apparent over the years, that kids are not becoming more violent, they are actually becoming less violent. So it wouldn't make any sense to correspondingly raise the severity of
Juveniles don’t deserve life sentences without parole for many reasons but one main reason is becase people don’t know a person’s life at home and sometimes living in a broken home can affect their social life. According to the article “Greg Ousley Is Sorry for Killing His Parents”, the author Scott Anderson states that,“The only way to unlock the mysteries of the psyche is to dissect your childhood, especially the formative influence of your parents” (Anderson 56), proving that juveniles are easily influenced to do terrifying crimes and is not their fault because no one was there to guide them.
If a family member was murdered, a family member was murdered, age should not dictate if the punishment for homicide will be more lenient or not. If anyone not just juveniles has the capabilities to take someone's life and does so knowing the repercussions, they should be convicted as an adult. In the case of Jennifer Bishop Jenkins who lost her sister, the husband and their unborn child, is a strong advocate of juveniles being sentenced to life without parole. In her article “Jennifer Bishop Jenkins On Punishment and Teen Killers” she shows the world the other side of the spectrum, how it is to be the victim of a juvenile in a changing society where people are fighting against life sentences for juveniles. As she states in the article “There are no words adequate to describe what this kind of traumatic loss does to a victims family. So few who work on the juvenile offender side can truly understand what the victims of their crimes sometimes go through. Some never
Jenson, Jeffrey and Howard, Matthew. "Youth Crime, Public Policy, and Practice in the Juvenile Justice System: Recent Trends and Needed Reforms." Social Work 43 (1998): 324-32
The sentencing of underage criminals has remained a logistical and moral issue in the world for a very long time. The issue is brought to our perspective in the documentary Making a Murderer and the audio podcast Serial. When trying to overcome this issue, we ask ourselves, “When should juveniles receive life sentences?” or “Should young inmates be housed with adults?” or “Was the Supreme Court right to make it illegal to sentence a minor to death?”. There are multiple answers to these questions, and it’s necessary to either take a moral or logical approach to the problem.
Day after day in this country there is a debate going on about the death penalty and whether we as people have the right to decide the fate of another persons life. When we examine this issue we usually consider those we are arguing about to be older men and women who are more than likely hardened criminals with rap sheets longer than the height we stand (Farley & Willwerth, 1998). They have made a career of crime, committing it rather than studying it, and somewhere along the line a jury of their peers decided enough was enough. They were handed down the most severe and most final punishment of them all, death. Behind all of the controversy that this issue raises lies a different group of people that are not so often brought into the lime light, juveniles.
Although the death penalty alone cannot bring back the life of those who have been murdered, it can serve as ultimate justice for the victims and their families. The deterrence of the death penalty can save lives. While opinions abound on both sides of the fence, in the use of the death penalty on juveniles, no one can argue with the fact that the voices of those murdered cannot be heard. Juveniles may not have fully developed brains, as Raeburn argues, but this is not an adequate excuse to dismiss the death penalty. American society cannot afford to babysit murderers, nor can they rehabilitate them. The end of the innocence begins when an innocent life is taken, and the sanctity of life is held defenseless.
For a juvenile to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole is almost to give that child the death penalty, a punishment that was outlawed in the 2005 case Roper v. Simmons. In Roper Christopher simmons challenged his death penalty sentence for murder at age 17 because of his claim that the was an “immature and irresponsible juvenile”. The Supreme Court overturned his sentence, saying that their was a national consensus against the death penalty for juveniles because so many states had rejected that as a viable form of punishment. A life without parole sentence is equal to the death penalty for a juvenile because the child is having any hope of living a semi-normal life terminated at a young age, in this case 14 years old. If this were your child would you want them to sit in jail for the rest of their life, with no hope and no reason to live? Or would you want them to, even if it was an impossibly long sentence, have a least some sliver of hope that maybe one day they will escape the icy hell of the prison walls and feel the sunshine upon their face once again? When the sentence of life with parole is given it is not a guarantee that the person will be let out, it is simply giving them some glimmer of hope and reason to
Fair sentencing of youth state's “Children sentenced to life in prison without parole are often the most vulnerable members of our society” The Gail Garinger article, “Juveniles Don’t Deserve Life Sentences” discusses about children deserving a second opportunity. According to Garinger, children should receive a second chance and help so they could be mentally stable. According to Justice Elena Kagan she discusses that Juveniles without parole affects the way he develops throughout his life time. I agree with the majority decision that Juveniles should not be sentenced to life in prison and that they should be given a second chance because they deserve to fix their mistakes.
“Prison is no place for anybody to start off at. This is where everybody ends up and they end up being a loser in life. This is where the ball game begins and only the tough survive” (“Prison”). There are approximately 2,500 prisoners serving life without parole sentences for homicide committed when they were under the age 18. More than 2,000 of them received that sentence as a result of a mandatory sentencing scheme (“US”). State laws call for a mandatory sentence of life without parole for those convicted of a felony murder. However, the Supreme Court ruled in June 2012 that mandatory life sentences without parole for juveniles is unconstitutional. To sentence a minor to life in prison is unjust because people under the age of eighteen do not fully comprehend the consequences of their actions, exposure to violence as a child influences their actions, and they are not legal adults and should not be held liable for adult consequences.
The Supreme Court has saved many juvenile lives because of the court’s opposed ruling on sentencing juveniles to life in prison without parole, and this is a substantial verdict by the court. Sentencing for juvenile crimes should be determined by their maturity level.
When people think of murderer they usually think of 25-30 year old gang member who has been in and out of prison. Not an eleven year old with a gun and his baby sister’s blood dripping from the cradle. Juveniles make decisions that affect their future and some of them just so happen to break the law. That’s not the issue, though, it’s deciding their punishment the world is in awe about. People argue that juveniles are biologically different from someone who is 25-30 years old. Juveniles are less mature, more vulnerable to peer pressure and cannot escape from dangerous environments. On the other hand, juveniles know right from wrong and in some cases should be condemned to life in prison. They argue that these children have no moral sense and are
People have been debating for years whether juveniles should be punished as adults if they commit the same crime as an adult. People’s arguments are based on different studies: imaging on the brain showed undeveloped parts that mainly control emotions and actions in adult’s brain, and other studies showed that the juvenile crime rate is not equal between countries which weaken the “theory” of undeveloped brain causing these actions from teenagers. I strongly agree with the minority decision of the United States Supreme Court that juveniles should be punished even if it requires a life sentence in prison without parole because every action should have consequences. By punishing teenagers as adults, it can be an
“Juvenile Justice and Injustice” New York, New York Margaret O. Hyde, 1977. Johnson, Jason B. Slain Teen’s family: Cops eyeing 7-10 suspects.” Boston Herald. 7 April 1995 Olney, Ross R. Up Against The Law. New York, New York: NAL Penguin Inc., 1985.
For instance, juveniles do not deserve life sentences because their brain isn’t fully developed yet and lack awareness of their actions. In the article “Startling Finds on Teenage Brains” by Paul Thompson, he explains the development of the brain and how in some situations the brain isn’t ready and it can affect the person. This effect in divergent ways; psychologically and emotionally. Thompson's article introduces the case of Nathaniel Brazill, at age 14, charged with second degree murder, trial as an adult and sentenced to life in prison without parole. After some serious research, it has shown that as many other juveniles who have committed a crime they are “far from adulthood”.
As a teenager, I saw the world is different each time, everything is new to me and I want to learn anything that I don’t know and try my best to make my own discretion to live a happy life. It is a shame that many people at the young age like me decide to live a life of misdeeds and become what we call juvenile criminals. In the United States, we have a law system for juvenile, this system only works for people who under 18 years old, but in some case, If a teenager murder somebody the system have the ability to put them in an adult trial and sentenced to life in prison without parole.