Persuasive Essay Outline

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Recommended: Children whose crimes should be tried as adults

Outline for Persuasive Speech
Should minors be charged and sentenced as Adults?
Jessica Rusk
April 28, 2014
I.Introduction
A. Out of 50 states, 14 do not have an age set that says whether or not you can be tried as an adult, according to an article from the Equal Justice Initiative. In some states the age is 10, 11, 12, or 13. There are about 10,000 kids under the age of 18 in an adult prison today. About 3,000 of those were sentenced to life without parole.
B. Should kids be tried and convicted as adults? Right now, kids as young as 8 and 9 years old are being sent to adult prisons for the remainder of their lives.
C. There is much controversy over whether or not minors should be tried and convicted as adults; most often with cases involving murder.
1. First I’m going to tell you the cons of convicting a minor as an adult.
2. Next I will show you the pros of it,
3. And finally I will tell you what I think about convicting minors.
II.First Main Point: Cons of Convicting minors as adults
A. The youngest child to ever be convicted as an adult was 11 years old. When these minors are convicted for crimes, they are either sentenced to life without parole, or the death penalty. If they are charged as minors, they are in a correctional facility with other minors until they turn 21, when they are released and their records are wiped clean. If tried as an adult, they will spend the rest of their life in jail with adults, including sex offenders and child molesters; or they will die by electric chair, lethal injection, or a firing squad. There is much debate over whether or not this should be legal in the United States; I am going to tell you the pros and cons, first off, the cons.
1. Fueling the argument that minors are still only kids a...

... middle of paper ...

... you my view on the debate and told you why we should keep minors out of adult prisons.
B. Has your answer changed any? Do you think kids should be sent to adult prisons for the rest of their lives? Children as young as eight years old?
C. Until you are eighteen years old, you cannot drink, you cannot use tobacco products, you cannot fight for your country, you cannot live on your own, you have to ask to go to the bathroom, you cannot vote, you cannot buy duct tape or spray paint, you cannot donate blood, and most importantly, until you turn eighteen, you will be treated like a child, and be constantly told that you cannot do things, simply because you ‘aren’t an adult yet.’ If we aren’t allowed to do all of these things, only because we aren’t adults yet, then why are judges and attorneys allowed to convict us as adults and put us in prison for life without parole?

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