Argumentative Summary: Trying Teens Should Be Tried As Adults

Trying Teens

Eighteen. A magical age. As one metamorphosises from a slight seventeen year old to the giddy heights of eighteen, what delights lie in store? Retribution. The right to serve a lengthy sentence if you have committed a crime. Surely, it is only right that someone facing an interminable prison sentence housed with violent criminals should at least be an adult. Adolescents do not have access to this right, primarily due to the fact that juveniles are unable to accurately distinguish between right and wrong. By law, when a child is tried in an adult court, if convicted, they must be sent to an adult penitentiary. So why it is that juveniles are still being tried as adults

Some believe that, as it is the job of a court to protect society, therefore, sending a child to an adult prison is only right for offenders so that they are out the way of society. Minors who spend time in adult penitentiaries are presumed to have changed the way they act and no longer commit crimes once they have completed their prison sentence and are back in the free world. It is also thought to be unjust that a seventeen year old receives a more lenient sentence to an eighteen year old, even if the latter is only a few months older. Those who oppose this point believe that a crime is a crime, no matter the age of the offender. Also consider the fact that juveniles need to be imprisoned in order to make the necessary changes to their life, forcing them to realise their errors that lead to their punishment. These opinions that juveniles should be sent to an adult prison for heinous crimes appear just. Nonetheless, there are more level-headed reasons why teenage offenders should be held in a private

Surely a juvenile should be tried in a juvenile court? When one turns eighteen, they are aware of the rights, privileges and, on the contrary, punishments they can receive when they step out of line. There is a valid reason why eighteen is the magical age. A child, defined as a person who is not yet an adult (age 18), may not have a clear understanding of any crime they are committing and will not be able to comprehend that they are breaking the law. This is precisely due to the fact that their brains are evolving. The Prefrontal cortex - the part of the brain in charge of regulating behaviour, abstract thinking, thought analysis and decision making between right and wrong – has not yet developed. We do not allow children to vote as we recognise that they cannot make a mature, well processed decision. So we should recognise that a minor should not be culpable for committing a crime which they are unaware of the seriousness of. Their actions could be a cry for help. Yet still children are continuing to be locked up with dangerous