Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number

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Recommended: Historical development of juvenile justice system

Age Ain’t Nothing But a Number

During the last thirty years, there has been an increase in violent crimes committed by minors. In many of these cases, the minors are faced with harsher charges than what the law declares, such as being charged as adults. The majority of the United States justifies the age 18 as when an individual is no longer considered a minor. Yet, in the past ten years, the United States has seen the age of individuals being charged as adults drop. For example, in 1993, Nathan Dunlap a seventeen year-old from my hometown Aurora, Colorado was sentenced to the death penalty and eight years later, twelve year-old Lionel Tate of Fort Lauderdale, Florida was charged with life in prison. Currently the United States government has established age requirements for a minor to be charged as an adult because it is a “quick and ready pragmatic definition” (Overton 109). However, a simple age limit is not the proper method in determining charges against an individual. Since each American has a different mindset due to their experiences, upbringings, and morals, our laws should reflect that diversity. The court system of the United States should replace the method of using the chronological age of a minor to their mental age when determining the charges against an individual, because it is the state of one’s mentality that leads them to commit a crime.

During the late eighteen-hundreds, the U.S. added a branch of law that specifically focused on juveniles. The location of the nation’s first juvenile court for children under the age of 16 opened in 1899 in Chicago, Illinois. The purpose of the juvenile court was to rehabilitate criminals instead of prosecuting them as adults. The social reformers that propos...

... middle of paper ...

...rd ed. New

York: Arnold Publishers, 1999. 16-53.

- “History of Intelligence Testing”. IQTest. Google. 4 Feb. 2005

<http://www.iqtest.com/history.html>.

- “Interview with Deborah Yurgelum-Todd”. Frontline: Inside the Teenage Brain. 2002.

PBS.org. 6 Feb. 2005 <http://www.pbs.org>.

- “Interview with Jay Giedd, M.D.”. Frontline: Inside the Teenage Brain. 2002.

PBS.org. 6 Feb 2005 <http://www.pbs.org>.

- McKibben, Ginny. “Court Files Hold Details of Slayings Accounts of

Dunlap’s ‘Confession’.” The Denver Post. 1 Jan. 1996. ProQuest. 28 Jan. 2005

<http://0-proquest.umi.com.bianca.penlib.du.edu>.

- Overton, Willis F. “Chapter 3: Developmental Psychology: Philosophy, Concepts, and

Methodology”. Handbook of Children Psychology. 5th ed. Ed. William Damon. New York:

John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1998. 109.

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