Should Juveniles be Tried as Adults

A juvenile is someone who is emotionally, intellectually, and physiologically undeveloped. This underdevelopment is acknowledged in the law by several restrictions and requirements. The age at which a child falls under the juvenile jurisdiction is established by each state. Many states have higher age limits of juvenile jurisdiction in abuse and neglect cases and in petty crimes up to the age of twenty. Take a look at education laws that ensure youths to attend school up to a certain age, labor laws dictate when and where juveniles can work, driving law establish the age at which juveniles are allowed to get a driver’s license and driving privileges are limited, also they are not permitted to enter into legal contracts or get married. Although they are many facts supporting that children do not have the same understanding of responsibility as adults and that they should be cared for with special treatment and protection, the U.S has failed to acknowledge this and punishes youths with life in prison which violates the 8th amendment...

The decision of whether young criminals should be tried in juvenile courts or adult courts has created a lot of controversy throughout the years. Juveniles should be tried as juveniles. The ones who are tried as adults often undergo a very harsh castigation. Considering the fact that they are very young, being tried according to their age is fairer. Each year children as young as 13 are sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. According to American Civil Liberty Union or (ACLU), 2570 children are sentenced as juveniles to life in prison without parole. Life without parole is a very rough punishment for a teenager and should not be allowed to be assigned to him or her. The young malefactors should not be sentenced to life

Every day violent crimes are being committed in the Unites States by juveniles, between the ages of twelve and fifteen, and are tried for these crimes in juvenile courts. The juveniles are being prosecuted in a juvenile court and are receiving a lesser sentence, than an adult for the violent crimes. Some people believe that teens should not be tried as an adult and should just be tried as a juvenile. Juveniles should be tried as an adult, in an adult court, when they are charged with a murder, a sexual offense, and having been previously tried and convicted of two prior offenses.

Juvenile court was created to deal with young adult offenders. Its purpose is to give them treatment and guide the juveniles rather than punishing them for what they did. They also seem to have a rule where only brutal cases will be punish like an adult. I agree with the fact that only the juveniles who committed heinous crime will be treated as adult but for the non-violent crime...

Imagine a world full of criminals; every day a robbery and innocent people fearing for their lives, now imagine what you think the criminals would look like, older people? No, these criminals are juveniles. If we don’t try these juveniles as adults and charge them with adult sentences this is what will surely happen. We, the U.S., must try juveniles as adults, certainly, it may be cruel and they may be treated as teens when the discussion is alcohol and other things, but if they don’t get tried and sentenced as adults, the U.S. will become a land of criminals in a blink of an eye. There are even some positives for trying them as adults. Since being tried as adults there has been a significant drop in juvenile crimes. Also, kids charged with adult sentences usually only end up spending a fraction of the time in jail anyway. Lastly juvenile courts were made with the age of the juvenile in mind, not the crime.

“The Justice Department estimates that about 10 percent of all homicides are committed by juveniles under the age of 18. Nearly every year, the FBI arrests more than 33,000 young adults under the age of 18 for offenses,” states Huma Khan in the article “Juvenile Justice: Too Young for Life in Prison?”This leaves us the question: Should juveniles be tried as adults? Juveniles should not be tried as adults because kids are not adults. “Like many states, California allows youth offenders as young as 14 to be transferred from the juvenile system to adult courts. From there, most of the teenagers who are tried as adults and sentenced to life in adult institutions are placed in Level 4 maximum-security prisons that are extremely violent,” according to “Prison Is Too Violent for Young Offenders” by Gary Scott.

Each year thousands of teenagers are tried in the adult justice system in the United States. Due to the rise of teenage homicide and teenage crime rate in the 1980s, all states have made it easier to try underage age offenders as adults. California Proposition 21 passed in 2000 gave larger sentences to youth offenders and sent many to be tried in the adult justice system. Proposition 21 increased sentences for gang related crimes, death penalty for gang related murder. The proposition gave life sentences for home robberies, car theft, and drive-by shootings, recruiting for gang activities, and required juveniles of the age 14 and older to be tried as adults for murder or specified sex offenses. Now states are questioning whether youth offenders should be tried as adults or as juveniles. Some believe the juveniles are old enough to know of the consequences of their actions and should be punished accordingly. Others believe children have not yet fully developed their brain to understand the consequences of their actions.

Juveniles are more than just kids. They are capable of doing anything an adult is capable of doing. One has probably heard the saying, “If you want to be treated like an adult, then act like an adult.” If they’re going to do crimes that “only” adults are capable of doing, then they should treated like an adult and be tried and sentenced like one. Imagine being close to a murder victim, wouldn’t you want them to feel hell? “How would you feel if you never got to see your child alive again while their killer served only a short sentence before being released from jail?” (hchs1259). This quote hits hard. One can only imagine being in the position of a parent whose child was murdered.

The U.S made legal history in 1989 when the world’s first juvenile court opened in Chicago (Rank, J.) Since 1990 many states have also adopted the “get tough” approach to juvenile justice as a response to the increasingly violent crimes committed by children. Juvenile crime escalated to an all time high, and then started to decrease in 1995 when images on television, such as the Springfield, Oregon, rampage of 15-year-old Kip Kinkel who shot both of his parents and then two of his classmates. The impression of citizens in the United States was that juvenile crime is out of control. (Levinson) Now Juveniles are being prosecuted a lot more than adults in adult courts.

...all over the world should be tried as an adult because a crime is a crime no matter who committed and what age. If the judge dismiss the juveniles of the charges because of age, they will most likely commit even worse crimes later on. They will have a record that follows them for the rest of their life with them being charged as an adult it should prevent them to have access to weapons such as knives, and other registered weapons.