The Importance Of Juvenile Crimes

The brutal scene of a murder is shown on television, but the murder itself is not the shocking part. It’s the murderer, a juvenile, that grabs the viewers’ attention. The age at which juveniles commit crimes is beginning to decrease even more each year. Juveniles as young as thirteen are committing crimes that were once impossible to believe a child was even capable of doing. Most of these juveniles are being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole and without consideration of their young age. When it comes to the topic of juvenile justice, most of us will readily agree that the criminal should be punished for their actions. Where this argument usually ends, however, is on the question of whether a juvenile should be given

In the article “The Girls Who Tried to Kill for Slender Man; It 's extremely rare for young girls to attempt murder. These two 12-year-olds did so to prove their allegiance to Slender Man,” Author Abigail Jones discusses the crime of the two twelve year old girls who tried to murder their friend because they believed it was the only way to be accepted by the Slender Man, a popular made up character on the internet. This case proves how children are not able to set fantasy apart from reality. The girls knew that they were going to kill their friend, but they were not mature enough to realize that it was wrong and that Slender Man is not real. Instead of taking into consideration the mental state of the two girls, the court went on to trial the girls as adults. Some may believe that the court is justified in trialing the two girls as adults, but according to research on the teenage brain, the justification of the case could have been altered due to the findings. In the text, “Startling Finds on Teenage Brains” by Paul Thompson, Thompson states how in teenage brains “brain cells and connections are only being lost in the areas controlling impulses, risk-taking, and self-control. These frontal lobes, which inhibit our violent passions, rash actions, and regulate our emotions, are vastly immature throughout the teenage years.” This explains why the girls were acting immature and had no self-control to what they were doing. If the brains of the girls had been fully developed they would most likely not have done what they did because they would have been fully aware of reality and the consequences to the actions. Instead, the two girls were confused and ending up making the wrong decision because they did not know any