Should children who commit serious crimes face the same penalties as adults?
All through America it seems that juvenile children are committing extremely severe crimes. Fellow classmates and teachers are being murdered by juveniles as young as eleven and thirteen. As a result of this, a major issue has been raised, should children who commit a serious crime face the penalties as and adult? Do these kids know what they are doing? And more importantly do they know the consequences of their actions. The points that I 'm going to be outlining are children don 't know/ know the consequences of their actions, harsh punishment has little effect, youths are more mature so they know the consequences of their actions, the notion of justice, children may not have been given adequate role modals, youths should be given harsh punishments so others will not copy them, children grow up with guns and it 's the shooters responsibility not the weapon used.
Those who believe that juveniles should receive adult penalties for serious crimes often claim that the young children are not fully aware of the crime they commit and destruction that will affect the victims of the crime.
For example in a shooting at Jonesboro, where an eleven and thirteen year old shot dead four school girls and a teacher, critics distinguished that the attack wasn 't committed at the spur of the moment or under the immediate influence of strong emotion. Instead they claim that the killings were highly planned and vigilantly carried out. The two juvenile killers were noted to supplied themselves with a gate away vehicle, wore camouflage clothing, selected a high vantage point form which to shoot, lured their innocent victims out by trigging a fire alarm and waited for the school doors to automatically lock before opening fire. (Mclnerney, J, 1994: page 2)
The opposing view is that children in their opinion are unable to grasp the consequences of their actions. A child who kills very probably doesn 't realize the finality of death and so does not fully understand what he/she has done
Those who believe that juveniles should receive adult penalties for serious crimes often claim that the young children are not fully aware of the crime they commit and destruction that will affect the victims of the crime.
For example in a shooting at Jonesboro, where an eleven and thirteen year old shot dead four school girls and a teacher, critics distinguished that the attack wasn 't committed at the spur of the moment or under the immediate influence of strong emotion. Instead they claim that the killings were highly planned and vigilantly carried out. The two juvenile killers were noted to supplied themselves with a gate away vehicle, wore camouflage clothing, selected a high vantage point form which to shoot, lured their innocent victims out by trigging a fire alarm and waited for the school doors to automatically lock before opening fire. (Mclnerney, J, 1994: page 2)
The opposing view is that children in their opinion are unable to grasp the consequences of their actions. A child who kills very probably doesn 't realize the finality of death and so does not fully understand what he/she has done
Bibliography: Mclnerney, J, 1994 www.echoed.com.au/protected/outlines1/issues.htm Echo Education Services