Should Juveniles Be Tried As Adults
In the United States, there is an estimated 12 million crimes every year, which is more than any nation in the world.In the last twenty five years, it is reported that juveniles are involved in one quarter of all brutal crimes in America not including murder. Moreover in 2012 it was ruled for all juveniles who committed heinous crimes to be sentenced to life in prison with parole due to the eighth amendment. This issues has been fought from both sides for years and have both made tremendous amount of facts and validated on if juveniles should be tried as adults or not. After closely reading articles on both sides I personally have came to believe only the deserving should be offered to have a chance at parole and many other opportunities in rehabilitation if the
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offender is not psychologically stable, has had personal experiences that unquestionably affected how they perceived life and lastly the juvenile's age.
First and foremost, I know generalizing juveniles as one whole group is ridiculous and extremely ignorant. Every case has its own background and at least a reason as to why it happened-I'm not saying that every juvenile has an “excuse” but first shouldn't we separate minors who are criminals into different categories based on their background and put them through trial then.To emphasize, we all know that children who aren't privileged to be intellectually stable will often act out due to the fact that they can't always apprehend right from wrong as quick as intellectually stable children.They act out without truely understanding what they're doing which requires special attention. Even then it doesn't make them perfect and they can have a tendency to lash out or become over dramatic to situations that isn't an enormous deal. So what happens when one of these minors let's say has Down syndrome murders someone unintentionally. Should we try them as adults and have them go to an adult prison and be treated the way any other criminal that is mentally stable? Would it really be fair? No. To begin with, even if they're close to becoming eighteen it still doesn't mean their brain is close to being that of a normal eighteen years’ old brain. In contrast these juveniles should receive supplemental help. Not only are they mentally ill, but also they have gone through a very traumatic experience which could have had an even bigger impact on their mental status. Death always changes a person, no matter how stable you are mentally. For these cases I believe they shouldn't even be sentenced to life in prison,rather be offered help to get them past the traumatic experience along with continuing to get special attention secluded from everyone else-their own centers of rehabilitation.
We need to give them a chance in being able to become as psychologically and intellectually “normal” as possible.
The biggest role that comes to play in any crime is the background- why the crime was committed. There are many cases that juveniles will go as far as murder because of something not going right in their life. Not every case has a legitimate reason as to why it happened, but the ones that do and should receive help with minimal punishment. In one of the articles I read, for instance , “Greg Ousley Is Sorry for Killing His Parents. Is That Enough?” by Scott Anderson, it addresses a story about a kid who killed his parents and served a 60 year sentence for the crime. Within the first paragraphs my first thoughts were “another white kid getting let off the hook by getting tried as mentally ill for killing his parents...what a joke” but as I continued to get deeper in the article I felt more and more ignorant for even thinking
that. In the article I learn how he felt the only way of getting away from his parents was killing them. Although I have never came to even consider murder as a way out of anything, I can understand and relate to the frustrating and restraining feeling of being trapped in something that almost makes you want to rip off your skin. You become so miserable that you'd do anything to get out of the situation and he felt like had to resort to murder.I know what you're thinking-if you understand the feeling why didn't you result to murder and I can answer you that my problem was not half as big as his and I did not feel like this for longer than a year. He was a troubled teen with many problems and parents who do what many adults do,take teenagers lightly. At a point Greg talked about how he told his mother he thought about suicide and murder and her response was he's watching too many movies. Too many movies? No matter who could've been the speaker and the listener, murder and suicide should never be taken delicately. Even if it was coming from a teenager's mouth. Adults just like to paint this picture that teenagers are dumb and have no idea what they're talking about and yes it's part of being a teenager to be an idiot to an extent, but when murder and suicide is brought up-no matter who is behind the words and how old they are one should take every precaution to try and understand and help the subject. Juveniles like Greg with background stories where they didn't have a normal childhood and experienced some type of abuse shouldn't get locked away with adults and soon develop into adult offenders they should get help and a chance in rehabilitation. Like Greg Ousley, juveniles with background stories should be away in a place where they get offered opportunities to have a chance to change and come into terms with what they did and try to change their lives for the better.In this life no one is perfect and deserves a second chance at everything with the right intentions of course. Conclusively I feel like age should be a factor in juvenile sentencing. When I was a child, WWE was the most popular thing to watch on Friday night. Watching wrestling was a huge part of my childhood. As a result to loving wresting I looked forward to parties with jumpers so that I could do my favorite wrestlers moves. Even on some WWE events, things could go wrong with people who train and do this for a living. So imagine the outcome of a child doing a special move on another child and big possibility of something going wrong. He or she didn't have any intention of killing someone when they woke up that morning. Something went wrong and some serious damage was the result. Does this kid really deserve to go to prison over and accident. In these cases I believe that children who are at least six years away from being adults should have their own system. Even if they were sentenced to prison, it shouldn't be life and should only be around juveniles with cases similar to theirs or with cases I talked about in my other paragraphs. When you're a kid your world is very small and don't think things through at all. When it is truly an honest accident, why should they be punished so harshly. Punishing a child for an accident with life is completely cruel and inhumane due to the fact that you’d be taking away their childhood and forcing them to become adults and receive consequences as adults would when children aren't even allowed to watch rate R movies. We know children far from adulthood ,and I mean not 12 and under, are immature and foolish so why does it make them an automatic adults when an accident such as I have described above has occurred?
In the final analysis , I strongly believe that the whole juveniles system needs to take far more measures to creating systems for different types of cases with factors like mental instability, an unhealthy environment and extremely young age. These juveniles need and deserve and second chance to developing into living normal good lives instead of adding to the crime rate where they would be if all juveniles were tried as adults.
offender is not psychologically stable, has had personal experiences that unquestionably affected how they perceived life and lastly the juvenile's age.
First and foremost, I know generalizing juveniles as one whole group is ridiculous and extremely ignorant. Every case has its own background and at least a reason as to why it happened-I'm not saying that every juvenile has an “excuse” but first shouldn't we separate minors who are criminals into different categories based on their background and put them through trial then.To emphasize, we all know that children who aren't privileged to be intellectually stable will often act out due to the fact that they can't always apprehend right from wrong as quick as intellectually stable children.They act out without truely understanding what they're doing which requires special attention. Even then it doesn't make them perfect and they can have a tendency to lash out or become over dramatic to situations that isn't an enormous deal. So what happens when one of these minors let's say has Down syndrome murders someone unintentionally. Should we try them as adults and have them go to an adult prison and be treated the way any other criminal that is mentally stable? Would it really be fair? No. To begin with, even if they're close to becoming eighteen it still doesn't mean their brain is close to being that of a normal eighteen years’ old brain. In contrast these juveniles should receive supplemental help. Not only are they mentally ill, but also they have gone through a very traumatic experience which could have had an even bigger impact on their mental status. Death always changes a person, no matter how stable you are mentally. For these cases I believe they shouldn't even be sentenced to life in prison,rather be offered help to get them past the traumatic experience along with continuing to get special attention secluded from everyone else-their own centers of rehabilitation.
We need to give them a chance in being able to become as psychologically and intellectually “normal” as possible.
The biggest role that comes to play in any crime is the background- why the crime was committed. There are many cases that juveniles will go as far as murder because of something not going right in their life. Not every case has a legitimate reason as to why it happened, but the ones that do and should receive help with minimal punishment. In one of the articles I read, for instance , “Greg Ousley Is Sorry for Killing His Parents. Is That Enough?” by Scott Anderson, it addresses a story about a kid who killed his parents and served a 60 year sentence for the crime. Within the first paragraphs my first thoughts were “another white kid getting let off the hook by getting tried as mentally ill for killing his parents...what a joke” but as I continued to get deeper in the article I felt more and more ignorant for even thinking
that. In the article I learn how he felt the only way of getting away from his parents was killing them. Although I have never came to even consider murder as a way out of anything, I can understand and relate to the frustrating and restraining feeling of being trapped in something that almost makes you want to rip off your skin. You become so miserable that you'd do anything to get out of the situation and he felt like had to resort to murder.I know what you're thinking-if you understand the feeling why didn't you result to murder and I can answer you that my problem was not half as big as his and I did not feel like this for longer than a year. He was a troubled teen with many problems and parents who do what many adults do,take teenagers lightly. At a point Greg talked about how he told his mother he thought about suicide and murder and her response was he's watching too many movies. Too many movies? No matter who could've been the speaker and the listener, murder and suicide should never be taken delicately. Even if it was coming from a teenager's mouth. Adults just like to paint this picture that teenagers are dumb and have no idea what they're talking about and yes it's part of being a teenager to be an idiot to an extent, but when murder and suicide is brought up-no matter who is behind the words and how old they are one should take every precaution to try and understand and help the subject. Juveniles like Greg with background stories where they didn't have a normal childhood and experienced some type of abuse shouldn't get locked away with adults and soon develop into adult offenders they should get help and a chance in rehabilitation. Like Greg Ousley, juveniles with background stories should be away in a place where they get offered opportunities to have a chance to change and come into terms with what they did and try to change their lives for the better.In this life no one is perfect and deserves a second chance at everything with the right intentions of course. Conclusively I feel like age should be a factor in juvenile sentencing. When I was a child, WWE was the most popular thing to watch on Friday night. Watching wrestling was a huge part of my childhood. As a result to loving wresting I looked forward to parties with jumpers so that I could do my favorite wrestlers moves. Even on some WWE events, things could go wrong with people who train and do this for a living. So imagine the outcome of a child doing a special move on another child and big possibility of something going wrong. He or she didn't have any intention of killing someone when they woke up that morning. Something went wrong and some serious damage was the result. Does this kid really deserve to go to prison over and accident. In these cases I believe that children who are at least six years away from being adults should have their own system. Even if they were sentenced to prison, it shouldn't be life and should only be around juveniles with cases similar to theirs or with cases I talked about in my other paragraphs. When you're a kid your world is very small and don't think things through at all. When it is truly an honest accident, why should they be punished so harshly. Punishing a child for an accident with life is completely cruel and inhumane due to the fact that you’d be taking away their childhood and forcing them to become adults and receive consequences as adults would when children aren't even allowed to watch rate R movies. We know children far from adulthood ,and I mean not 12 and under, are immature and foolish so why does it make them an automatic adults when an accident such as I have described above has occurred?
In the final analysis , I strongly believe that the whole juveniles system needs to take far more measures to creating systems for different types of cases with factors like mental instability, an unhealthy environment and extremely young age. These juveniles need and deserve and second chance to developing into living normal good lives instead of adding to the crime rate where they would be if all juveniles were tried as adults.