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Juvenile Delinquents - Life Without Parole Essay Example

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Juvenile Delinquents - Life Without Parole Essay Example
Life Without Parole for Juveniles: Pros and Cons No doubt about it there is a lot of skepticism and grey area in terms of the death penalty and especially that of juvenile delinquents. As Americans we show little to no remorse when it comes to the death penalty. If we lift the death penalty for juveniles, what are we going to do with the juveniles that were convicted at a young age and are still incarcerated for the actions they committed? Outlawing life without parole would not be easy and will cause an uproar with a lot of unhappy families. The U.S Supreme Court is left at a stand still, since the Miller vs. Alabama ruling 28 states with the mandatory life-without parole have since changed their laws or altered in some type of way to prevent a lot of life without parole convictions. Life without parole has really gave America the perception we have a cutthroat mentality when it comes to prisoners and convictions. Especially when we are trying to prevent all hate crimes and homicides around the world. Children make mistakes from time to time, and haven’t you ever heard the term “we are only human.” Well now that’s we are in 2013, we can acknowledge the fact that locking up a teen for life without parole violates our constitutions eighth amendment. Took us a while, but with the last three court cases, (Graham vs. Florida, Miller vs. Alabama, Roper vs. Simmons) they have all helped us shed a different look on Juvenile punishment in the past seven years. With the help of scientific research we can distinguish the fact that children don’t have the maturity set to make rational decisions on their own, are often pushed by peer pressure, adolescents don’t tend to consider future consequences, and the child’s vulnerability to external influences. These traits are what the court found to set children apart from adults and are to be handed down a differential punishment than adults when it comes to such serious crimes such as life without parole or the death penalty.
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