Should Children be Tried as Adults?
Should Children be tried as adults?
Most children (10-18) who are charged with a crime are tried in a special court called a Juvenile court. The goal of the juvenile court is rehabilitation, while the goal of the adult court is punishment. Usually, children in adult court must be over 16, but there some exceptions. The crime must be very severe, or violent for this to happen. This has a lot of downsides for the teenager. Firstly, the adult court has much harsher sentences than the juvenile court that can send the child to adult jail or prison, and the records can also be made public much easier, which would affect the child's future greatly. Additionally, juvenile detention centers grant its residents a right to education, but children in adult prisons usually have no access to education. According to the Campaign for Youth Justice, juveniles in adult prisons are 36 times as likely to take their own lives. One reason for this could be due to the lack of emotional support services available to mentally ill teens in adult prisons, while there are almost always counselors available in juvenile centers. Yet, there are actually a few small benefits for the juvenile if they are tried as an adult. Adult court grants the right to a trial with a jury, which is not a right given to children tried in juvenile court, and judges may sympathize more with children who are in adult court. These types of trials are relatively common, with 10,000 children housed in adult prisons(GENFKD). With all the negatives that come with children housed in adult prisons, regardless of the severity of the crime, is it fair to try children as adults, even when they are not mentally developed to the point that adults are? For example, two 12-year-old girls were accused of attempting to stab their friend to death, apparently due to slender man, a fictional horror character who they believed would kill their families if they didn’t kill someone for him. In this instance, the two girls were charged as adults. I believe that charging these children in an adult court was the wrong choice- they were scared and over-imaginative children, with one girl believed in Santa Claus up until a year before the crime was committed. This doesn’t excuse the horrific crime they committed, but I believe they didn’t understand and still might not understand the implications of what they have done. Although they do need to be taught to understand what they did, they are children after all. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t people, worthy of the same rights to education, opportunity, and happiness that we all are. I think the girls deserve a chance at rehabilitation, education, and emotional support in a juvenile facility, tried as children, because they are children, not even teenagers yet.
Sources:
Slenderman Documentary Notes
I think that the emphasis on lack of protection and education for the juveniles it quite interesting. I always assumed that children who were tried as adults deserved to be tried in such a manner due to the severity of their crimes. But I never knew about the increased disenfranchisement that this system enacts on these children.
ReplyDeleteI 100% do not think that children should be tried as adults. I also think that the laws around juvenile sentencing should be changed. The only reason that Lionel Tate was tried as an adult was because the juvenile justice system was not adequate for his actions. In that case, it is not his fault that he was tried in an adult court, it was the laws fault. And the laws should be changed.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that children should be tried as adults because of a few main factors. For starters, the fact that a much higher percentage of juveniles are sexually victimized in adult prisons than they are in juvenile prisons. Also, the amount of violence that occurs against juveniles being housed in adult facilities is unsurmountable. These are both the main reasons that to me, make it really hard to support juveniles being tried as adults, and housed in adult prisons.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that children should be tried as adults because both physically and mentally they are nowhere as mature as an adult would be. However, if a kid is almost at the age of an adult such as 17, then I believe that trying them S ADULTS SHOULD BE A possibility. But otherwise, especially for young children like Lionel, I think that they should be tried as children instead of adults and get less intense punishments as the adults do.
ReplyDeleteWell, this is a very complicated issue, and I think that the decision to try children as adults should vary from case to case. In the case of Lionel Tate, I personally do not believe that Lionel Tate should be tried as an adult because his crime was caused by his stupidity and childish foolishness (I realized that Florida State Law demands Life Imprisonment for anyone convicted of murder). There was no ill-intent from Lionel Tate. However, in cases of school shooters, I believe that the offender should be tried as adults (and possibly deserve capital punishment). Mass killings with malice are unforgiveable, whether adult or child.
ReplyDeleteI do not think children should be tried as adults because they simply are not able to think and process information the same way a fully developed adult would. Kids are kids, meaning they have imaginations and often times think irrationally and make poor decisions without being able to understand the consequences of them. For example, I have made poor, immature decisions in elementary and middle school that ended up getting me suspended for a day or two, I learned my lesson from those experiences and have not been in trouble at all in high school or life in general. I think kids going to juvenile hall is a great way for them to know what they did was wrong and for the average kid, it will scare them enough from making another serious mistake.
ReplyDeleteI believe that trying children as adults does vary between the crime and their age. I think that there are children who are mature enough to make a concious decision about what they are about to do next, despite them being a minor and labeled as "immature." I also do believe that because of maturity levels vary from person to person, I don't believe that because of a crime a child committed, means that they should have their entire life ruined and incarcerated till death. After researching the criminal justice system and prisons, life significantly declines for prisoners. Not only does it diminish positive mentality, but being a child incarcerated with older prisoners is an outcry for danger.
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