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Juvenile Violence

Juveniles Tried As Adults 1

Juveniles Tried As Adults 2

Trying juvenile criminals as adults is unfair. Juvenile offenders are not as cognitively developed or mature as adults and, therefore, should not be held accountable for their crimes in the same way adults are.
Many tough-on-crime advocates call for certain juvenile crimes to be automatically heard in adult criminal courts with convicted criminals subject to sentencing under adult standards. Such proposals focus on the gravity of the act and its immediate impact on the victim and society, rather than on the inner motivations of the young perpetrator. Although intention plays some role in determining the severity of the crime, considerations of the juvenile's immature judgment, dysfunctional family life, low cognitive function, poor impulse control and other factors are deemed irrelevant. In such an approach, minors are presumed to have the same ability to comprehend the nature of their act, to consent to committing it and to be invested in committing it as an adult. This unfair presumption is based simply on the act itself and the severity of its impact on the victim.
Recent brain studies indicate that children and adolescents do not process emotionally charged information the same as an adult. Other research has shown that while strong emotions can cloud or distort judgments for adults and adolescents, the adolescents experience wider and more frequent mood swings. All this suggest that juveniles lack the cognitive and emotional maturity of adults and are less likely to think rationally when faced with emotionally charged decisions and, therefore, should be held less accountable for their choices. For this reason, a juvenile offender should not be sentenced in an adult criminal court.

Juveniles Tried As Adults 3
Sentencing juveniles to adult prisons is not only immoral, but the impact of sentencing juveniles in adult courts falls unequally on the minority...