Thursday, May 2, 2013
kids or adults
Should a child under 18 be tried as an adult if he commits a crime. this is not an easy question and certainly not one you can answer with just a one sentence answer. This is kind of a loaded question, because no two cases are the same and you might think one kid should be tried as an adult and another one shouldn't. This brings up the question of where do we draw the line and how strictly we enforce it. How do we judge if one teen should go to prison and another on goes to juvenile hall? I don't believe kids should be able to be tried as adults in court because we never treat as adults in any other situation. If your under 18 society views you as not mature enough to buy drinks, gamble, or fight in a war. So why should kids be viewed as adults when they mess up. I don't think that this is fair, because we are sending kids a mixed message. Although in some extreme cases where kids plan out and murder somebody i think they should be held to the standard of an adult, because some people are just born bad and nothing anyone can do will fix it.
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I have mixed feelings on the topic of minors being tried as adults. Thank you for using the example of, "If you're under eighteen society views you as not mature enough to buy drinks, gamble, or fight in war". This didn't come to mind when I thought about both sides to this argument. I completely agree with you that we are sending kids a mixed message by trying minors as if they were older. What are your thoughts on two people, one who is nine years old and the other is twenty, who have committed the same crime? Should they be punished any differently?
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. This is also what we read in the articles: if you want to treat a teenager as an adult in court, you should treat him as well in every other situation. Moreover we read about all the new findings that support the theory that teenagers' brains are different than adults' brains and it's unfair to give an equal treatment especially when we talk about a sentence that can put an end to their lives.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you, it does depend on the level of the crime that was committed. Kids shouldn't be punished for minor mishaps like stealing, but should be tried as adults for crimes that are in high caliber. Murder is a very serious crime and shouldn't be left unpunished regardless the age of the individual.
ReplyDeleteShaggy, i agreed with what you said about no two cases being the same. However, I dont agree that no child should be tried as an adult just because they arent treated as such in real life. Just because a 13 year old kid cant buy a drink doesnt mean he shouldnt be punished for committing some terrible murder. I think there are a lot of cases in which the kids absolutely deserved to be tried as adults and sent to prison.
ReplyDeleteI agree that talking about a kid being trialed as an adult is a really hard thing to try to justify ether way. i think that you had a lot of interesting questions and i enjoyed reading your blog post.
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