Kids And Crime
It is still a concern as to whether anyone who is 14 years old or older should be tried as an adult in case he is charged with a criminal charge like murder or any other such serious crime. But the studies which are being conducted today are indicating that doing adult prosecution in this way on juvenile crime is not productive.
The various instances & cases need to be considered in order to understand what the strategy for punishing offenders who are less than 14 years of age, should be. The lawmakers, judges as well as people need to decide on this. After all, this is a major issue which is going to affect our future.
The right approach that has been advocated talks about this decision to treat an underage offender as an adult to be taken by a judge & not by a lawmaker. Basically, many parameters need to be considered. These include, the age of the offender, the severity of the crime which has been committed & the criminal history of the offender. All these factors have to be taken into consideration before automatically routing a minor into the adult system. This is because the kids are not fully cognitively developed.
One option is to send convicted teens to juvenile detention instead of an adult prison. But this is not done in the case of crimes such as murder or treason. But some people do not agree to have this kind of a variance.
The reason why kids should not be treated as adults is because they are impulsive. They are not able to think of the far reaching consequences of their actions. They are only concerned with the immediate result. The alleged mastermind, Philip Bay, 18, is awaiting trial as an adult in Circuit Court. The three teens were arrested in April after authorities said they discovered explosives and videos showing the suspects rehearsing a plot to bomb Landstown High. Officials have said the attack was planned for the anniversary of the April 20, 1999, massacre at Columbine High School in Colorado, where two student gunmen killed 12 classmates and a teacher before committing suicide. Bay and one of the juveniles were among the 2,400 students who attended Landstown. The third suspect is a former student. (Source: Day, Shawn. BRIEF: Two youths in Va. Beach court today on charges of bomb plot.” Virginian-Pilot, The (Norfolk, VA) 22 Sept. 2009: Points of View Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 14 Oct. 2009)
For the same reasons, the children below 14 are not allowed to vote or enter into any kind of a contract. Hence it is not possible to have double standards for them. The basic theory of criminal law states that a person needs to be having intent to committing a crime. Only then can he be termed as guilty of committing any offense. This theory when applied to the juvenile criminal offenders, ensures that they cannot be tried as adults. The stabbing victim, who attended Mesa’s Pinnacle Charter High School, and the teen accused of killing him both belonged to Criminal Street gangs, police said Friday.
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