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Running head: CRIMINALS AND SOCIETY

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CRIMINALS AND SOCIETY 9

Criminals and Society

11/23/2016

Should minors who commit violent crimes be tried as adults that is the question. When courts take away trial and sentencing options, it is not possible to provide justice in every case. The great number of juvenile crimes, from petty vandalism to violent homicide, are handled by the juvenile justice system and not adult courts. The separation of the two systems is a recognition of the differences between juveniles and adults and offers juveniles greater opportunities for forgiveness and redemption. Juvenile courts exist mainly to rehabilitate youth who’ve done wrong. But that’s not possible or appropriate in every case. Some juveniles commit crimes so horrific in their depravity that justice could not be carried out in the juvenile system. Other crimes, and their perpetrators, show maturity that should be dealt with adult punishment. An example spanning both classes was a 16-year-old Sarah Johnson’s plot to murder her parents and pin the crime on an intruder. Her case was transferred to adult court, and Johnson was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. as reported by NYTIMES (2016).

Minors who commit violent crimes should be tried as adults but incarcerated in specific prisons. The reason is that regular prisons would negatively influence minors and may make them even more violent. These minors unless they are mentally handicapped can be held accountable for violent crimes. Violent crimes have serious consequences. In a violent crime a minor can be considered evil. Through violence a minor can become a menace to society because he or she can take a person’s life and there is no coming back from that. We live in a society that is civilized and if kids grow up thinking they can get away with murder then we can have chaos.

ABC reports that opponents of trying juveniles in adult courts say more needs to be done for the nation's young criminals and that the law needs to take into account their psychological development and maturity. The current system is so at odds with what the research tells us about the kids describes a deputy director and co-founder of the Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center. They are deciding at a point in the kid’s life when nobody knows who he'll be in 10, 15 or 20 years. It's like sentencing someone to die in prison. It is difficult making these decisions about kids under circumstances where the research doesn't support making those kinds of decisions. Prosecutors say they only consider this scenario if the juvenile is proven to be too dangerous for society. They do consider all the options for a juvenile court if they don't have a record. Based on the nature of the offence they automatically send them to juvenile jail. There are several layers kids go through before they are tried as an adult as described by ABC (2010).

10,000 children are housed in adult jails and prisons on any given day in America. Jailing children with adults puts young people at great risk. Children are five times more likely to be sexually assaulted in adult prisons than in juvenile facilities as described by EJI (2016). School violence caught attention in the United States in the 1990’s with school shootings like the one on April 20, 1999 in Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado and become the deadliest high school shooting in U.S. history. After these shooting incidents took place they started a national search about the roots of youth violence that many years of inner-city violence did not attract CNN (2016). The United States has a high rate of violent crime specially youth homicide compared to other nations. Some people believe it’s because the U.S. has a lenient criminal justice system and juvenile justice system that causes high crime rates or that crime and violence are the result of cultural decline and moral poverty but the American justice system is one of the toughest in the world.

A social advantage would be by removing these kids from society our children and everyone can live with greater peace. But only rarely does an under-18 juvenile defendant wind up in adult court. Yet some activists would put an end to that practice in every instance, no matter the crime and no matter the criminal. But can they really prove that adult punishment is never appropriate for juveniles who’ve committed adult crimes? A key to providing appropriate punishment across a wide range of cases is the transfer process. In some states judges decide whether to grant the state’s request to move a juvenile to adult court and in other states removal is automatic for certain crimes usually murder. This is how we separate out those few crimes committed by juveniles deserving of adult trial and punishment as reported by NYTIMES (2012).

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There would be an economic advantage on society by correctly punishing kids as adults for horrific crimes by creating a safer environment for people to conduct everyday business by properly rehabilitating the kids. Since the 1990s when almost every state expanded the rules under which juvenile offenders could be charged as adults. ABC (2010) reports “The juvenile justice system has been reinvented in the image of the adult criminal justice system" Robert Schwartz co-founder of the Juvenile Law Center, and Thomas Grisso a clinical psychologist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, wrote in a summary for their book "Youth on Trial”. In the words of one get-tough advocate juvenile offenders are criminals who happen to be young, not children who happen to be criminal. The Supreme Court handed down a decision that will soften sentences against some juveniles. The highest court ruled that juvenile offenders who haven't been convicted of murder cannot be sentenced to life in prison without any chance of parole. The United States was the only country before this ruling that did not have such a law as reported by ABC (2010).

A moral advantage is that teenage boys who for example commit rape would be scared to be tried as adults and might not decide to commit the crime. Although it is better to prevent rape from occurring by increasing parents involvement in children's lives. NCJRS reports violent actions require uniform punishment regardless of age. Recent changes in middle class residential neighborhoods contribute to juvenile violence. In many families, adults are not home during the day because both parents work. Also teenage boys have the sexual capability to act like men but do not have the emotional maturity to love, respect, and protect women. Between 1987 and 1991, the number of juveniles arrested for such violent crimes as rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and homicide increased by 50 percent. A key factor in the increased violence by juveniles is their access to weapons. Because boot camps are not always an effective "get tough" approach to violent juvenile offenders, laws need to be enacted to make young people think twice about victimizing the innocent. Violent juvenile crime will continue as long as the juvenile justice system treats young people as kids as reported by NCJRS (1996). The cultural and moral condition of American families and communities is important in understanding crime. These conditions are strongly affected by social and economic lifestyles. These social conditions are the factors that sociological criminologists point to as the roots of violence. (Currie 1998) reported that there is now a lot of evidence that inequality, extreme poverty, and social exclusion are very important in shaping a society's experience of violent crime. They affect everything extremely because of their hardcore impact on the close-in relationships of family and community. Civilization is built on families working together so this is key to keeping society on a positive or negative path of life. Inequality creates hate and hate creates anger and a cycle of violence can comes from that. To survive some young criminals steal, drug deal and kill.

When we look at the research on poverty and economic inequality, we find that the United States has a high poverty rate and the biggest gap between the rich and the poor of any of the developed nations (Kerbo, 1996). Reports of the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), an international survey of poverty, inequality, and government. Spending in industrial countries (Rainwater and Smeeding 1995) shows that a rich society like the United States has a lot of inequality and is less committed to providing a decent life for the poor compared to other developed nations. Youth growing up in these environment without the proper guidance of their parents can become lost to the street culture which in America can involve gangs like the bloods and crips. Gang violence can be deadly because nowadays kids are quick to shoot instead of having fist fights.

It is not a good idea to put children in regular jails because children are up to 36 times more likely to commit suicide after being housed in an adult jail or prison than children incarcerated in juvenile facilities. Minors who commit violent crimes should be tried as adults but incarcerated in specific prisons. The reason is that regular prisons would negatively influence minors and may make them even more violent. These minors unless they are mentally handicapped can be held accountable for violent crimes. Violent crimes have serious consequences. In a violent crime a minor can be considered evil. Through violence a minor can become a menace to society because he or she can take a person’s life and there is no coming back from that. We live in a society that is civilized and if kids grow up thinking they can get away with murder then we may have many problems in our society.

In conclusion many children prosecuted as adults suffer from untreated mental illness. Unlike adults with mental illness, children have very limited experience managing their disabilities, anxieties, fear, and trauma. They often act impulsively, recklessly, and irresponsibly. In an adult jail or prison this behavior results in more aggressive punishment which can worsen a child’s mental health problems as reported by EJI.ORG (2016). Many kids suffer from the effects of growing up in a troubled home along with economic problems. While other kids suffer from genetic mental health problems or mental health problems from drug and alcohol abuse. I believe for there to be true criminal juvenile justice there should be the proper correctional institutions available for these young criminals that may spend many years locked away.

REFERENCES

· Adult Punishments for Juveniles; NYTIMES; 2012

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/06/05/when-to-punish-a-young-offender-and-when-to-rehabilitate/adult-punishments-for-juveniles

· Children in Adult Prisons; EJI; 2016

http://eji.org/children-prison/children-adult-prisons

· Elliott Currie 1998. Crime and Punishment in America. New York: Metropolitan Books

· Juvenile Justice: Too Young for Life in Prison? ; ABC; 2010

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/life-prison-juvenile-offenders-adult-courts/story?id=11129594

· Kerbo, Harold R. 1996. Social Stratification and Inequality. Class Conflict in Historical and Comparative Perspective. 3d ed. New York: McGraw-Hill

· Mother of Columbine killer Dylan Klebold gives first TV interview; CNN; 2016

http://www.cnn.com/2016/02/12/us/sue-klebold-diane-sawyer-interview/index.html

· Rainwater, Lee and Timothy M. Smeeding. 1995. Doing Poorly: The Real Income ofAmerican Children in a Comparative Perspective. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

· Violent Juveniles Should Be Tried as Adults; NCJRS; 1996 https://www.ncjrs.gov/App/Publications/abstract.aspx?ID=159366