Should Juveniles Be Tried As Adults

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Trying Juvenile Criminals as Adults
Mayrene Slatton-McCoy
Lamar Community College

Abstract
This paper discusses the debate on whether juvenile criminals should be tried as adults. While the juvenile needs to be held accountable for their actions, many components make the course of action to prosecute complicated. Cognitive maturing of the brain during adolescence is a component that is discussed. Juveniles are not fully developed and punishing youth as adults may cause more harm than good. There are instances however, when juveniles commit serious crimes intentionally with competent cognitive ability. When cases like this occur, mechanisms are used to transfer the juvenile from the juvenile court to the adult court. Consistency and assessment of each case on an individual basis should be utilized. Rehabilitation, curfews, and counseling are methods of helping an adolescent learn and mature and this could be a more effective channel than sentencing juveniles to jail time. Punishing youth offenders as adults can rewire their brain to become harsher criminals than before incarceration.

Trying Juvenile Criminals as Adults
Throughout adolescence many physical, cognitive, and socioemotional changes occur. This time is a transition from …show more content…

The juvenile justice system is a separate court designed to deal specifically with juvenile crime (Tobias, 2014). These two court systems are have several differences. First, the objective of adult court is to punish criminals, whereas the juvenile court focuses on rehabilitation and preventative actions to avoid future criminal behavior. Counseling, curfews, and other treatment options are options available to underage people (Michon, 2017). This gives teens in the juvenile courts more options than strictly jail time. In order to determine if a juvenile should be tried as an adult, we must determine the purpose of

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