The Pros And Cons Of Juvenile Punishment

The death penalty is punishment by execution, state-sanctioned and administered by the government in the United States. The death penalty can actually come in several different forms, including lethal injection, electrocution, lethal gas, firing squad, and hanging. However, the most commonly used in the United States is lethal injection (Death Penalty Information Center, 2016). This form of punishment was actually greatly influenced by Great Britain back in the 17th century, and the first execution of a juvenile offender, Thomas Graunger of Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts, occurred in 1642 (Death Penalty Information Center, 2016). The death penalty for juveniles have many reasons that are discussed regarding why the death penalty should not

According to the Nobel Laureate and neuroscientist Roger Speer (in Fincher, 1982; 23), the human brain – a walnut-shaped, grapefruit-sized, three pound mass of gelatinous tissue – is the most immensely complicated, awe-inspring and fascinating entity in the universe; he says, “In the human head there are forces within forces within forces, as in no other cubic half-foot of the universe we know” (Walsh & Bolen, 2012). The brain is where the genetic disposition and environmental experiences are integrated and they become one as the brain physically captures them in its circuitry (Walsh & Bolen, 2012). Within our brain, which is two percent of our body mass and it consumes 20 percent of the body’s energy, lie our thoughts, memories, desires, emotions, intelligence, and creativity (Walsh & Bolen, 2012). Instead of one necessarily thinking for itself, the brain is an organ of adaption that calibrates itself to the environmental experiences (Walsh & Bolen, 2012). With that most juveniles are not able to put the consequences of their actions together because they have not gained the environmental experience to fully comprehend and gauge the depth of their decision. Although most children do retain what they see on television and experience in video games, a phenomenon that can have dire effects. On these different video games and TV shows characters commit crimes, such as robbery or even murder, and there may be little to no repercussions shown to demonstrate that the individuals’ actions were wrong and punishable. According to Walsh and Bolen, the environment, no matter good or bad, conspire with our genes to mold our brains into their adult form, but with