Today in the United States we still have debates on whether or not a juvenile should spend his or her life in prison. On June 25, 2012, the Supreme Court ruled that juveniles who commit murder could not receive a life in prison term. This decision was made due to the fact that it violated the Eighth Amendment which bans cruel and unusual punishment. Four justices strongly disagreed and said that a juvenile should always be punished for their heinous crimes with a life sentence, I personally agree with these four justices. The juvenile should face time in prison for his or her crime to a certain extend. The families of the victims deserve peace and closure knowing the person who took the life of their beloved one is facing time behind bars. As a person you should already know that hurting someone is not acceptable. Taking from someone is not okay. If you make a mistake you should be punished for it. Many juveniles do not know the difference between right and wrong, therefore they go on to commit such heinous crimes. Should there not be something that clicks in your mind that tells you maybe something is …show more content…
Jennifer Jenkins the author of “On Punishment and Killers” personally dealt with the issue of her sister being killed by a tennager. She says that this young man was not in any way mentally ill, he in fact was quite intelligent. You see this young man committed the crime he did simply for fun. Like Jenkins says “we in America have to own this particular problem, with weapons so easily available to our youth, and the violence-loving culture in which we raise them”(On Punishment and Teen Killers, paragraph 5), it is a problem we have to fix and putting juveniles in prison for committing such crimes to show others the little tolerance that we as a society have. The families of the victims deserve peace and to know that the person in charge of hurting their loved one will most likely end their life behind