“He’s only a kid. He’s not fully accountable for his actions.”
This statement summarizes instances when minors have felonies and escape the right repercussions, just because they are not an adult. Adolescents are fully capable of committing crimes so severe that the juvenile justice system would not change their way of thinking. Even though they are only children, they are still capable of stunts that even adults would not commit. According to the office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the estimated number of juvenile murders has significantly elevated from the 1990s to the early 2000s by 30 percent in 2003 alone. This displays how serious minor felonies have become over the years, along with the negligence of the current justice system for adolescents. Even though society tends to treat juveniles like children, it is very clear that no one has to be an adult to commit a major crime. According to The Denver Post, “Jessica Ridgeway was hunted, kidnapped and killed by a predator. Her assassination was
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However, that does not mean that they cannot think at all. Being in a certain age range should not be a justification for their offenses, nor should it condone what consequences they receive. Their sentence should be given depending on the alteration of the crime, and that should be the only component that should be considered. An example of a situation that can be viewed in either direction was 16-year-old Sarah Johnson’s plot to murder her parents and pin the crime on an intruder. Her case went to an adult court, and she was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Her brain may not be ‘fully developed,’ but this was not impulsive, she took time to plan this out and it was seen as something that deserved to be treated like an adult situation despite her