In the past, offenders of all ages have committed crimes (some as young as 8yrs. old). Many people question “how can a person at a very young age be able to commit a crime and understand their plan of action?” Many of the youthful offenders have been inspired to commit the crime through either watching the news about a criminal case, on television, or even as well as releasing the pain the offender has experienced during his/her life. Many of these youthful offenders are suffering from mental disorders, just like this tragic event that took place on February 1996 in Moses Lake, Washington, at Frontier Middle School. A school shooting was committed by fourteen year old student, Barry Dale Loukaitis. The incident occurred in his Algebra Class. He opened fire with three types of weapons killing two students, one teacher and critically injuring one student. He also held his class hostage for 10 minutes. Barry was believed to have been inspired by a Novel-Rage written by Stephen King. In the novel, it explains that a student has taken hostage of his algebra class and ends up taking the life of two teachers in his school. Another inspiration was the song and music video “Jeremy” by the band Pearl Jam. In the music video of “Jeremy”, the student commits suicide in …show more content…
These populations are up to the age of 18 years old. They go through a juvenile court and processed to a juvenile detention center or prison. Sometimes the young offenders are tried as adults when they have failed the rehabilitation program(s). Some of these crimes could be murder, manslaughter, arm robbery, rape, or aggravated assault. When this happens the youth will be incarcerated in juvenile prison instead of Adult prison. Also the youth can only receive the maximum sentenced time not to exceed his or her 25th birthdate. A youthful offender cannot be sentenced to death penalty; they also can receive community service or