The article, “The Steep Costs of Keeping Juveniles in Adult Prisons” written by Jessica Lahey states, “Juveniles constitute 1,200 of the 1.5 million people housed in federal and state prisons in this country, and nearly 200,000 youth enter the adult criminal-justice system each year, most for non-violent crimes.” Minors should not be tried as adults because their brains are not developed, they may come from bad backgrounds, and they have their whole life ahead of them, and their life should not be determined by the mistakes they made as a child. Juveniles who are usually 14 or older who have committed serious crimes are tried as adults and are put into adult-state prisons. This is inhumane and unsafe for the child’s physical and mental health. One of the many reasons that minors should not be tried as adults is because their brains are not fully developed, so they cannot make good decisions until they are older, far into their twenties.
Many young children go to visit the child who is locked up and they get scared for life. LeGuin states “They feel anger, outrage, and impotence, despite all explanations. They would like to do something for the child. ”(LeGuin 3). The young children still can’t grasp the fact that people can be cruel and cunning.
Not only does Berstein call for an overall reform of this nation’s juvenile prisons, she goes as far as saying the practice of locking up youth is in need of a “more profound than incremental and partial reform” (13). The fact that Bernstein outlines the numerous failed strategies and goals of this practice with her compelling use of studies and statistics is enough to promote an audience to reject the practice of locking up youth. The statistic she shares that “four out of five juvenile parolees [will be] back behind bars within three years of release” as well as the studies she conducted on numerous instances when a guards abuse of power lead to the death of a child work to further prove her point: being that “institution[s] as intrinsically destructive as the juvenile prison” have no place in a modern society (13, 83). Bernstein refutes this false sense effectiveness further by sharing her own ideas on what she believes works as a much more humane solution to rehabilitating
While charging young offenders as adults could potentially protect people on the outside, children who are housed in the same facility as adults is not a good idea nor a good mix. “I watched Joe, who laughed like a little boy, but I saw the lines in his face and even the emergence of a few prematurely gray hairs on his head. I realized even while I laughed, that his unhappy childhood had been followed by unhappy, imprisoned teenage years followed by unhappy incarceration through young adulthood. All of the sudden, it occurred to me what a miracle it was that he could still laugh.” (Stevenson 217-224) Children in adult prisons are prone to rape, suicide and assault than in juvenile detention centers according to studies on juvenile suicide in adult institutions and youth facilities in the 1980s.
In an article about juvenile justice, it states, “Legislators have finally started to realize that treating juveniles just like adults does more harm than good,” says David DeMatteo, a professor of law at Drexel University in Philadelphia,” (“Juvenile Justice”). This supports Bryan’s claim of how juveniles were misunderstood in the past. This misunderstanding had caused most juveniles to end up in adult jails where they were mistreated and suffered from assault and abuse. Stevenson also stated that, “Many states had changed their laws to make it easier to prosecute children... Alabama had more juveniles sentenced to death per capita than any other state or any other country in the world,” (Stevenson, 93).
Each year in the United States, children as young as 13 years old are sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison without any chance of getting released. There has been a worldwide agreement declaring that children cannot be held to the same standards of responsibility as adults and it is recognized that children are entitled to special protection and treatment. There are three types of juvenile waivers that have been allowing juveniles to be treated as adults in adult court. The Miller v. Alabama case is a step toward more just treatment of juvenile offenders following several decades’ worth of harsh treatment of youthful offenders. For over a century, states have believed that the juvenile justice system was the main way to protect
They may experience stigma, trauma, and instability, which can impact their well-being and prospects. Miller, K. (2006) stated, "Children of inmates are often referred to as the "hidden victim" of crime because they traditionally have been underserved and understudied" (p 472). The failure to recognize the needs of these children in the United States is a tragedy for the
Firstly it is dangerous for kids to be placed in jails. Kids are easy targets for the adult inmates since they are weaker. Kids are five times as likely to be sexually assaulted, two times as likely to be beaten by the staff, and 50% as likely to be attacked with a weapon (Debiasio). These dangers will force kids to defend themselves. This will lead them into more trouble.
There have been many times over the years where a child commits a crime and they either get the punishment of a child or they get the punishment of an adult depending on their age, or depending on what the crime they committed was. If you send a child to adult prison it is a lot more harsh than juve so they have to be kept from the other inmates because it is too dangerous for them to be around them. The children transferred to criminal court were less likely to commit the same crime than those who went through the juvenile system. The children who re offended offended sooner and more often than the children who were tried in the juvenile court. In some states if the child is convicted in criminal court they can plead insanity and get out of the of the sentence they would be facing.
The article, The Steep Costs of Keeping Juveniles in Adult Prisons by Jessica Lahey states that “due to the imbalance of power between children and adults, not to mention between children and prison staff, sexual abuse of juveniles in adult prison is underreported; fewer than one in 10 of the juveniles surveyed reported their abuse.” ( ). The adult prison is not safe because of the abuses between the staff and juvenile, they need to be aware of what happens in the adult system. Lahey wants to show how dangerous the adult system is by stating what actually happens in prison to the juveniles because of the adult prisoners and the staff. Lahey also explains about how the lack of services and safety, “juveniles housed in adult prisons are 36 times more likely to commit suicide than juveniles housed apart from adult offenders.”
The Eighth Amendment states that punishments should be fair and cannot be cruel. In the summer of 2012, Supreme Court ruled that juveniles who have committed murder cannot be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole because of violation of the Eighth Amendment. However, young adults or juveniles should be given life without parole when committing a serious crime. If teens can commit crimes knowing there will be consequences then they should be prepared to face them. Many juveniles will fight against receiving jail time by saying, they are depressed, or have not reached a full level of maturation.
This reign of abuse reaches into areas both physically and sexually. Being a child in an adult prison, you are by default infinitely smaller than most inmates, which put you instantly in danger. Also since they are children they are usually easier to rape because they are infinitely smaller and less strong than most others in prison. According to a study done by the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission children are most likely to be raped in adult prisons. Children who are sexually abused tend to sexually offend later on in life.
There are many children in the world who are being put behind bars and detained for alleged wrongdoing without protections they are entitled to. Throughout the world, children are charged and sentenced for actions that should not be considered as adult crimes. Here in the United States, the minimum age of criminal responsibility is age 12. Law enforcement officials and those in the juvenile justice system nationwide tend to mistreat underage individuals by trying cases while working through the lens of an adult. Unfair punishments are still handed down domestically, which is in violation of Supreme Court law.
Doing so has had countless adverse effects on the youth. Despite this, many prisons and facilities have turned a blind eye to these negative factors, and continue to plant them in the adult systems. Children should not have to be put in jails and prisons with adults because they have an increased chance of being raped, educational services are often too expensive, and their minds are inclined to becoming mentally unstable, which often leads to suicide. Solutions to these issues include lifting the ban that prevents grants to be awarded to inmates, and abolishing children from adult jail facilities altogether. Conversely, others may argue that these children deserve this treatment, children are becoming more intelligent and know right from wrong, and that these sentences will show others what can potentially happen.
In the beginning of my journey in college, I had an accurate idea of the career that I wanted to pursue. I wished to be a doctor, particularly pediatrician. Since childhood, the notion of becoming a doctor had been greatly influenced by my parents. The initial years in college provided a great opportunity for me to be absolutely certain about my career decision. Although the admission requirements at a medical school are quite rigorous, I was determined to be a pediatrician because I have a passion to work with children.
