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Young Kids, Hard Times Summary

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With this being said, one issue that needs to be addressed in our justice system is developmental immaturity. In the film “Young Kids, Hard Times”, there was a debate on whether Paul Gingerich, a 12-year old boy, should be transferred from a juvenile prison to adult prison after being an accomplice to the murder of Colt Lundy’s stepfather. The fact that the youths do not have the same rights as adults should be an indicator of why we should treat kids differently. The juvenile justice system hold the presumption that their offender is immature, therefore, they focus on having a rehabilitation goal and use a non-adversarial approach (Cauffman, 2018). In the juvenile court, immaturity refers to the incomplete development, inexperienced judgment and “character still maturating” (Steingberg & …show more content…

With this in mind, why do juveniles under the age of 18 continue to be transferred to an adult court system? In the United State, about 200,000 offenders under the age of 18 are tried and prosecuted in an adult criminal court (Steinberg & Cauffman, 2001). Those thousands of kids who are not fully mature are being placed in a system who assumes that their offender is “competent, responsible, and unlikely to change” (Steinberg & Cauffman, 2001). In other words, the system has given up on the idea that those juveniles can be rehabilitation based on their crime. It is important to note that individuals tend to mature differently compare to peers, meaning that they develop different abilities at different rates and times (Steinberg &Cauffman, 2001). As we learned, during adolescence, these youths are developing neurologically, intellectually, emotionally, and psychosocially (Scott & Grisso, 2004). Therefore, without the full development of those four aspects, youths are considered as

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Collier appears to have good intentions when she argues her case for changing the juvenile system; however, her argument seems to be limited to her own experiences and a handful of statistics to support her cause. Collier’s argument seems to balance on the belief that juvenile criminals will be deterred by harsher punishment, a notion that has been shown not to be true. When provided with the appropriate measures, juveniles have been shown to avoid recidivism at a rate that is significantly higher than juveniles sentenced through adult court. Collier is right when she argues for updating the juvenile justice system; however, her solution is far from correct when one considers the moral implications of sentencing, young, still developing minds

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Director of Justice Reform and the MacArthur Foundation, as well as Christopher Simmons advocate Laurie Garduque reminiscences on the disregard for criminal juveniles during that time: “As concern about increasing juvenile crime peaked, we were alarmed at the wave of harsh juvenile justice reform sweeping the country that blurred lines between adults and juveniles… Existing research did not address the legal implications of adolescent developmental immaturity with respect to competency, culpability, and capacity for change” (“Roper v. Simmons Ten Years Later”). A similar sentiment was shared with Columbia Law School professor Elizabeth Scott, who recalled the conditions for criminal youth in the early 1990’s, asserting that “...attitudes about juvenile crime became more punitive, and it was clear that lawmakers weren’t focusing on developmental differences between teens and adults or how immaturity might contribute to juvenile offending” (“Roper v. Simmons Ten Years Later”). There are a myriad of scary commonalities between these anecdotes, such as the legal disregard for youths despite their underdeveloped brains. There are many factors that make adolescent minds susceptible to committing crimes.

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Juveniles that go through the rehabilitation process will be able to have a clean record after they reach 18, whereas the exact opposite if they went through the adult justice system. Stevenson feels that, “We’ve become so fearful and vengeful that we’ve thrown away children, discarded the disabled, and sanctioned the imprisonment of the sick and the weak—not because they are a threat to public safety or beyond rehabilitation but because we think it makes us seem tough, less broken.” (289) This quote represents the treatment towards juveniles in prison and how the potential of these children is wasted. The goal of rehabilitation is to help the youth understand the consequences of their actions and learn how to make better choices in the

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931 Words | 4 Pages

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).

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As he faced justice through the court system, advocates unnecessarily argued that he was only a child and too young to serve as an adult. To show that an individual’s age should not be used as an excuse to justify their actions, Weir states “Some juveniles commit crimes so serious, so heinous, that public safety mandates — and justice demands — full accountability in our criminal justice system. There are those who argue this is unfair and unjust. They say the juvenile brain is not fully developed until well into the

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259 Words | 2 Pages

In “Should Juvenile Offenders Be Tried as Adults,” psychologist Laurence Steinberg poses the point that it is logically impossible to make the age of the offender irrelevant when analyzing criminal justice policy. The approach that is taken when implementing laws should lawfully be altered when the case at hand concerns a defendant whose knowledge of the law is limited by intellectual immaturity (Steinberg 602). Unlike adults, young children are not capable of fully recognizing the concept of “right and wrong.” For example, an

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787 Words | 4 Pages

A person can try to do good and be good, but one’s circumstances can make that difficult. Sometimes crimes aren’t as simple as black and white; they did a bad thing; therefore, they are a bad person. Life happens, some are born into a prosperous life, while others perish in their circumstances. When it comes to the Juvenile System or the justice system as a whole, rather than incarceration, rehabilitation is what should be aimed at. While juveniles should still be punished for their

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457 Words | 2 Pages

Why are juvenile being tried as an adult?Ever since 1990 and 2010 many juveniles have been tried as an adult and been sent to adult jails or prisons. Some minors are transferred from a juvenile facilities to the adult system but when they are transferred,juveniles must be separated from any adult inmate and not interact with them. However,some states either refuse to follow those laws or stated that they will comply only to stall on progress. Juveniles that are being held in the adult system at a young age can have a lot bad experience there. There might be some things that made a juvenile being tried as an adult like how they committed an act of violence,if one of their family member are in prison or jail and had maybe been influenced by them,how their background surrounding is,or the people they hang out with.

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506 Words | 3 Pages

We have seen today in society of how crime rates have been rampant and how statistics show that most of the crimes were being made by minors. I believe that when most of them look at the bottom of these young offenders come disproportionately from impoverished single-parent homes that are located in the neighbourhoods desinvertido and have high rates of learning disabilities, mental health, and substance abuse and problems with the help of the system of juvenile justice that can make a great return on a successful transition to adulthood. Their ages ranged from 20 and under, most are under fifteen years of age. Juveniles tried as adults must assume the same consequences as any other criminal and are subject to state prisons with inmates much higher and that have probably committed crimes much more tortuous then you could ever have. These minors between the ages of nine to twenty according to the offence committed or of the number of times that are prosecuted and believe that it is immutable.

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Imagine being a child imprisoned for committing a crime for which you did not understand the consequences. Alone and afraid, with only hardened criminals and psychopaths as adult role models, you live in fear. Through a vicious combination of physical, sexual, emotional, and mental abuse, there is no option but to turn back to crime as an adult, and continue the cycle. This is a daily reality for thousands of American juveniles. Yet, we continue to call it the juvenile justice system.

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849 Words | 4 Pages

There are differences between a juvenile court and criminal court in the United States. The focus of the juvenile justice system is on rehabilitation, in hope of deterring the minor away from a life of crime so they will not commit a crime again as an adult. In contrast, the criminal justice system focuses on the punishment and often bases the sentencing outcome on the criminal history of the youth. In a study conducted, Butler (2011) showed that the participants’ experience with adult jails and prisons show that those facilities may instill fear but are otherwise emotionally—and often physically—dangerous for youth. Many of the adult prisoners, who were minors when they enter the adult institution, felt they were forced to “grow

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Those in favor of trying juveniles as adults believe that it deters and minimizes crimes being committing by all minors. That trying juveniles as adults will bring the greatest good to the most amount of people. According to an article posted by the American Bar Association by Nicole Scialabba, “the increase in laws that allow more juveniles to be prosecuted in adult court rather than juvenile court was intended to serve as a deterrent for rising youth violent crime.” It is no secret that youth commit crimes in our society. In 2014, law enforcement agencies in the U.S. made an estimated 1 million arrests of persons under age 18 (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention).

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Annotated bibliography Childress, S. (2016, June 2). More States Consider Raising the Age for Juvenile Crime. Retrieved from PBS: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/article/more-states-consider-raising-the-age-for-juvenile-crime/ More states are considering to raising the age for juvenile crimes before being tried as adult because young offender's mental capacity. The idea is to cut the cost of incarcerate young offender in adult prison and ensure offenders to receive proper education and specialized care to change their behavior. Putting children in adult prison does not deter crime.

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760 Words | 4 Pages

Can you imagine waking up behind closed walls and bars? Waking up to see your inmate who is a 45-year-old bank robber and you are a 14-year-old minor who made a big mistake. This is why minors who have committed crimes should not be treated the same as adults. Some reasons are because the consequences given to minors in adult court would impact a minor’s life in a negative way. If a minor is tried through a juvenile court, they have a greater chance of rehabilitation.

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Teenagers are not perfect, and their irrational behavior can lead to poor decisions that could potentially be dangerous and unlawful. A debate has now occurred for many years that deals with the issue of sentencing teens that have committed serious crimes such as murder and robbery. Many people argue that if juveniles commit these crimes that their punishment should be equal to an adults punishment for serious crimes, but juveniles shouldn’t have to worry about their lives getting ruined. Most juveniles and teenagers do not have enough maturity to survive in the adult prison system, and recent brain development research shows us that teenagers brains are not even close to being finished developing. Therefore, teenagers and youth under the age of eighteen should

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