Minors Committing Violent Crimes and Being Tried as Adults free essay sample

The reason I selected this topic is because I feel that today’s generation of youth and children have been led mainly because of peer pressure which sometimes cause them to make bad choices. This usually causes minors to do some things that are wrong before they think about the consequences. They should be given consideration based on their age and all aspects of their background should be looked at before sentencing them for violent crimes. In reading an article published by CNN concerning the topic of children being tried as adults, I totally agree with the writer and agree that children should not be tried as adults in most cases because of their maturity and mind state. Usually, they have not come to a place where they can make a determination on what exactly they have done that might not have been completely right to do and they can distinguish severity of the punishment for such actions. We will write a custom essay sample on Minors Committing Violent Crimes and Being Tried as Adults or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Instead of the laws or courts wanting to put the children in the jail population, the state should come to an agreement and seek help or rehabilitation for this person who committed the crime. In a case 20 years ago, a 9 year old child shot a 7 year old little girl after pointing a rifle out of the window from his residence as she rode on a snowmobile and she was killed. This 9 year old was named Cameron Kocher who was a resident of upstate Pennsylvania. But, because of the lie that Cameron told, the trail judge kept the case in In the early part of the decade, researchers for the MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice found that teenagers are less blameworthy than adults, and that their capacities change significantly over the course of adolescence. (Schwartz, 2010). I feel that children up to 17 should be very capable and are inconsiderate of the duties and responsibilities that society has placed on them. It is in my opinion a phase of time when the teenagers are made aware of how serious life is and the part they play as time passes along with the decisions they make which can cause them their freedom based on choices. FAMILY RELATIONSHIP ROLES IN CHILDREN’S LIVES When children have an attachment to their parents, they often times turn out to be well adjusted adults. On the other hand, when children do not have a close relationship with their parents, they sometimes feel distrust and defensive which could lead to unacceptable behavior at home, at school and other social functions. This topic is geared toward an audience of youth and teenagers between the ages of 13 and 17 years old. This is a touchy topic and should be taught in their early years that doing something like pointing a loaded gun, has some very harsh consequences. Preliminary Thesis Statement: When convicting minors of violent crimes, it should be taken into consideration the measurement of the crime and the effects that it might have cause on others. The conviction should also look at the circumstances that cause this type of action to be taken at the minors point of view. Parents should not be held responsible for the actions of their children after age twelve because at this particular time in the child’s life they should have been taught right from wrong. If a child over the age of 12 decides that they are going to commit a crime or do something wrong based on the actions of their friends, then they have made that choice and should be well aware of the consequences. Parents are obligated to teach their children and morals and principles from birth to12 years of age. With today’s society and with children having more knowledge than past generations, it is common that they are more educated on the way society looks at them and how they are handling situations. There is a widespread belief that race is a major explanatory cause of crime. This belief is anchored in the large disparity in crime rates between whites and blacks. However, a closer look at the data shows that the real variable is not race but family structure and all that it implies in commitment and love between adults. The incidence of broken families is much higher in the black community. Douglas Smith and G. Roger Jarjoura, in a major 1988 study of 11,000 individuals, found that the percentage of single-parent households with children between the ages of 12 and 20 is significantly associated with rates of violent crime and burglary. The same study makes clear that the widespread popular assumption that there is an association between race and crime is false. Illegitimacy is the key factor. It is the absence of marriage, and the failure to form and maintain intact families, that explains the incidence of high crime in a neighborhood among whites as well as blacks. This contradicts conventional wisdom. It is stated and quoted: Todays children are bombarded with images of violence in cartoons, news reports, television shows, computer games, movies, and other media. In growing numbers, they are also exposed to real-life violence in their own homes and communitiesas witnesses, victims, and, increasingly, perpetrators. Too often, children learn that violence is an acceptable way to resolve conflict. Yet even as the problem escalates, our society spends little effort finding viable solutions beyond incarceration-an after-the-problem approach.