Should Juvenile Offenders Be Tried and Punished As Adults

Should Juvenile Offenders Be Tried and Punished As Adults

Introduction

Throughout human history, society tries to find the right way to deal with juvenile delinquency and problems of children who are abandoned, left without parental care, or abused. In the 19th century, the United States began to move in the direction of important social reforms that ultimately led to great changes in the ways of solving these problems. Various states have passed laws on child labor, which protected children from heavy-duty, the laws on social assistance to children who were working when the parents abused the children and did not care about them, the laws on education, which guarantees the right of every child to receive education.

However, there was a single and unified system of juvenile courts to address the problems of children in the United States. Children accused of criminal behavior, tried and sent to serve time as adults and sentencing them to be imposed as an adult. In those days there were no judicial procedures for minors, and children were tried in ordinary criminal trials. For example, in 1828 in New Jersey tried a 12-year-old boy, James Guild for the murder of Catherine Bix (Neubauer, 2011). A jury found him guilty of murder and sentenced to death by hanging. The Conservative leadership recently pledged to increase penalties against juvenile offenders if he takes power. He promised that teenagers would be tried automatically as adults if they commit serious crimes. The Conservative Party wants to replace the current Young Offenders Act with new legislation that would condemn to life imprisonment adolescents 14 to 16 who have committed murder, with or without premeditation. Other serious crimes would be punished by 14 years in prison. Thus, adolescents aged 14 and over who committed a serious crime such as murder, manslaughter or sexual assault, their identity would spread in the public square, which is not currently the case. A judge would also have the freedom to make public the names of youth who committed a lesser crime (Corriero, 2006).

Young persons convicted for serious crimes would be automatically subject to harsher penalties, up to life imprisonment for murder. The maximum sentence for violent offenses is 14 years in prison. Currently, a teenager accused of murder that is not tried as an adult can be sentenced to six years in prison and four years probation or house arrest. This law would apply to 14 year olds, but that some provinces may change the age at which young people would be judged as adults. It is further argued that this approach was a more balanced than the current Young Offenders Act, which focuses on rehabilitation of adolescents. The primary purpose of the Young Offenders Act is not only to rehabilitate young people, but also to protect society (Corriero, 2006).

Problem Statement

Despite the introduction of new juvenile offender's acts in different countries, which state that the young offenders should be, tried the same way as adults, the concept is heavily ...