Introduction:
From the time a child is born and all the way up to their 18th birthday, they are expected to ask permission and depend on the guidance of their parents or guardians. In the United States of America, anyone under the age of 18 cannot purchase tobacco or get into a nightclub because they are still considered a minor. Children are labeled as immature, unable to make their own critical decisions, and their mental state is not fully developed. If this is the way that we define children and the standard that we set them to, then why is someone who isn’t able to even purchase a lottery ticket able to be charged as an adult, should they commit a heinous crime?
Every year in the United States of America, according to The Open Society Foundations, 200,000 American youth are tried and put behind bars as adults.
In this critical media analysis, I will be taking a few articles that I found in the mainstream media about how juveniles shouldn’t be tried as adults and serve their sentence at an adult facility as well as how the media feels about juveniles being tried as adults. The first point I will present are the pros and cons of trying juveniles as adults. Second, I will present the pros and cons of trying juveniles as juveniles. Third, I will present an article that is against juveniles being charged as adults. Fourth, I will talk about my personal connection. Then the last point I will present is how the media feels, and then I will conclude.
The pros and cons of trying juveniles as adults:
The pros of trying a juvenile as an adult may be obvious, such as justice being served and the person responsible for the crime being punished for what they did, no matter if it is a juvenile or not. However, the pros outweigh the cons. If a juvenile is sentenced as an adult, they will then likely be placed in an adult prison or jail, where they are more likely to get sexually assaulted due to the fact that they are so much more vulnerable than everyone else. Also, if you place a young teenager who is at a very impressionable age, with other criminals, they are much more likely to give into pressure coming from the older inmates and will be manipulated into doing things that may get that person into trouble.
Another factor that comes with charging a juvenile as an adult, is sentencing. For some crimes, adults can serve multiple life sentences for serious crimes, such as murder. Depending on the child’s age and mental state, sentencing made for an adult may not fit. If an 11 year old child commits murder on another child because they didn’t get something that they wanted, the child shouldn't have to face a life sentence. Yes, this child was wrong. However, at age eleven puberty begins in boys and girls and hormones are changing. While there should obviously be some sort of punishment, life behind bars for a child that young is necessary and probably isn’t going to have the deterrent impact that it might have on an adult. An example of the downside to juveniles being charged as adults is one of the cases we saw in class where Erik Jensen was accused of helping his friend, Nathan Ybanez, kill Nathan’s mother. After someone took a plea deal against Erik, he was sentenced to life for a crime he didn’t even commit.
The pros and cons of trying juveniles as children:
Second chances are very important, especially when it comes to children. As I mentioned in the section above, it is important for some sort of serious punishment to be in place when a juvenile commits a serious crime. If the same 11 year old from our last example commits a crime such as robbery where he could be charged as an adult, but has never been in trouble before, putting him in a juvenile detention facility would be a better option, due to the fact that he has time to grow up and mature in a more positive environment compared to an adult facility. This way when he is eligible to be released at 18 or 21, he has a second chance at life to make something of himself instead of him being locked up on an adult charge for additional years. Unfortunately, there is a downside to this. There are events where juvenile offenders are sentenced a little too lightly for the crimes that they commit and if they serve a juvenile sentence, they are more often than not, free to go once they turn 21 with just a few hours of community service a few times a week for 18 months.
We should be against juveniles serving adult sentences in adult facilities
In one article I found in the New York Times, the message was that prison is too violent for young offenders. This particular article was written by Gary Scott. Scott is a credible source and is able to make such a statement of prisons being too violent for young offenders, because when he was only 15 he was arrested for second degree murder. After two years, at age 17 he was sentenced to 15 years to life, according to the article. He claims that the impact that an adult prison has on a juvenile is negative and destructive. He states many points in his article, like the ones I did earlier in this analysis, that juveniles are just too immature to handle something as intense as an adult facility. Scott is a believer in rehabilitating youth and giving them a chance to be free.
Personal connection:
My father used to work in a maximum security for young offenders, which was ages 15-24, in the United Kingdom. He was a music teacher and a cooking teacher. He recalls that many of the inmates in the prison were there for one of two reasons. Reason number one being that they were under the influence and didn’t think about the consequences of their actions. Reason number two being that they were coerced into committing crimes for their parents, who were also criminals or addicts. As a result, many of those young men were forced to face life sentences in a maximum security prison with only one hour of socializing per day.
How does the media feel?
In recent years, there have been many debates and discussions on whether juveniles should be eligible to serve life sentences. In article I found on Abc News, written by Huma Khan, the topic of discussion was if criminals under the age of 18 were too young to serve life sentences. It seems as though the media is teeter tottering on what exactly qualifies a juvenile offender for a life sentence due to the fact that so many cases are handled differently depending what state a person is in. The article, just like other platforms in the media discussing this issue, claim that giving a juvenile a life sentence or charging then in the adult court isn’t ideal for someone who is a first time offender, however adult court is mandatory for a juvenile who is a repeat offender to a serious crime. Robert Schwartz and Thomas Grisso, who wrote the book ‘Youth on Trial’, claim that juvenile courts are now mirroring adult courts. This was interesting to me, seeing as juvenile court and detention facilities are supposed to focus on mending and rehabilitating offenders. However, Abc did state that according to the Justice Department, roughly “10% of homicides a year are committed by juveniles under 18”.
Conclusion:
In conclusion, I feel as though juveniles under the age of 16 shouldn’t be tried as adults, and rehabilitation should first be attempted, but anyone over the age of 16 in good mental health should know the difference and should have to suffer the potential consequences. There are many pros and cons to each side, but one thing that I feel the media left out, was the mental state of the juvenile, and the reason that the juvenile may have committed the crime. The media didn’t really present any up to date statistics for this issue, especially concerning race and I think it will be interesting to see how the media portrays this issue in years to come.
Resources:
Khan, H. (2010, July 12). Juvenile Justice: Too Young for Life in Prison? Retrieved November 14, 2017, from http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/life-prison-juvenile-offenders-adult-courts/story?id=11129594
Scott, G. (2012, June 5). The New York Times Company. Retrieved November 10, 2017, from https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/06/05/when-to-punish-a-young-offender-and-when-to-rehabilitate/prison-is-too-violent-for-young-offenders
Taveras, L. (2015, March 26). Stop Prosecuting Children as Adults. Retrieved November 12, 2017, from https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/stop-prosecuting-children-adults