The private MacArthur Foundation study released today says that many children under 16 had as much difficulty grasping the complex legal proceedings as adults who had been ruled incompetent to go to court. Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the conservative Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, said the vast majority of teenagers, even young ones, know enough to be tried in adult court. The new study, by the John D. Subjects were given intelligence tests and asked to respond to several hypothetical legal situations, such as whether to confess to a police officer. The results found that one-third of those 11 to 13 and one-fifth of those 14 or 15 could not understand the proceedings or help lawyers defend them. The study recommends that states reconsider the minimum age for juveniles to be tried as adults or to develop a system for evaluating young defendants' competence. The report follows a decade of state efforts to make it easier to try children as adults.
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Please enter the email address that you use to login to TeenInk. How would you feel if you just received a phone call saying that your child, cousin, boyfriend or girlfriend, family, or even if your best friend was just arrested for a crime and is now being held for a hearing and being tried as an adult? The judicial system allows a juvenile to be tried as an adult if they are arrested for a crime. This could impact this individual and others around him or her in physical or mental ways. I feel that juveniles should not be tried as an adult due to the harsh consequences that could be done to the person. When a juvenile commits a crime, it can also affect them as they get older. To get arrested, it can affect them when the time comes for a job. According to the U. Supreme Court, though, a juvenile has to be beyond hope of rehabilitation in order to get a life-without-parole sentence.
Results of “tough on crime” policies demonstrate that they have failed.
Carmen Daugherty is the policy director for the Campaign for Youth Justice , which is dedicated to ending the practice of trying, sentencing and incarcerating youth under 18 in the adult criminal justice system. Laws that permit youth under the age of 18 to enter the adult criminal justice system represent a departure from the traditional understanding of juvenile justice — to serve the best interests of the child. An overwhelming amount of research shows that the adult criminal justice system is ill equipped to meet the needs of youth offenders, from trial to incarceration and re-entry. Beyond what brain science reveals about adolescent development, experts contend that the adult criminal justice system does not deter repeat offenses by juveniles under Youth placed in the adult system had 34 percent more re-arrests, and often, at faster rates and more dangerous levels. Mental health needs go unmet in adult settings across the country and little training is offered to facility staff on working with the youngest offenders. Meanwhile, the juvenile justice system, more broadly, puts an emphasis on the rehabilitation, treatment, education and public safety of youth in its care. It is rare that you will find that kind of express mission — let alone a program focused on treatment and education — in state departments of corrections. Young offenders are more likely to succeed on a personal level if they receive comprehensive services that support positive youth development.
The United States is the only country in the world where the justice system will sentence children to death behind bars for the crimes that they commit. Although the conduct is usually deemed to be violent, which makes the individual a threat to the general population, there is no way out of the system if you are a juvenile tried as an adult and then sentenced to life in prison. Cyntoia Brown is one story of about 10, who was sentenced as a juvenile for killing a man when she was just 16 years old. She was given clemency in after serving 15 years in prison for the crime. She has always maintained that her actions were in self-defense because the man she killed had purchased her for sex. Brown reportedly shot the man while he was sleeping, and then stole his cash, guns, and truck as she fled the scene. Prosecutors argued that her motivation for killing was motivated by robbery instead of self-defense. As a nation, the pros and cons of having juveniles being tried as an adult is a subject with which many have been grappling for generations. It was as early as when the United States began creating the first courts for youth offenders.
