Tim Peralta

Mr.Cook & Mr.Jameson

ELA
14 October 2014
How should juvenile offenders be punished?

Minors who commit crimes such as El Ponchis should receive psychiatric and
psychological treatments, instead of being tried as adults.
They are just children. They can change. They have their whole life ahead of
them. With the help of psychiatric and psychological treatment, they can become better
people. In the last paragraph in the article, it states, Governments must balance their
obligation to protect society with the goal of helping young people who have broken the
law learn to live productive lives. These children need a second chance in order for
them to stop doing these horrible things and so they can become better people. It is
better to help these children by giving them the help they need, instead of putting them
into adult punishment.
The reason that these children are doing these wrongly acts is because of where
where they grew up, and how they grew up. Most of these children have been
brainwashed into doing these things. They have grown up in a wrong way. Most of
these children do not have parents, but if they do, their parents do not even care about
them. These children do not know love from their mother and/or father.That is why they
act and do wrong things. The author writes, He had been abandoned by his father as a
baby, neglected by his mother, and spent time in a homeless shelter. The other was his
mentor, who had essentially adopted him and taught him how to shoot high-powered
rifles at people. This quote proves and shows how it is not the childs fault, for the
people in their life have had a big impact on his/hers behaviors. Another piece of
evidence is, His father says the boy was forced into service by older gang members as
a pawn in the drug wars. What this means is that these children are victims of the
people around them, such as gangs, mothers, fathers, and even friends. Minors who
commit crimes such as El Ponchis should receive psychiatric and psychological
treatments, instead of being tried as adults.
Counterclaim: Children who commit crimes should be tried as adults because
they commit the same thing adults do. Just because they are younger does not make
them any more or any less than adults. Just because they are young does not mean
they can get special treatment. They know that they did something wrong, because they
did the act of purpose. They have guilty minds. As the Colombian Senator, Roy
Barreros, stated in September of 2010, He who kills like an adult should pay like an
adult.