Jose Montoya

Mr. Cook
Honors Literature of the Americas
14 October 2014

Violent juvenile offenders should not be tried as adults, and they should be given
psychiatric and psychological treatments.
Often, the average teenagers mind is not fully developed, which is why
teenagers commit crimes without thinking about the consequences; teenagers commit
crimes only to benefit themselves. For example, teenagers steal items that they can not
afford, such as CDs, clothing, electronics, in order to entertain themselves and be able
to own the materials that they wanted, but their parents were never able to give to them.
In the article In a democracy, should violent juvenile offenders be punished as adults?
we see that 17-year-old boy was threatening to shoot children unless a $10 million
ransom was paid. The boy was abandoned and neglected by his father and mother,
and he only wanted the 10 million dollars to set up a community for other neglected
and abandoned children, but what he did not see was that he was putting other people
in Washington DC in danger, specifically students. Trying a juvenile offender as an adult
would not teach them a lesson for their actions, it would only punish them with jail time.
Giving a juvenile offender psychiatric and psychological treatments would help them
understand that there are consequences for negative actions.
If juvenile offenders are tried as adults, they should also have the privileges of an
adult. This can be done by lowering the age to legally be an adult down from 18 to 16.
Other countries, such as Ecuador have plans for treating juvenile offenders as adults,
by proposing to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16. If the bill passes,
convicted 16-year-olds would begin their sentences in a juvenile facility and then move
to an adult prison for their eighteenth birthday. A juvenile facility would not serve the
purpose of correcting the juveniles actions and allowing them to have a more positive
life if they are forced to a county jail on their 18th birthday. The juvenile offenders would
not be given a chance to change their lives. What should be done instead is to give the
juveniles adult responsibilities, such as voting, buying a house, going to college, if they
are going to be tried as adults.
People opposing my ideas might say that teenagers should be tried as adults
because they are committing crimes like an adult. Teenagers actually do not have a
fully developed brain to explain why they commit crimes. The human brain does not
stop growing until a person reaches 21-years-old. Teenagers are stuck in the mindset of
benefitting themselves or people that go through similar problems, which is why they
commit crimes. Adults can think through their decisions, and they commit an act on
purpose. Adults know the consequences of their actions, whereas juvenile offenders do
not. Psychiatric and psychological treatments would allow the juvenile offenders to learn
and understand the consequences of their actions, and jail cells would simply exclude
them from the world and not allow them to learn. Jail time should only be served by
adult offenders since they are fully matured, which is why they are being punished.