Does the age of a Criminal Decide How They should be sentenced and how long?

Essay by angelsmagUniversity, Bachelor'sA, February 2008

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Age as a Criminal DefenseDo you think juveniles should be tried as adults under certain circumstances?Juveniles should be tried as adults under strenuous circumstances. Nowadays juveniles commit crimes such as selling drugs, murder, etc. because they know that they will not be prosecuted harshly since they are juveniles. They take advantage of the justice system that protects them because of their age. This is beneficial to the dealers who hire them to sell drugs while they are in the elementary and middle schools. The justice system needs to stop this abuse committed by these criminals and make an example of the one's that commit these crimes.

Parents who are criminals themselves are often to blame for a juvenile who chooses the wrong path. The first person a child looks up to in life is a parent. If a parent can't get their own life together in terms of crime, the child will often imitate what they see.

Meaning, they will the turn to a life of crime. It's these early influences that make and mold a juvenile's life. When a parent doesn't do their job properly, we all tend to suffer.

In many cases though, it's not an older criminal who is influencing the child. A juvenile can go down the wrong path on their own a few different ways. Either by what they may see or think is cool on television or by being influenced by their friends. It's even possible that the juvenile can just plain be bad. The juvenile could be mentally disturbed and not be in control of their own actions.

If so, what might those circumstances be? Why? If not, why not?It's true that in poverty stricken neighborhoods where the children can't get away from the drugs and the crime, some may turn to these...