"Monkey See, Monkey Do" Essay on prosecuting minors as adults.

"Monkey See, Monkey Do"

On March 9, a twelve year old child, Lionel Tate, wrestled a six year old little girl and beat her to death. Lionel Tate was convinced as an adult and First-degree murder. Many people believe that convicting Lionel Tate as an adult is unfair because he still is a child and children will always be children. Others disagree; they say that trying children as adults for violent crimes is the best way to go. They say that if the child is fair because it sets a examples to other children. I believe that juveniles accused of violent crimes should be tried and sentenced as minors.

A juvenile should not be tried as an adult because children are "seriously impaired". "Younger individuals were less likely to recognize the risks inherent in different choices and less likely to think about the long-term consequence of their choices" stated Greg Krikorian in, "Many Kids Called Unfit for Adult Trial".

Children gathering potatoes on a large farm, vicin...

Latino Children Play Swing

Children at N.Y. Zoo (LOC)

Lionel Tate, mimicking his favorite wrestler, beat the little girl to death. Wrestling is obviously phony but sometimes children do not find out until they get a little older and smarter. Lionel Tate believed that hitting the little girl will not hurt her because in wrestling no one gets seriously hurt, the wrestlers come back the next week and wrestle again. He did not kill the little girl on purpose; he did not understand the consequences of hitting her.

I was about thirteen years old when I was into the whole wrestling ordeal. My brother and I would wrestle around the house and we believed that wrestling was real. I thought that wrestlers were unstoppable and if they were unstoppable, I was too. People would tell us wrestling was fake and not to wrestle because we might get hurt,