Essay on The Paradox of Teen Laws

The Paradox of teen laws

It is heartbreaking to see on television, on the internet through the news or to reading an article about how a sixteen year old boy is convicted of a crime and is sentenced to ten, fifteen or even twenty years to prison. However, it is also heartbreaking to see that a family man, father of four kids can be robbed and killed by a seventeen years old boy and watch this boy walk free on the street after completing twenty one years old, sometimes with no regrets and ready to do it again. It is really hard to figure when the law is being fair, or if it should be protecting juveniles. There are many factors that we should take as consideration when creating this laws that trials juveniles as adults, such as, the environment the that child grow up in, the type of crime committed, and most importantly, how young is too young to not be responsible for your acts or how old is old enough to be responsible for your acts? Apparently, defining that boarder line is a very difficult task, not just here in the fifty states of the US but all over the world. There are many different laws in different places, laws that many times contradict themselves when it comes to those age limits. Teens should be tried as adults when they committed high profile crimes and the bottom age limit for them should be the ages of sixteen.

The children are our future, we live, study work thinking in our own good but we also do all this things thinking on the future generations, especially when you have children or plan in having one. Family is the basic support for the emotional and social development of a teenager. According with the Colorado Bureau of investigation (BCI), in the United States thirty three percent of crimes committed by juveniles (ages 10 to 18) are related to alcohol and drugs, twenty nine percent fraud crimes, eight percent crimes against person and thirty percent others. To make a comparison in Brazil according to the Census research on the topic thirty two percent of crimes are theft crimes, seventeen percent is driving without license (you must be at least eighteen the be allowed to get a driver’s license in Brazil by law), another seventeen percent is drug dealing, yes dealing not using which is added together with what is left. In both cases we can clearly see the cultural and socioeconomic contrast reflected with those numbers. I do believe in rehabilitation and I do believe the life is a big school where we do something wrong we will pay one way or the other, but when we are dealing with the future of the world the we leave in we have to look around ourselves and see the in many cases we have to teach them direct them and most importantly help them to a better world. However it is important to mention that in both cases about three percent of these crimes were considered high profiles crimes, such as homicide and heinous crimes. In these cases I do agree that juveniles should be tried as adults, but up to certain ages and these type of crimes only in particular.

A study conducted by MacArthur Foundation measured the competence of a young teen to stand trial, not their criminal blameworthiness. It proves that young adolescents are more likely to lack capacities for trial. The study says that age matters and those aged 11–13 performed significantly worse than 14–15 year olds, who performed significantly worse than 16–17 year olds and 18–24 year olds (adults).Interestingly, the performance of 16–17 year olds did not differ from that of the young adults (aged 18–24). Based on this study we can see that basically the activity with kids of ages between sixteen and twenty four were the same. Even though this was not conduct with the purpose of deciding how old you should or shouldn’t be tried as an adult it can be taken as a very relevant fact for that matter.

I believe that killing someone or doing something the fits in a high profile crime cannot be justified by socioeconomic

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