Steinberg, Laurence, Elizabeth Cauffman, et al. "Are Adolescents Less Mature Than Adults?

Minors Access to Abortion, the Juvenile Death Penalty, and the Alleged APA Flip-Flop." American Psychologist. 64.no.7 (2009): 583-594. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. According to an academic journal written by Steinberg, Cauffman, Woolard, Graham, and Banich, members of the American Psychological Association, the APAS definition of how old a juvenile should be in order to be sentenced to the death penalty is being held to a double standard. Basically, the argument is that there is no definite way to tell whether a child is mature enough to be sentenced to the death penalty. In the article it is stated that a 17 year old is mature enough to decide whether or not they want to abort their child, but a 17 year old that has committed a heinous crime has not matured enough to make adult decisions and to look beyond peer pressure. The 4 psychologist have researched court cases about the verdicts given in juvenile cases, as well as psychological experiments that were ran to compare the mind of mid 20 year olds to teenagers to see if they are on the same level. This information is important to my studies because it helps to give me insight on the criteria that is used in order to be able to sentence a minor. Through this article, I have found that there is no set method or rules when it comes to the age limit of the death penalty. It is also helpful because in some ways, it supports my assumption that juvenile should not be given the death penalty because their minds are still developing and growing. They should at least get the sentence instead so they can grow and realize their flaws and mistakes.

In the conference we discussed how to narrow my topic down in a way that is useful to me. I was given keywords and word combinations that would assist me in my researcher. This advice really helped a lot because I felt like I had hit a brick wall because my articles were not cohesive to me. Now that I have used different keywords I am having a much easier time writing my bibliography.