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Luis Arevalo Professor Marcy Jay English 101 April 9, 2011. Juvenile Offenders And Adults Offenders Are Different: Why Society Do Not Have To Mix Them. The U.S. government based on its Declaration of Independence and also its Constitution has provided to the people who lives legally in this country several human rights such as: life, freedom, equal treatment, and the private property among others. Because of this, a whole system of justice was created to protect those human rights and also maintain a safely public order. In fact, the U.S. government created inside the system of justice institutions concerned with juveniles (juvenile courts, reformatories, correctional institutes, among others) to treat them in certain ways different to adults. It is like another justices system but just for juveniles, with weakness and fails but it is a system that pursues the best options for those juveniles. But, why are juveniles treated different? There are three reasons that could explain that such as: the maturity and intellectual development, the psychosocial rehabilitation, and also the balance and respect for the human rights in moral and social terms. People use to associate maturity with making good decisions and being completely responsible of those decisions. Maturity could he explained as the end of a process where an individual reach the capacity to think objectively and logically about their present acts and their future implications. It is a learned or reasoned behavior more than an impulsive behavior. Because adolescents are experimenting developing changes in their social and emotional concepts and values they tend to be immature. In fact, adolescents are considered more immature

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than adults because they are in a difficult and challenging growing up stages such as the puberty and the adolescence. For instance, Alison Parker based on her researches states: According to many psychologists, adolescents are less able than adults to perceive and understand the long-term consequences of their acts, to think autonomously instead of bending to peer pressure or the influence of older friends and acquaintances, and to control their emotions and act rationally instead of impulsively. All of these tendencies affect a childs ability to make reasoned decisions. (46) In addition to the immaturity, there are other factors that can affect or distort the psychological and social perspectives of juveniles. Those factors could be: the child abuse, domestic violence, bullying, a non supportive family, a lacking education environment, friends involved in illegal activities, low self-confidence and self-esteem, among others. When juveniles have a psychosocial perspective lacking in moral and values, they used to walk mostly in the path of delinquency. Other times they could commit suicide. However, no matter the nature, proportion, and also the consequences of their acts they should have the opportunity to change. Psychologically they are able to rehabilitate, because they are still growing up and experimenting development cognitive changes. In fact, Carol Chodroff in her article Reforming Juvenile Injustice cites to Senator Patrick Leahy saying I know well the importance of holding criminals accountable for their crimes with strong sentences. But when we are talking about children, we must also think about how best to help them become responsible, contributing members of society as adults. That keeps us all safer (qtd. in). It is the same vision that added to others considerations inspired the creation of a juvenile justice system in order to treat juveniles in a different context. About this Aaron Kupchik argues Because juveniles are recognized as

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developmentally different than adults, the juvenile justice system seeks to balance rehabilitation and punishment. The criminal justice system seeks to punish adult offenders commensurate with their crimes as a means of deterring future criminal activity (97). The thing is that this rehabilitation needs accurate and proper methods, therapies, facilities and also the follow up of the mental and behavioral changes. Because the lack of this, many young offenders cannot reach the light at the final of the dark tunnel where they are immersed, they have started a degenerative social process instead of a rehabilitation process. Both in juvenile correctionals as in Men Prision young men could be beaten, abused, psychologically frightened, and also manipulated. In fact, Bochenek and Stauring analyze: The deaths of two children found hanging in their cells at the Preston Youth Correctional Facility in January provide another reason for public outrage at a juvenile justice system that is designed only to punish young offenders without also rehabilitating them. Worst of all is the current trend toward trying children in adult courts and housing them in adult facilities, where they are eight times more likely to attempt suicide. Adult jails could have serious violence inside them, for instance Alison Parker cites to Brian B. Albion who wrote a letter to Human Right Watch explaining his first experience as a young adult (he was almost 18 years old) in an adult facilities in this way: Sheriffs took me to the Western Penitentiary. They lied to the warden telling him I were eighteen, which I had not yet become. I were housed in an open poorly supervised unit, and that evening a group of large adult men rushed into my cell, holding me down they began pulling my clothes off while another took a syringe over to a spoon that another inmate were holding a lighter under. He drew up

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whatever was in the spoon. I were then injected with whatever it were. And then raped. Once found by the officers I were taken to a holding area, cleaned up, and placed on a van to another prison at around 3:00 am (qtd. in, 78). Therefore, society uses to treat juveniles different than adults in many aspects of their lives. Activities that could be considered as normal such as get married, get a driver license, have a hank account, invest online enroll in army and also others activities such as smoking, drink alcoholic beverages, tattooing, and play lottery have restrictions or prohibitions for juveniles. In fact, most of these activities need parent consent or court permission to be performed by people who do not reach the minimum adult age of eighteen (18) years old. Why is needed the adults figure in those matters? Because society understands that adolescents have a development process in progress where values such as integrity, responsibility, honesty, courage, maturity, among others are being formed, an adult is needed to evaluate and approve those acts as a moral and social requirement. It defines how society and its laws understand differences between juveniles and adults and that is one of the reasons why a juvenile justice system was created. It was created to have a balance and respect of human rights according to society rules and laws. However, across the United States many juvenile offenders who commit serious crimes have been tried by adult courts producing a debate about this. For instance, in a report of Human Right Watch called United States: Thousands of Children Sentenced to Life without Parole Alison Parker says Kids who commit serious crimes shouldnt go scot-free, but if they are too young to vole or buy cigarettes, they are too young to spend the rest of their lives behind bars (qtd in). In fact, there are cases that call people to make a reflection about this and show them why juvenile offenders cannot be treated as adults. One of those cases was included in the same report of Human Right Watch explaining:

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In 26 states, the sentence of lit without parole is mandatory for anyone who is found guilty of committing first-degree murder, regardless of age... an estimated 26 percent were convicted of felony murder which holds that anyone involved in the commission of a serious crime during which someone is killed is also guilty of murder, even if he or she did not personally or directly cause the death... For example, 15-year-old Peter A. was sentenced to life without parole for felony murder. Peter had joined two acquaintances of his older brother to commit a robbery. He was waiting outside in a van when one of the acquaintances botched the robbery and murdered two victims. Peter said. Although I was present at the scene, I never shot or killed anyone. Nevertheless, Peter was held accountable for the double murder because it was established during the trial that he had stolen the van used to drive to the victims house. Finally, understanding that juvenile offenders are young minds in a growing up process of values such as maturity, responsibility, character, among others the creation of a juvenile justice system was accurate. Maybe that system is failing in other aspects such as rehabilitation techniques, adequate facilities, staff, but the idea of treat different to adults is the right one. Those young people could he reinserted into society after they completed and approved an effective process of rehabilitation. Because adult justice system often use to punish the offenders instead of rehabilitate them, bring juvenile offenders to this system is a mistake. In fact, a mistake that could take away from those young people the opportunity to change, to leave the wrong path in their life, in other words: to have a second chance.

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Works Cited Bochenek, Michael and Javier Stauring. Juveniles Shouldnt Be Detained With Adults. Los Angeles Times, February 18. 2004. < http://articles.1atimes.com/2004/feb/18/opinion/lewigginsl8.2> Chodroff. Carol. Reforming Juvenile lnjustice. The Huffington Post. July 2,2008. < http://www.huflingtonpost.com/carol-chodroff/reforming-juvenileinjust_b_110538.html > Kupchik. Aaron. The Juvenile Justice System. Juvenile Crime. Infobase Publishing. New York, 2010. Revised Edition. First edition by Jeffrey Ferro. Parker. Alison. The Rest of Their Lives. Life without Parole for Child Offenders in the United States. Human Rights Watch/Amnesty International, 2005. United States: Thousands of Children Sentenced to Life without Parole. Human Rights Watch. October 11. 2005. < http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2005/10/11/united-states-thousandschildren-sentenced-life-without-parole>