Trying Children as Adults
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This paper is a discussion of the issue of trying children as adults. Recent reports issued by the Justice Department have shown an alarming rise in juvenile crime, while the headlines have spotlighted particularly heinous acts performed by very young children. From the kidnapping and brutal murder of 2-year-old James Bulger by two 10-year-old boys in Liverpool in 1993 to the beating of a month-old infant by a 6-year-old boy in Contra County, California, in 1996, violent acts committed by very young children have severely tested the ability of the criminal justice system to establish impartial guidelines for dealing with young criminals. Historically, juveniles have always presented a difficult problem for the courts, which must determine whether there exists an arbitrary age at which a child can be held responsible for his actions and whether age alone should be the determining factor in sentencing. One of the most shocking crimes in recent history occurred on February 12, 1993, in Liverpool, England. Two 10-year-old boys abducted 2-year-old James Bulger in a shopping mall, dragged him to a secluded spot, beat him to death with bricks and a steel pole, then laid his body across a railroad track, where it was sliced in half by a passing train. Found guilty of abduction and murder, the underage offenders are detained at separate facilities for dangerous children. British law allows them to be held indefinitely "at her majesty's pleasure."
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Legislature to pass the Juvenile Offender Law. Between the ages of 9 and 15, Willie Boskett committed more than 2,000 crimes, culminating in an eight-day spree of robbery and the murder of two people. Under existing laws, he was sentenced to the maximum penalty allowed: five years' custody by the New York state Division for Youth. The new legislation allowed juveniles as young as 13 to be tried as adults for the commission of certain violent crimes.
Ewing (1990) writes, "Today every jurisdiction in the United States allows at least some juveniles to be prosecuted as adults and, if convicted, punished as adult criminals" (p. 137). He points out that four factors are usually required: the crime must be serious (most often murder), the juveniles must be at least teenagers, they must be considered dangerous, and they must be considered not amenable to rehabilitation. When these factors are present in four states, juveniles who are 16 and older are automatically tried as adults; in 10 states this occurs at age 17, and in all others (including the District of Columbia) violent juveniles are automatically tried as adults at age 18. In the summer of 1985, a bill introduced into the Illinois legislature attempted to reduce from
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Wise Polier, James Bulger, Contra County, Orange County, Justice Department, Division Youth, Supreme Court, A23 Humes, County California, Eric Morse, juvenile justice, ewing 1990, justice system, 1996 29, tried adults, juvenile justice system, juvenile court, 1996 june 7, juvenile crime, los angeles, violent crimes, age 18, los angeles times, curtius 1996 june, convicted first-degree murder,
Approximate Word count = 2264
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page)
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