Trying Children As Adults Cons

Name

Purpose

Topic: Treatment of Children as Adults

Introduction

When children are not being charged as adults, it is about making sure that they are being provided with the lenient sentences for the crimes that are quite smaller in scale. The idea is to reiterate the fact that how children should not be treated as adults at any point of time.

Most of the people are of the point of view that it is quite wrong to hold children and adolescents that have not reached the legal age to be judged in the same way as compared to adult standards. Children are not permitted same rights and privileges. Following are some of the dimensions of the research that would be taken into account when this decision is going to be made.

Recent Research

Providing adequate care and treatment

Risks faced by children in adult prisons.

Body

There is enough psychological research carried out to assert the fact that how the children and teenagers are supposed to act in the manner that at times does not reflect their true intention. They do not have the sense or an idea about the complexities of the crime and thus cannot be held in the same standard.

The risks that are faced by the children in the adult prison are quite on the higher side. They are at the increased risk of being sexually assaulted in the prison. Not only that, there is an increased likelihood that they are going to be mistreated when they are going to be in the prison and thus it renders them quite vulnerable if they are being treated in the same manner as the adults are in such cases.

The idea of the prison or making anyone go through any legal intervention is to bring about a reformation in the person, when they are imprisoned, that purpose is not being served. If the reformation is not being there and the likelihood is quite strong is that they are going to be mistreated in the prison, then it beats the whole purpose of why they must be made to go through the legal system. In an ideal world, what must be done is that there must be centres where effort has to be made to make sure that the people who have committed these crimes are made to go through a rehabilitation so that they are able to integrate back into the society in a much easier manner.

There have been cases in the past when if the appropriate treatment was being provided to the children, it would have gone a long way towards making sure that how the children who have committed some of the worst crimes can be integrated back into the society.

Conclusion

In the hindsight, it can be said that the treatment of children in the case where they have committed a small offense to be brought back into the society and they should be given chance to redeem themselves. The likelihood that they are going to be assaulted or some other form of mistreatment is going to be carried out with them means that the prison or any such treatment that does not play a part in their active development is the option that is supposed to be ruled out at the particular point of time. The other thing that is quite important in the given scenario is that how the legal system works in such cases. Studies have shown that charging kids as adults doesn’t stop them from committing more crimes when they get out. They are better off in a safe environment where they can have structure and they can learn. Simply throwing them behind bars typically doesn’t work, which undermines the main argument for trying them as adults.

References

D'Ambra, L. (1996). A legal response to juvenile crime: why waiver of juvenile offenders is not a panacea. Roger Williams UL Rev., 2, 277.

Valentine, G. (1996). CHILDREN SHOULD BE SEEN AND NOT HEARD: THE PRODUCTION AND TRANSGRESSION OF ADULTS'PUBLIC SPACE. Urban geography, 17(3), 205-220.