Inprisonment of Our Youth

When it comes to the criminal Justice System, it is a very precise and delegate topic to discussion about. And once subject that is a lot of times over looked and or not discussed enough about is about children being sentenced to life in prison or receiving very long prison sentences, or even being executed.

According to (eji.org) the Courts did ban juvenile executions, nearly 3000 children age 17 or younger have been sentenced to life in prison until death, without parole. Children as young as 13 were among the 3000 kids sentenced to death in prison.

Now the reason why this subject is so delegate to handle is that there are children being treated like adults. People believe that it is against some kind of moral code to punish young children with life long prison sentences or the death plenty. Those people argue that children committing crimes are still learning from right from wrong, that they don’t understand that there action are much greater then they know themselves. Or people argue that there are kids that are mental unstable and can’t control their actions.

Which is strong arguments indeed but in the end a terrible crime was committed. When there is an 8 year old boy who viciously attacks his 1-year old infant brother and viciously kills him because the baby wouldn’t stop crying; there is something mentally wrong with that child and that child needs to be taken away. This was according to ( www.Newsweek.com).

 

 In the image above shows the infant girl that was brutally beaten to death by her eight year old bother. I'm not saying that the boy needs to be put in jail for the rest of his life, but he needs to be removed from society and receive special help before returning anywhere near home. The boy is clearly dangerous and needs help.

In the chart above it shows the incarceration rate for youth imprisonment between the USA vs. Other nations. USA is at the very top, so it shows our youth is growing up in a dangerous and hostel environment, and that children are dangerous and committing more crimes. So are this many children in cable of knowing from right from wrong? Some maybe, but no, many of these kids know what they are doing, that is why there are so many kids being put into jail or taken away for a reason. 

Teenagers these days are becoming more dangerous these days, according to the Washington D.C. poles, and personally talking to a formal downtown D.C. police officer, Children as young as 8 years old are beginning to join gangs. What happens when children that young join gangs as young as that, they’re more likely to commit more terrible crimes as they get older, they might start out by stealing, or fighting and as they get older, will become more prone to carrying a weapon, and more likely to end up shooting someone, or robbing people with the weapon. Kids growing up in a hostile environment like that are set to think crime is okay, that is why the youth of today are becoming more dangerous, at that point they don’t know from right from wrong, so it’s necessary to take them away and try and fix them, and prison might be the only option.  



This chart above shows the percentage amount of Juvenile under the age
 of 18 growing over the last several years

There are kids out there younger than 18 and as young as 8 years old committing terrible crimes of robbery, assault, and murderer. And it’s not just because they are troubled children, there are kids out there that I truly different and a danger to the public. Necessary punishment should be taken into action for these children and jail is a possible option, even for as young as an 8 year old murderer, because they can get the help they need to one day maybe be put back into society. It’s like they can be saved at a young age to get out of the environment they lived in that might of pushed them into becoming what they were, and be saved as a good person. Because I’ll be honest, lt doesn’t matter if they were too young to understand what they did, they knew what they were doing. That boy wanted to kill his 1 year old sister, he knew it was wrong, but he did it anyway, just maybe he didn’t realize how wrong it was? Those kids choose to be a part of those gangs, there old enough to know right from wrong, they are just being taught that being in a gang isn’t wrong, but they know the stuff there doing is bad. So it is necessary to take any precaution to possible save and rehabilitate them at any cost… even jail.

 

 In this video it shows a young man Tj Lane. A 17 year old kid, who viciously killed two of his classmates and shows no remorse for them or the victims parents. Throughout the trail he gladly admitted to the murderers, and laugh and gave the middle finger to the victims parents who were speaking against him. And to add insult to injury, he was wearing a white t-shirt with the word killer written on his shirt in black marker. The kid was clearly old enough to know right from wrong, he knew what he was doing, and he gladly do it and would seem to have no problem doing it again.