Why Children End Up In The Adult Criminal Justice System

Doing some research there was a story that caught my eye. A thirteen year old killed his half-brother, who was two years old. Anyone who reads an article about children killing cannot even begin to phantom why they would do it. The boy name was Cristian Fernandez. He previously endured physical and sexual abuse. He was left with kids and could not stop the baby from crying. Thinking about all he has endured, he was already programmed not to have remorse for anything. He was broken down by all of the male figures in his life. So many cases for kids end up like this. It is very true that a person is a victim of their environment. Was Christian really to blame? Children are incapable of making adult decisions, let alone killing someone and fully …show more content…
Most of the time the child has suffered greatly whether it is emotionally or physically. Every abused child is not going to kill, but being that they have experienced pain they may want to be on the other side of it the net time. People don’t understand how impressionable children are. Most of the children in the adult criminal system, committed crimes that were beyond their own understanding. The youth go through a number of contributing factors for why they end up in the adult criminal system. From social life, environment of the child, the child’s mental state, and the curious state of them are all key factors in why children end up in the adult criminal system. According to Youth Justice Campaign, most crimes brought to the court are not violent crimes. Although children make up a small percentage of the adult criminal system, they are so many children who do not deserve to be in the jail setting …show more content…
With Christian he was abused and was not capable of watching younger children, he wanted to do what people did to him. In most cases this is the main factor. Being abused does not make you more likely to have a criminal record but it does play a part in it. Having emotional abuse early on will help form the child’s personality and the way they handle things. For example if you see your dad hit your mom every day, you are both going to hate men or hate that your mom put up with it and resent her. That is why when a child is in the system, therapy is needed. The child almost too often just needed someone to vent to or someone to tell them it will be alright. Children are not able to control themselves how adults can. Although some may not agree, that is what go on every day. Children just don’t understand life or what comes out of it by committing a crime. They don’t realize because being in an abusive home the abuser is still there and not in jail. The children lose faith in the criminal system, almost thinking that they will be invincible. Watching scared straight, a show about troubled adolescents who go to jail, those kids hung out with kids that did the same thing. Most of the kids were in single parent homes, resenting the parent that isn’t there and disrespecting the one that is there. Not only is about who they surround themselves with but also what they watch on television. Some shows now make doing illegal things look