Essay On Discrimination Against Children

The main issue with children’s rights in the American legal system is the lack of universal application and concrete statutes to protect the rights of adolescents. While it is universally acknowledged that children can commit adult acts with adult consequences there is rush in the legal system to label them as adults. More pressing is once juveniles cross over into the adult system their remaining actions as juvenile can be considered, and punished, by the adult system without juvenile protections. Due to the legal ambiguity children face several discriminations primarily due to their age, which also compounded by supplementary social discriminations including social class, poverty and race among others. Though much of the research available is based on the abuses children suffer at the hands of guardians and the ill-equipped agencies designed to protect them the loss of inability for children to gain substantial rights is entwined to with the Greco-Roman tradition and laws of western society. To understand the discrimination of children and to better protect this vulnerable population there must be a movement to acknowledge that children have rights, …show more content…
This lack of information is a major risk to consider when securing youths, and allowing them full legal protections, predominately those described as “unparented” (Bartholet, p. 81). There is heated debate at which age is it appropriate for legal information to be given to youths, there is an inconsistent precedent in place as is and the intention is to leave the handling of juvenile rights to the states discretionary preferences (Bartholet, p. 81-3). Children will most likely be made aware of their rights and considerations of the court when they are submitted for their first initial juvenile court proceedings or Social