Isaac Wolf, in his online article ‘Youths in adult jail face higher risk, longer wait for trial,’ describes the case of a 13-year-old juvenile offender, Owen Welty, “he[Owen] was arrested in the shooting death of his neighbor in rural southeastern Missouri. He spent 26 months in several jails, usually housed with adult suspects. He was targeted for physical attacks, including sexual assault, he said...while incarcerated, he fell three grades behind classmates”(¶5). The OJJDP completely flunked in making the contact fair in this case because Owen, a 13 year old kid, was housed with adult suspects, was physically targeted, and sexually assaulted. Further, he spent 26 months in jail, and fell three grades behind his classmates, which was neither beneficial nor rare. He is now struggling to catch up academically, and being in adult prison could have really made him depressed. Describing the hasty situation outside the courthouse in one of the recent juvenile cases, Paul Thompson in his article ‘Startling Find on the Teenage Brains,’ gives the words of one of the protestors, “A child is not a man”(¶1). Likewise, Owen was not a “man;” he was just 13-year-old, but, unfortunately, was housed with …show more content…
The OJJDP successfully provided ‘treatment and rehabilitative service’ for Ethan considering his “affluenza” condition because “he experienced a combination of neglect and abuse from parents so inadequate to the task of raising him”(Mead ¶5). In its mission statement, the OJJDP envisions to improve the juvenile justice system so that it holds juvenile offenders ‘appropriately accountable.’ Providing Ethan rehabilitation service instead of trying him in adult court, and charging with the life sentence was not ‘appropriately accountable’ because he had attempted four murders, was drunkenly driving, and was also charged with sexual assault. If trying Ethan in juvenile court was ‘appropriately accountable,’ then why “Two Wisconsin girls who are accused of repeatedly stabbing a schoolmate in an effort to please a fictional character called ‘Slender Man’ should be charged in adult court”(“Judge Rules”¶1)? The only difference in both cases is that Ethan was influenced by wealth, and neglection of his parents and on the other hand, Wisconsin girls were influenced by fictional character ‘Slender Man.’ In both cases, the offenders are teens, but contrasting the decisions of both cases does not