Juveniles Tried As Adults Essay

Growing up I binge watched crime shows, NCIS, Criminal Minds, and Lockdown, you name it I watched it. My interest was always peaked when the shows involved younger people. Somehow this felt more relatable, even though I had never committed a crime and didn’t plan on doing so. It seems that every time a Juvenile commits a crime it is brought to our attention. This got me thinking, is there a level of severity a crime has to reach in order for a juvenile to be tried as an adult. I also wondered should states lower the age at which juveniles can be tried as adults? Now I don’t know too much about the way the judicial system works and how we process criminals, but it has always fascinated me. I figured since the idea of prosecuting juveniles as adults can sometimes be a difficult subject, that I might as well start to look into it. I wanted to do some research and see what it takes to be tried as an adult, and if there are any rules …show more content…
To start my search, I went to the ProQuest database through the ACC library page and under the Criminal Justice Database I typed in “Juvenile tried as adult law.” The first lead I followed in depth was one that showed up in the ProQuest database which talks about The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1995. This Act makes it so when a child 13 years old or older commits a crime with a firearm on federal property they will be prosecuted as an adult. The main sponsor of this bill is Rep. Bill McCollum who is an American Lawyer and politician associated with the Republican party. McCollum believes that you must get tough with the juvenile offenders because many offenders are beyond a point of rehabilitation. Personally, I believe that a large majority of offenders can be rehabilitated especially the younger. This article briefly touched on state transfer laws, so I figured that’s what I would look into