Life Sentence: Should Teen Criminals Be Locked Up For Life?

The way in which a child is raised can have a long term effect on the way that they live their lives. Many people would probably object that the child’s background has nothing to do with their criminal activity because the actions were brought upon by themselves, however examples of juvenile crimes have proven this wrong. The authors of the article “Life sentence: is life without parole for juveniles’ cruel and unusual punishment?”, Dontae Brown and Adele Birkenes, state “People are not born bad. Upbringing and life experience shape the adult that kids become. If a teen commits a murder, shouldn 't the court consider what is happening in his or her daily life?” The court system should look into the juvenile’s background before deciding on their sentence. By doing this it allows the judge to see more on the reason of why the crime was committed in the first place. The child …show more content…
In the article, “Life Behind Bars: Should Teen Criminals be Locked Up for Life?,” the topic of criminals being sent to life in prison is discussed in which parents of victims give their opinions on punishment for juvenile murderers. Parents of victims believe that the “victim’s rights need to be considered in this debate,” as well as the society in which family members feel the need to protect their community from the juvenile. Although it is true that the family of the victim’s suffer through a great deal of pain, their reasoning comes from anger that they feel from recently losing a loved one. Acting from anger is never going to result in a good decision; it will only result in regret later on because the decision was based upon anger and a heat of the moment. Families should be able to consider other forms of punishment for a