Essay On Should Juveniles Be Tried As Adults

Should Juveniles get waivered to adult criminal court? In today’s law, juveniles are allowed to be waivered into adult criminal court depending on certain circumstances. When a juvenile is transferred to a criminal court, the juvenile would be getting a sentence that an adult would get if they would have committed the same crime. In the past twenty years there has been a lot of changes within the juvenile justice system. Many states have started to lower their age range where juveniles can be transferred to adult criminal court for crimes that they have committed. Today the District of Columbia and all fifty states let the prosecution file a motion and go through the process for a transfer to adult court (NCJA). Florida is one of the most well known states that transfers juveniles over to the adult criminal court. Florida sends more than 60 percent of their juveniles into adult court (Human Rights Watch). In the 60 percent of juveniles transferred to adult court, only 2.7 percent are transferred for murder (Human Rights Watch). In a study done by Bishop and Frazier, they found that juveniles that are transferred to adult criminal court are more likely to …show more content…
Also juveniles are more easily influenced than adults are to do criminal activity by their peers. Juveniles by law commit deviant acts not crimes. Therefore, young children who have committed a deviant act should be rehabilitated to not become a criminal, but to get them out of the crime route. Also if a juvenile is transferred to adult court, they are looked upon as a really bad criminal and should be punished harsher than an adult who committed the same crime. As a society we should try to rehabilitate the juvenile so they become a productive member of society and not just put them in the criminal system. Once they are in the system it is hard for the juvenile to get