The Importance Of Life Sentence In Prisons

A juvenile can be tried as an adult and be given a life sentence in prison for numerous reasons, but the main one being murder. According to the Offices of The United States Attorneys, a juvenile is someone who has "not attained his eighteenth birthday." In other words, a juvenile is a minor, which is someone who is under the age of eighteen. A juvenile is someone who is legally not yet considered an adult in the eyes of the law. A juvenile is basically a child. Although the child may have committed a heinous crime, it is cruel to try him/her as an adult and thus possibly receiving a life sentence. No child should have to spend the rest of their life in a prison cell. Juveniles started being automatically tried as adults for their crimes some time in the nineties due to a theory that rised up. The article "Parsing sentence: Juveniles in prison" in The Economist explains the theory, "In 1995 a Princeton professor, John Dilulio, predicted that young 'superpredators ' would number in the hundreds of thousands by 2010" (Economist). This theory made many people afraid and so many states prepared for what was expected by automatically trying every juvenile offender as an adult, resulting in many life sentences …show more content…
The two are completely different. An adult has had many more years of life, giving them a better understanding of what is right and what is wrong. The brain of an adult and the brain of a juvenile do not function the same way. An adult brain is more developed. Gail Garinger, a former judge, in her New York Times article "Juveniles Don 't Deserve Life Sentences" argues, "Young people are biologically different from adults. Brain imaging studies reveal that the regions of the adolescent brain responsible for controlling thoughts, actions and emotions are not full developed. They cannot be help to the same standards when they commit terrible wrongs" (Garinger). This means