Juvenile Offenders
Lee Weng Khin (13) 4O3
Juveniles are mainly responsible for their own crimes. Do you agree?
A juvenile delinquent is a person under the age of 18 and commits an act that otherwise would have been charged as a crime if he was an adult. In most cases, many juvenile offenders often fall into bad company or they lack proper parental guidance. Furthermore, juvenile offenders are still young; they have not reach a level of maturity where they are able to exercise good decision-making. Therefore, I disagree that juveniles are solely at fault for their own crimes. On the contrary, many juvenile offenders were actually aware that their actions were illegal when they committed the crime, hence they should be responsible for their crime.
Firstly, in many juvenile cases, these offenders are found to come from dysfunctional families or hang out with very bad company. These are factors that affect the nature in which the child is being brought up and indirectly affects how the child will behave. An example would be the case where a 14-year-old girl was kidnapped and tortured for 17 days by a group of children, with the youngest one being 11 years old. The youngest offender came from a severely dysfunctional family where her father had been in and out of jail frequently and the mother had to work from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m., resulting in a total absence of any parental supervision at home. This girl hence landed into the care of her two elder siblings, both possessing anti-social traits and had bad company. The lack of proper parental guidance together with the negative examples set by her elder siblings appears to be the root underlying cause for the young girl’s evil doings. Therefore, juveniles should not be mainly responsible for their crimes as some of them do have really bad company and dysfunctional families.
Secondly, juveniles are, after all, still juveniles and many of them are not mature enough to make good and wise decisions on their own. This causes many of them to
Juveniles are mainly responsible for their own crimes. Do you agree?
A juvenile delinquent is a person under the age of 18 and commits an act that otherwise would have been charged as a crime if he was an adult. In most cases, many juvenile offenders often fall into bad company or they lack proper parental guidance. Furthermore, juvenile offenders are still young; they have not reach a level of maturity where they are able to exercise good decision-making. Therefore, I disagree that juveniles are solely at fault for their own crimes. On the contrary, many juvenile offenders were actually aware that their actions were illegal when they committed the crime, hence they should be responsible for their crime.
Firstly, in many juvenile cases, these offenders are found to come from dysfunctional families or hang out with very bad company. These are factors that affect the nature in which the child is being brought up and indirectly affects how the child will behave. An example would be the case where a 14-year-old girl was kidnapped and tortured for 17 days by a group of children, with the youngest one being 11 years old. The youngest offender came from a severely dysfunctional family where her father had been in and out of jail frequently and the mother had to work from 6 p.m. to 3 a.m., resulting in a total absence of any parental supervision at home. This girl hence landed into the care of her two elder siblings, both possessing anti-social traits and had bad company. The lack of proper parental guidance together with the negative examples set by her elder siblings appears to be the root underlying cause for the young girl’s evil doings. Therefore, juveniles should not be mainly responsible for their crimes as some of them do have really bad company and dysfunctional families.
Secondly, juveniles are, after all, still juveniles and many of them are not mature enough to make good and wise decisions on their own. This causes many of them to