Juveniles Deserve Life Sentences Analysis

Life is too precious to be thrown away and sometimes people make wrong choices at an early age, but that does not mean that it should affect the rest of their life. Sometimes people make wrong choices at a young age that if an adult were to commit, would affect them to several years in prison or even life. When a youth commits a crime, they are considered juveniles and are dealt with the Juvenile Justice Department. The Juvenile Justice Department decides what kind of punishment the Juvenile gets and in some cases, they are waivered into adult court and punished the same way an adult would be punished. It is right to punish a juvenile with sufficient amount of punishment, but to punish them the same way as an adult is wrong after teaching them
The Juvenile Justice Department takes a different approach when punishing Juveniles. The overall goal is to punish these juveniles to learn to not commit crimes in the future. When a juvenile is tried as an adult, they are being told that they are not going to prison to learn their lesson, but rather to specifically get punished. In an article entitled, “Juveniles Don’t Deserve Life Sentences” published by New York Times, states how when a Juvenile is sentenced to die in prison they are told “that they could never change and that no one cared what became of them. They were denied access to education and rehabilitation programs and left without help or hope.”(Gail Garinger). A Juvenile has the ability to change and become better people, but when they are punished like adults, it ignores the concept that they are still young and have the opportunity to change. If a person tells a juvenile that no one cares about them and that there is no hope for them, which encourages them to not be a better person and to continue to commit the same crimes. When a adult and a juvenile commit the same crime there is many differences of what could occur in the future. Juveniles are still young and have a long life ahead of them of influences. They are influenced very easily and if taught the right things can grow up
A juvenile commits a crime because their world revolves around crime and violence. Not only is it that a juvenile might have been raised surrounded by violence, but as well as abuse inside the house and even at school. In a article entitled "Phil Chalmers Says He's America's Leading Juvenile Homicide Expert” published by Newsweek, discuses the situation of trying to stop school shootings and what makes a teenager do such acts. It brings up a point from Phil Chalmer, a leading juvenile homicide expert, that “kids kill for 10 reasons: an abusive home life and bullying; violent entertainment and pornography; anger, depression and suicide; drug and alcohol abuse; cults and gangs; easy access to and fascination with deadly weapons; peer pressure; poverty and a criminal lifestyle…”(Victoria Bekiempis). Most of the reasons why a juvenile commits a crime is because they are influenced by their experiences, while adults have another reason to commit a crime. Chalmer contimues to add on that there are different types of killer youths and that based on their reasons, it reflects what type of killer they are, which can range from a family killer to a thrill killer. It is easy to influence a youth to do such crimes, but is also easy to change them into not commitng the same crime. People do not consider that the youth are a victim of many violence situations, including terrorism. When an