Adult Prison Research Paper

Sentencing Kids to Adult Prisons Is Like Throwing Them to the Wolves
By Megan Newell Kids who commit serious crimes should not go scot-free. If society doesn't recognize them as adults until the age of 18, why do kids suddenly become responsible as an adult when they commit a crime? Children have as much business in a prison as they do a bar. Yet, twenty-three states have no minimum age. Two, Kansas and Vermont, can try 10 year old kids as adults. An adult tried and convicted of first-degree murder can be sentenced to life in prison with out parole or possibly the death penalty, depending on the laws in the state where the crime was committed. This means that a juvenile tried and convicted of the same crime in adult court faces the same
was charged with arson when he was 16 years old. He was tried and sentence as an adult. He was sentenced to eight years in an adult prison. His first year was spent in a prison in Abilene, Texas. He was then transferred to the Clemens Unit in Brazoria County. That is where Rodney Jr. was raped, beaten, and forced to perform sex acts. His request to be placed in protective custody was denied more than once. When Rodney Jr. asked for help, the guards brushed it off. Seventy-five days after Rodney Jr. entered Clemens, he committed suicide. He had finally put up with too much, which he would have never put up with if he was tried as a juvenile. He had fallen into depression where he acted on it and hung himself. (The Experience of a Child in a Texas Prison, By Rodney Hulin, http://www.nospank.net/hulin.htm) That's a sad yet true story written by Rodney Jr.'s father. In Ohio, six adult prisoners murdered a 17-year-old boy while he was incarcerated in the juvenile cellblock of an adult jail. Rodney and the boy from Ohio show us why juveniles do not belong in adult prisons. If a minor is not tried as an adult, his or her, case is heard by a judge, no jury and in a juvenile court. Then a judge gets to decide what is in the best interest for the child and the child's family. A lot of children that commit crimes come from screwed-up backgrounds and could use some help getting on the right track. So a juvenile judge could sentence the child to a reform school or a juvenile facility with a rehabilitation program and release as the