Lionel Tate Research Paper

A twelve year old murdering a six year old, a 16 year old robbing a convenience store, and even a young student shooting his teacher cold blood, all of these are cases in which young children have done heinous crimes and have been put away for most of their life. These children are taking away from society for years in order to protect the common good but this type of situation may be detrimental to the individual. Many studies have suggested that at a young age, children respond with the phrase “I do not know” to many of the questions posed to them because they honestly do not know why they did that or said that. Even though removing them for the common good to insure the protection of others, this type of punishment is destroying the next generation.
Lionel Tate was the youngest person person in America to ever sentenced to life without the possibility of parole. He was just 14 years old when he was charged with the murder of six year old Tiffany Eunick, the recount of the evening told by both his mother and Lionel goes as, his mother, Kathleen, was asked to watch Tiffany for the evening. Kathleen and Tiffany's mother had grown up together in Jamaica. Lionel Tate was only 12 years old at the time. After dinner, Lionel and Tiffany were watching a