Adolescents, Maturity, And The Law

Anthony Laster was a 15-year-old eighth-grader with an IQ of 58 who was described by relatives as having the mind of a 5-year-old. One day in 1998, now after his beget died, Anthony was hungry, so he reached into the pocket of different student in his Florida middle school and took $2 in lunch money. The boys family report the crime to the authorities, and the local prosecutor, Barry Kirscher, decided to affiance Anthony as an adult. It was Anthonys ?rst arrest. He spent the next seven weeks -- including his ?rst Christmas since his get died -- in an adult jail waiting for his court date. Anthonys story, report by 60 Minutes II, is, sadly, familiar. Every day, judges and prosecutors make up complex stopping points about whether young offenders should be tried as new-fashioneds or adults. Sometimes the choice is do in a retail process repeated daily in late courts or prosecutors offices; at other times, the choice is made, wholesale, by legislative ?at in a process fa r aloof from the juvenile courts. These choices re?ect deeply held assumptions about the impression of teen crime, how society should react to it, and adolescence itself.

The two court systems re?ect sharply contrasting ideas about adolescents who break the legal philosophy -- their immaturity and culpability, whether they can be treated or rehabilitated, the warrantor threats they pose, and the punishment they deserve. Sending a youth to adult shepherds crook court usually is irreversible, and it often exposes young lawbreakers to harsh and sometimes toxic forms of punishment, not to mention more unsavory capable in?uences that in many cases have the perverse means out of i ncreasing criminal activity. In the origi! nal juvenile-court meliorate movement, as historian David Tanenhaus has noted, there was a presumption of childishness; except the most incorrigible youths were transferred to the adult criminal court, and the decision was made by the judge. Had Anthonys case arisen during the ?rst three-quarters of the 20th...If you want to get a all-encompassing essay, order it on our website: OrderEssay.net

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