Summary Of The Steep Cost Of Keeping Juveniles In Adult Prisons

The article, “The Steep Costs of Keeping Juveniles in Adult Prisons” written by Jessica Lahey states, “Juveniles constitute 1,200 of the 1.5 million people housed in federal and state prisons in this country, and nearly 200,000 youth enter the adult criminal-justice system each year, most for non-violent crimes.” Minors should not be tried as adults because their brains are not developed, they may come from bad backgrounds, and they have their whole life ahead of them, and their life should not be determined by the mistakes they made as a child. Juveniles who are usually 14 or older who have committed serious crimes are tried as adults and are put into adult-state prisons. This is inhumane and unsafe for the child’s physical and mental health. One of the many reasons that minors should not be tried as adults is because their brains are not fully developed, so they cannot make good decisions until they are older, far into their twenties. In the article, “Kids Should Never Be Tried As Adults” written by Robert Schwartz, it says, “Recent brain imaging technology reinforces …the teenage brain is undergoing dramatic changes during adolescence in ways that affect teen’s ability to

Many people just look at just the minors crime and not what lead them to that crime.The minor could have had abusive parents, drug addicted parents, or no parents at all. A different perspective might agree with this and say it simply does not matter what happened during their past. These people believe that some crimes committed by juveniles are just too horrific to let them slide. They believe that if the child is smart enough to plan and execute the crime, then they are smart enough to know the impact and the consequences of their decision. This is unfair to the minor because it is assuming a lot about them, without even considering their