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, presently after his beget died, Anthony was hungry, so he reached into the pocket of other 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 lease Anthony as an adult. It was Anthonys ?rst arrest. He spent the next seven weeks -- including his ?rst Christmas since his mother died -- in an adult jail waiting for his court date.

Anthonys story, reported by 60 Minutes II, is, sadly, familiar. Every day, judges and prosecutors shape complex decisions about whether young offenders should be tried as new-fashioneds or adults. Sometimes the choice is do in a retail process repeated daily in juvenile courts or prosecutors offices; at other times, the choice is made, wholesale, by legislative ?at in a process far distant from the juvenile courts.

These choices re?ect deeply held assumptions about the spirit 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 police -- their immaturity and culpability, whether they can be treated or rehabilitated, the warranter threats they pose, and the punishment they deserve. Sending a youth to adult malefactor court usually is irreversible, and it often exposes young lawbreakers to harsh and sometimes toxic forms of punishment, not to mention more unsavory equal in?uences that in many cases have the perverse way out of increasing criminal activity.

In the original juvenile-court reform movement, as historian David Tanenhaus has noted, there was a presumption of childhood; 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: Ordercustompaper.com



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