Nick's full essay

Topic: Should a penalty for juvenile offenders be reduced?

Introduction

In recent years, the juvenile crime has become a social problem. The number of juvenile delinquency keeps increasing rapidly. In all the crimes of personnel, juvenile delinquency occupied the highest proportion. Especially, comparing with the past, there are some changes which contain the crime types, properties and damage degree. Obviously, this kind of phenomenon is very serious. In most of countries, the penalty for juvenile offenders should be reduced by law. The juvenile before age 18 is experiencing an important stage of physiological and psychological development. These juvenile offenders are allowed to get less punishment than adults. It leads to less scruple while crime. In fact, it is the main reason for the result. Therefore, it is a really serious issue considered how to balance the penalty for juvenile crime. In my essay I am going to talk about the point with agreement and disagreement of reducing a penalty for juvenile crime. And due to the impact of society about juvenile crime, I will support that the penalty for juvenile crime should be reduced.

The reason to support

Most of juvenile offenders are 14 to 18 years old. As juvenile is experiencing a stage of physiological and psychological development, it is not easy to distinguish what is good or bad for them. They have no enough independent ability to live in a society. In this stage, education acts an important role in juvenile’s life. And, it is mainly provided by family and school. When a juvenile commits a crime, his family and school have essential responsibilities. Maybe due to their negligence, an unpredicted crime will happen. For example, when a little boy was beaten by his classmates, they came back home and told his parents what happened. A dangerous result is that his parents may instigate him make reprisals with more violent methods. As lack of the basic judgment ability, and the trust for parents, it is hard to think about what will happen next. If the retaliation breaks the law, that is who will be responsible for this crime, a little boy? The answer is absolutely not. Because of the wrong way to educate, parents have more responsibility for it. Furthermore, in today’s society some phenomenon which is more serious than this example can be seen everywhere. For instance, school only focus on improving younger students’ knowledge level, but forget to concern about their psychological health. In fact, during this stage, school must be responsible for their psychological education. Therefore, if education is not enough for juvenile by family, school or society, it will cause that some juvenile who are lack of judgment ability may be close to crime. According to statistics, some juvenile who live in a split family, the crime rate is 4 times than others living in normal family. Obviously, in some case when a juvenile crimes, the environment where he lives also have an important responsibility. So it is really necessary to reduce the penalty of juvenile offenders.

The reason to against

In recent years, juvenile crime has become a serious issue. According a research, the crime rate has increased 60% which involves murder, robbery, rape and other serious offences. Due to lots of horrible affairs by juvenile, government has been asked whether it needs to amend the law for juvenile offenders. The awful situation has a close relation with lenient punishment for them. Furthermore let us consider a question, why the criminal circumstances by juvenile are more and more serious. Except for subjective factors, such as environment, education and personal qualities, the punishment for crime is also important. For an instance, before committing a crime, most of offenders will consider the result which contains their aim and a possible punishment after doing that. If they ignore the final punishment, they may decide to commit crime. So it is really necessary to aggravate penalty in order to warn every person at any time. Furthermore, keep the penalty as the same as adult is helpful to improve the present education. Family, school and society will pay more attention on this. The possibility of juvenile delinquency will decline. so the penalty for juvenile offenders could not be reduced.

Conclusion
To sum up, there are some benefits and disadvantages of reducing the penalty for juvenile offenders. In a short view, juvenile offenders should be responsible for their crime, especial for those with a serious circumstance. Severe punishment could remind people not to do something which are illegal. Sometimes that is efficiency. But as we all know, even if the death penalty exists in lots of countries, the crime rate never go down. Therefore in a long-term view, severe punishment could not change a lot. In my opinion, the penalty for juvenile offenders should be reduced. Using the penalty as the same as adults for juvenile means that their whole life will be impacted seriously. Their future is dark. There is no opportunity to contribute their family or society. In contrast, if the key is to focus on education, punishment just as a supplementary, these juvenile offenders may remorse and reform so that they could do some meaning things. So what the government should do is to balance the penalty and education for juvenile. A suitable punishment rules should be considered from now.


Reference:
http://www.cwla.org/programs/juvenilejustice/juveniledeathpenalty.pdf
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/2846263/Child-crime-rate-reaches-crisis.html
http://socialissues.wiseto.com/Articles/FO3020630074/
http://criminal.findlaw.com/crimes/juvenile-justice/when-minor-commits-crime.html
http://heinonline.org/HOL/Page?handle=hein.journals/kjpp5&div=14&g_sent=1#137