y of the death penalty in regards to juveniles. Secondly we will take a short look at the two major court cases that dealt with this issue in the United States. Next this paper will present the factual statistics of the death penalty for juveniles and also take a look at our country’s stance on the issue in the international arena. We will then spend a short time looking at some views on the juvenile death penalty, reasons for the death penalty itself, and the arguments for and against the death penalty for juveniles. Lastly we will conclude with a few thoughts about the issue and the implications that we might have to consider.

Finally, the overall assessment, whether inconclusive or not, was that without retribution and/or deterrence, capital punishment “is nothing more than the purposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering” (1998). Thompson’s sentence was eventually reversed and his case set a precedent still in use today. Victor Streib outlines a few arguments for and against a juvenile death penalty in his collection of research. We will look at a few of each starting with the arguments for. The first argument is that the problem that we have with teenagers committing homicide is much more severe than in other countries (2000). Juveniles also do not respond very well to punishment that is less harsh, forcing the need for more intense corrections, which is the second argument. The third reason deals with our political leaders and their strong emphasis on “harsher punishments” (2000). The last argument for the juvenile death penalty is simply that we cannot solve the root of the problem, the “societal conditions which breed violent juvenile crime.” Therefore we must try to correct the problem through the end result, which is punishment for the crime (2000). The first argument against the juvenile death penalty deals with the study that was mentioned above. Many of these kids come from very bad backgrounds and therefore they have not had the chance to grow up and mature and move on from this difficult time in their life. The second reason opposes hold is that kids of the age we are referring to are not deterred from crime by the death penalty because they have “little realistic understanding of death and instead tend to see themselves as immortal” (2000). Thirdly, opposes believe we must try and start at the root of the problem and improve societal conditions and our neighborhoods (2000). Lastly, another popular view comes from the Thompson case where one justice commented that “...executing [Thompson] eliminates all prospects of rehabilitation and affords no more protection for society than secured imprisonment” (Ricotta, 1988). This reason basically charges the death penalty with giving up on our youth and not offering the chance to reform them. The youngest juvenile executed by the government was a young boy in the country of Yemen (Executions, 2000). He was only thirteen. And while this may seem out of touch for our society we must look at the pros and cons of this issue and evaluate our punishment of juveniles. If we do not, it will be only a matter of time before our thirteen year olds are so out of control to the point where a jury will vote “yes” to take that boy’s life away. To date, the youngest juvenile executed in the U.S. was Sean Sellers of Oklahoma. He was executed in early 1999 for a crime he committed when he was sixteen years old (Promises, 1999).

Gangs often use young kids to go out and be the “trigger pullers” because they know that the younger kids might not have to face capital punishment (Farley & Willworth, 1998). This shows two different sides to the coin on how people view this issue and some of the differing reasons. In Beccaria’s often quotes writing On Crimes and Punishment, he gives us his foundational reason for

Some topics in this essay:
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