The main reason that juvenile delinquents should be tried as an adult in court is because it is time that juveniles accept responsibility for their actions, society must no longer give minors a slap on the wrist and send out a message that it is okay to do a crime, because they won’t probably have to do any time or eve

According to Joan McCord, a professor of the criminal justice department at Temple University and Cathy Spatz Widom, a professor of the psychiatry department at New Jersey Medical, “it's time for the federal government to provide states with funds and other incentives to develop community-based alternatives for juvenile offenders and move away from institutionalization” (par. 10).

Along with my argument, that juveniles should be treated as adults when and only when they commit heinous crimes, I believe that they shouldn’t be subjected to spending the rest of their lives with adult criminals until they are at least 18 years of age. What I believe the government should do is build separate facilities for juveniles who have committed serious crimes, separate from adults and juveniles who’ve committed minor crimes. This is a way to teach young people a lesson that crime isn’t the way to go in life, yet it is keeping children safe from being raped, beaten, killed, and committing suicide.

“The maximum punishment that criminals prosecuted as juveniles can receive is time at a juvenile correctional facility until 21, regardless of their age when they committed the crime” (Chan par. 3). If a 17 year old was tried for murder as a juvenile, they may only get the maximum, four year sentence in the correctional facility. This would be an insult and slap in the face to society and especially to the victim and his or her family. “…A few years at a juvenile correctional facility is an unjust punishment that fails to serve the victims and safeguard society from danger” (Chan par. 6). Under the juvenile maximum punishment policy, “young killers could be back on the streets by the age of 21, ready to commit more crimes (Chan par. 3). This is why longer and harsher punishments for crimes committed should be not only taken in the adult criminal system, but in the juvenile system as well.

Sentencing juveniles to adult sentences is probably the worst possible means of rehabilitation. Teenagers placed in prison with adults generally suffer horrific outcomes. Frequently raped and beaten, they become increasingly alienated from general s

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