In March 2001, 14-year-old Lionel Tate was convicted in Florida of first degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, without the possibility of parole. Florida is just one of many states that have over the past decade enacted laws to try offenders such as Tate as adults. And under Florida state law, a conviction of first-degree murder requires a mandatory sentence of life in prison. Tate was just 12 when he battered a six-year-old girl to death while pretending to be a pro-wrestler. But when those who had fought hard for his conviction saw the pudgy adolescent crying at his sentencing, the actual adults in this case indicated that they were having second-thoughts as to the appropriateness of this societal strategy. Prosecutor Ken Padowitz, for example, having succeeded in his goal of convicting Tate, vowed publicly to intercede on Tate's behalf and ask Florida Governor Jeb Bush to commute the sentence, and the Governor has promised to consider it (Ripley 34). As this indicates, the country is far from certain how to best handle youthful offenders who commit violent and/or serious crimes.

Likewise, from a Kantian point of view, prosecution of juveniles under adult statutes constitutes problems when a wider view of situation is taken. Kantian morality is predicated on duties. While citizens have a duty to the state to follow its laws, societies also have a duty to the citizenry that has obviously gone very wrong when young lives turn so drastically from societal norms. Research conducted by the RAND Corporation into alternative treatments for juveniles suggests that "investing in graduation incentives for disadvantaged youth could prevent four times as many crimes as spending the same amount on prisons" (Anonymous 2).

For most of the twentieth century, Americans have typically taken the perspective that juvenile delinquents deserve more of a second chance then their adult counterparts, a stance that is predicated on the idea that the moral character of these individuals is less formed and more malleable to change in a positive direction (Anonymous 2). Because of this perspective, minors have been tried and punished differently from adults. However, the rate of homicides committed by minors rose and peaked in the mid-1980s, with some particularly vicious, high-profile crimes receiving a great deal of publicity and shocking the public (Anonymous 2). This caused quite a few states to pass laws that made it easier to prosecute minors ad adults, and to sentence them as adults as well.

The proof an any strategy to improve sociological conditions is; does it work? Treating juvenile offenders as adults may appear logical, and emotionally satisfying, in the short term, but in the long term, it doesn't work. Treating juveniles as adults is rather like amputating a leg at the first sign of infection. Such drastic action certainly stops the infection, but, in the long run, it limits the ability of the person; or the society; to move forward.

The wisdom of this trend, however, is currently being debated. The ultra-conservative criminologist John Dilulio of Princeton University; the man who coined the phrase "super-predator" to describe the callous youth who menace the streets of large cities, recently wrote that incarcerating these juveniles offenders alongside adults is a

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