See I dont think most understand the Psychological part of this. My speech teacher mastered in it. She told us that a part of the brain is not formed fulled until the age of 24. Thats what makes people do things they dont know about.

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i tottally agree with this

I know that you think that by the time a kid is 11 you should be able to try them in adult court but that is not right. First off people give there opinion so freely when half of the cases people do not know enough about to give there opinion. There are lots of things that people dont know when they say yeah kill the kid or send him to jail because he shot his mom or dad or whatever. But that is only half the story you have no idea why they did it. And yes I do think that it is wrong no matter what reason they had for doing it that it was wrong and they should not have done it. But a human brain does not mature fully until you are almost 24 years old. Yes people know right and wrong way before they are 24. That is why when we are 18 we are considered adults and are automatically tried in adult court. But the whole point of the Juvenile justice system is that it gives juveniles that have done things in the past the chance to rehabilitate. When you are younger if you go through the system get help and support you have a great chance of turning your life around. Either way the kid that is tried in adult will go to jail and then will just have a longer sentence and get out later in there life. But they will mostly likely get out and the statistics on kids that went to jail are more likely to re offend when they get out of jail, because they have been by serious criminals they have been subject to violence everyday and so then they will get out and do the same thing over. Where as if tey get the chance to get help and rehabilitation they are more likey not to re offend and then someone has got a second chance at a better life. And if they do get out and then re offend then they will be tried in adult court and can go to jail  then. So either way they will most likely get out so you can give them a chance to make good or let them get harsh punishment then do it again after they spend there 25 or 30 years in prision. Yes people know right for wrong but if you all claim to know right from wrong you would know it is wrong to give someone the death penalty we are killing someone because they killed or murdered someone else how wrong and hypocritical is that. 

okay all that is right but teens are being punished much harsher than adults!

I think that all teens who commit a crime should be trialed as an adult bcuz they should know from right and wrong..!

 I agree with part of what you are saying if a juvenille did not know it was wrong to kill someone he can be defined as guilty except insane ,i believe they give minors lighter sentences ,because children  are reformable and often ignorant also its sort of religious like the day when a child realizes he is responsible for his soul and i believe many of those minors can realize that after they are convicted and thus be remormed.also some minors commiting these crimes areinfluenced by gangs and in reality many times have not been shown wrong from right,and considering that they are not treated as adults that should be considered also very very few of these crimes have anything to do with murder.your  idea is being used way to often now ,and is being coupled with the idea of taking nonviolent young redeemable criminals and locking them up for life like armed robbers getting 60 years for holding theyre hand in theyre pocket saying i have a gun and robbing a couple of convienience stores that isconsidered intent ,and they are not necessarily treated any different than someone with a real gun. the fact that an 11 year old (who may have been forced to do such a thing by his gang) (it happens in my town bloods use kids like that as crash dummies for jobs like that all through our county and the huge cities around us.)will be doing a minimum of 45 years in georgia can't be a good idea ,but many people here in texas seem to think criminals don't deserve a chance no matter what ,it's getting to the point that nonviolent young criminals have no chance at getting out or contributing or having a child ,but if we start(well keep )trying kids as adults its going to have terrible consequinces i have had two friendthat each did a year for an  armed robbery when they were fourteen now they turned theyre lives around and are both just normal dudes that according to an arkansasjudge have done theyre time .all they needed was some easy time to suffer through and theyre gonna get to live theyre life almost normal again,because they learned theyre lesson not necessarilly the easy way but the fair way. there are guys in towns near me like dallas where people like dennis wayne hope  who got 80 years for a handful of armed robberies. this is happening all the time,and even though he messed up if he could have goten out he could have had a family and created a new life and i doubt he would have escaped from his prison causing him to spend the rest of his life in solitary .he'll (just like many other better examples whose names i dont know)never get paroll ,due to the recent law changes.that means the family he could have had will never exist ,its sort of like the kid in south carolina facing a minimum of 10 years for 2 armed robberies with a bb gun. in georgia the minimum sentence for even pretending to have a weapon in an armed robbery is 45 years sure im 15 and i know better and all teens do to a certainly reasonable extent ,but what your saying would mean ruining all these peoples lives often without them getting a chance at redemption when rapists get out faster than these teenagers i think that means theres a problem and considering its an average minimum of 50g's a year to house a prisoner i think since those ''kids''  arent treated like adults or given the same rigts why should they be given the same punishment as adults and end up doing hard time getting sexually assaulted just to make an example out of them thats not justice ,and one more thing prison is not going to reform juveniles  like juvey sometimes does  ,my sister is a commissioned officer i.e.prison guard at the prison in texas with the highest inmate on inmate violence and overall most violent inmates (the  telford unit) and  seeing how things are there i dont think an eleven  year old should be held that standard like an adult.with these minors knowing only prison life they would end up going back .thats why they have boot camp for many in this situation and it is proving itself effect compared to prison.so over all  i believe its just wrong to punish teens as adults.

thirteen, not fourteen.  I meant thirteen.

ooops, meant to post (above) down here.

That's a good point OceanFey.   I think if they do "bad things" under fourteen they should be punished as children, but the resposibility would also fall on the paretns for not keeping them in line.  I mean, if they are that young and doing bad things, their parents are obviously too busy to pay attention to them or spend time with them.  I mean  things like murder and like REEAALLY bad fealonies should be treated as adult crimes, because, what child has not been taught since the age of one that killing is bad?  It's just common sense.  But other, more common crimes after age fourteen shoud be treated as adults, and under fourteen as children.

hmmm, good point.

I totally agree with you nicely written!!!! :D

I totally agree with your article!!!!! :D

why are you doing this? It is rude to the person whose writing this is that you post something liek this. I can't believe this is happening within Teen Ink now, its absolutely crazy! :(

Some kids go to high school at later ages due to failing grades and some start doing bad things way earlier than high school.

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i agree that they should be tried as adults. they know whats going on. there not idiots.

That's what I was going to say when I read it!  That's typically what age is considered "teen."  Either that, or once they get into high school.

i agree with you but eleven seems a bit too young to me i would've said 13

I think it really depends on the crime such as felonies and murder.

why do you need to do that? you are a teen not an adult and if you do something wrong you should be tried the same way because it's against the law