Kids Who Kill are Still Kids - Essay Example

Kids who kill are still kids” Today people are living in the world of offenders, victims and witnesses. The crimes are getting crueler and together with it people are becoming more heartless in judging them. That phenomenon seems logical, however, the problem in it is the fact that the court system not only judges brutally the dangerous criminals, but teen age offenders are tried as harshly as adults and sometimes even harder. A lot of adolescent offenders are getting imprisoned in adult prisons, moreover they are getting life sentences without parole, and there are certain facts and cases when death penalty is the punishment. Now let’s remember, that these fatal sentences apply to people who just started their lives. They have started to live but cannot continue, because judicial system does not want to consider that teens are not adults. Their brain and mentality are young and undeveloped. Moreover, court does not count that the most of the juvenile offenders are abused and neglected by their parents. And third, harsh punishment does not lead to reduce the crime rates; oppositely, the likeliness of re-offending is higher after the imprisonment. The reason is mostly hidden in psychic of juveniles. Everything starts from psychology. A difference in adult psychic system and teen’s system makes adults called adults and adolescents called as adolescents. However, that distinction is not easily identifiable or observed; maybe that is why it is so often ignored in a court. If it is not visible does not mean that it does not exist. The dissimilarity begins in the unlike brain structure. Brain researches claim that the growth and the formation of the human brain maintain until the lawful age (Beckman). Moreover, some scientists disagree and declare the age of 25 as the complete brain maturity age (Beckman). According to that fact it is obvious that youngsters think distinctively. First, they are not as capable to control their emotions and “impulses” as adults, what make them more likely to erratic behavior (Beckman). Second, even though a 16-year old boy knows that killing is wrong, he does not think much about the consequences of the action. Teens are not inherent to think about the future, they primarily think about the present, and their estimations about the cost of their actions are very vague or incorrect (Beckman). (Example from Georgia.) In addition to difference in brain between adults and teens there is a variation of how differently a mature and an immature individual uses his brain structures (Beckman). A study shows that the usage of different parts of a brain leads to a different reaction to an external stimulus (Beckman). This is the reason why teens are so irritable and impulsive. There is a fact that around 20 million young Americans are tried for the violent actions (Teens). Nonetheless, all those young psychology’s particularities make teens behave differently from adults not only prior and during crime, but also in “their capacity to grasp the adversarial process of criminal court and their competence to stand trial as adults.”(McCormick) People in teen hood are not able to defend themselves in right way, they don’t know their rights. They are frightened and upset, but don’t know certainly how strappingly the sentence impacts their lives. “Not too bad” was a response of Nathaniel Brazil to nearly 30 years imprisonment punishment (McCormick). This is the way of teen’s perception and understanding of judicial process and sentence, which is again the result of the undeveloped brain and not established psychic. The results of a number of studies and experiments conducted in regards to find out the role of media in increasing smoking habits in adolescents. The advertisement on television, magazines, video games and internet grabs the attention of children and acts as a strong motivational force for them to light a cigarette. They get fascinated to the glamorous way in which the advertisements are made. Television and movies are supposed to have a great impact on alcohol consumption in adolescents. Children, who watch more television, are likely to have increased chances of alcohol consumption. Regardless of the grade of movie, media is continuously exposing alcoholic beverages as a source of fun and fashion. Media is contributing to the likelihood of early sexual initiation in adolescents. Media is influencing the psychosocial environment by sexual exposure on television, music videos, internet and movies. Television is a great cause of adolescents violent and aggressive behaviors. Children who watch aggressive and violent movies are likely to behave aggressively and choose violent games to play than those who do not watch television or violent shows (Chaves, 2008). The problems of smoking, alcohol consumption, violent and aggressive behaviors are severe and need attention to be solved. Media is harming the social, psychological and ethnical condition of adolescents. Media must be used as a helpful technique to stop health compromising habits like smoking, drinking, alcohol consumption, physical inactivity etc. (Douglas Evans, 2008). News is the most common mean of media which exposes violence. In other words we can say that society is full of violence and aggressive behaviors since the news exposes the real but exaggerated picture of our society and crimes. The exposure of such crimes and violent behaviors are resulting in violent and aggressive attitudes of youth and is continuously harming our society. This violence has been increasing ever since media has started to expose violence in almost every program from the movies for youngsters to the news channels. Since the late 90s, media has made the kidnapping incidents its major subject. Kidnapping is one news topic that the media tend to sensationalize. Since the late 1990s, the number of stories about child kidnap­ping in the news has been on the rise. In 1997, for example, 40 percent of juvenile kidnappings were perpetrated by a family member, 27 percent by an acquain­tance, and 24 percent by a stranger (Wilson, 2008). The fact cannot be ignored that children take inspiration from their siblings, parents, friends, teachers and ones they really like or love. The relationship between a child and parent is an important one and the parent is a great source of influence for the child. Through the observation of ancestral and parental habits children pick up the influential practices. Parents, having a great influence on their children, give them a reason to drink (Wilks et al., 1989). Research has shown that the relationship of drinking between parents and children is highly related (D. Herd 1994). Similarly more violent members of the family give them an impression and habit of becominh violent in their future lives. The brain and age immaturity lead to the other problem among teens – abuse. The teens are unprotected from their parents and insane adults. They don’t understand where upbringing of them ends, and where neglecting from parents begins. 33% of children in the USA in 2005 were abused physically, sexually or emotionally (americanhuman). They are in lack of information and ability to protect. So they guard themselves in the way they can. Adolescent can run from the family, however, there is no place to go then. Consequently, they are back to “neglectful” family. They tell about maltreatment to neighbors and in school. Unfortunately, adults do not want to hear it and ignore, or do not understand the seriousness of teen’s words. As a fact of today growing apathetic approach I am asking a question: “Has anybody ever been in situation when he or she saw or heard something similar to crime but didn’t try to help?” I am sure nearly everybody has been encountered such an incident. So it means a lot of people don’t help when they see child maltreatment. According to Kathleen Heide report, most of the children who kill their parents are mistreated by them. Teens kill parents, because they do not see anyone who can help them (Heide). Teens do not have any other choice. So in their mind it is “OK” to kill parent because they are trying to guard themselves. It is the basic that they know, but they don’t know that they can sue their parents too, they don’t know that killing even bad parents could lead them straightly to jail for the rest of their life. Juvenile brain does understand that the killing should be the last effort to go with. A Court system faces lot’s of child abuse cases, however, when they judge a victim of mistreatment for a killing the abuser, they disregard these important and strong extenuating circumstance. Moreover, the most important fact is that 59% of abused children are likely to be arrested as a juvenile (childhelp). There is an example of a boy, who killed his father who had been abusing his son (Heide). This boy Scott who killed his father was sentenced to adult prison. His life is crushed now. However, he was a victim of a crazy adult father (Heidi). Nobody protected the child; he did it for himself (Heidi). However, he turned to be in prison (Heidi). Nobody helped him to avoid it. Nobody protected. Nobody wanted to see, that he is only 15 and he was abused. The people who could stop such thing from happening by paying attention to the child’s irony but did not pay any attention must be tried. It must be considered that imprisonment is not the future of the boy alone who grew in an abusive environment and ended up in prison, the place where abuse is even more likely to happen. Abuse, sexual assault, attack with gun and biting by staff are characteristics of adult facilities. These conditions are invalid for children. Moreover, imprisonment life takes away all chances of youth to be back to normal life. There are several reasons for that. Adult prisons do not provide proper secondary education, which means that teens are left to be uneducated and illiterate in most of the cases. There are high chances that because of the assaults teen will commit suicide, which means that the imprisonment is very close to death sentencing. Most of the teens are not real murderers and did not meant to kill, and when they end up among adult real murderers and killers, their psychological well being is messed up, so it is very likely, that they become real criminals in future. The interesting point is that prison and others kinds of punishments were created to make offenders think about the mistake and regret about it. This regretful feeling and thought about the crime in turn should prevent future crimes. Nevertheless, statistics of juvenile offenders put in prison, show that most of them after prison become recidivists, while in juvenile colony a lot of immature criminals get rehabilitated. “Kids in confinement are much more likely to have had serious problems with hard drugs, hallucinogens and designer drugs than are kids who get into trouble, but avoid incarceration”, says Troy Armstrong at the Center for Delinquency and Crime Policy Studies, California State University. After release, many of them commit new crimes and end up back in jail. A Department of Justice study of prisoners released in 1994 found that more than 82 percent of those under age 18 were rearrested within three years, and more than 55 percent were reconvicted” (Christian). So it means that youth imprisonment leads not to prevention of crime but in opposite cause crimes. Young people are much easier to get rehabilitated and taught the right way of living, because they are immature and flexible to changes. So the imprisonment is a too harsh condition for undeveloped brain even for killer youth. On the other hand, I am not suggesting leaving juvenile offenders without any penalty. The committed crime should be written in their life history forever, especially is murder cases. However, it always should be mentioned that crime was committed in young age. As a punishment, I think they should be placed to specialized juvenile colonies where professionals will help them to get to the right way of living. These colonies should not be the same like prisons, it is better to make them in more educational way. I think there should be lot’s of different classes that will help teen to rehabilitate. Moreover, psychologies should help all of them with their mental problems, stresses; especially professionals should pay attention to teens from abusive families. Teen offenders are criminals who need adult help, so let’s try to give it to them. Another point to consider here is the role of media in today’s world. Different experiments and researches taken place have clearly illustrated that watching violent shows on the television alters the thinking of a child. It makes the child more socially aggressive in the future. “The television violence aggression link turns out to be larger than the link between lead exposure and children’s IQ.” (Wilson, p101). According to the research conducted if children are exposed to a large quantity of lead their brain can get damaged. Their ability to think and concentrate can also be affected if they are exposed to lead. It can lead the children’s brain to perform hyper activities and therefore move towards the path of aggression. Parents must watch ethical movies, programs and news with the children and must explain them the brighter side of the story. Parents are the source who can help their children and reduce the factors that negatively affect children and their physical condition and psychological behaviors. Parents may help children from escaping their fears if they explain them about the special effects used in the horror movie or game. According to Wilson, parents must monitor and help children get rid of fearful, unhealthy and negative influences while connected to any kind of media. Parents are an essential part for the children in getting negative or positive lesson from media. Parental guidance is necessary for helpful and useful outcomes as a result of media usage by their children. Teens are teens they are not allowed to drive, they are not allowed to drink and smoke. A Society bands watching cruel TV programs and erotic movies. They are restricted all around, however, the same society consider them as adults as soon as the case is related to punishment. If adolescent murder, he or she is still adolescent that cannot drive or smoke, but can be treated to adult prison. Nonsense! If we want to prevent future crimes, if we want future generation as a mentally healthy population, we should try to help the young generation in developing graceful and mature personalities. We should try to help abused children, and we should try to rehabilitate youth offenders. In conclusion, we can say that the factors that are contributing in children’s aggressive and violent behaviors must be considered rather than taking such harmful and strict steps against children who are involved in criminal activities. The aim must be to eliminate the risks of such incidents and not merely to punish teenagers. There is a need to review and plan for the betterment of the society through campaignes, awareness programs and education. 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Web. 8 Apr. 2010 http://0-web.ebscohost.com.librus.hccs.edu/ehost/detail?vid=8&bk=1&hid=3&sid=f827f751-fafa-4874-9ef0-641152b92021%40sessionmgr14&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=pbh&AN=14081046 Read More