Number Of Juvenile Offenders Under Death Sentences example essay topic

If to get in depth into juvenile maltreatment, which can be one of the primary causes of juvenile delinquency, it will be possible to see what drives a juvenile towards committing violent crimes. If a child growth seeing violence in everyday life, it definitely will negatively reflect on the development of personality. Certainly, not all of juveniles will commit violent crimes, but some of them are so full of rage and anger and probably they will not change their antisocial attitudes in the future. A person of 16-18 years old is mature enough to understand what is right and what is wrong. However, some of these young adults may change their attitude towards life in couple of years. Recently, I have heard one song and now I am able to recall some words out of it: how does it feel to loose your life over something that you did as a kid?

From these words, it is possible to see that it is not the best way to change things in sentencing juveniles to capital punishment. Many of them do not have yet structured view on life and their mistakes, are actually about to become last ones. However, studies suggest that about 40 percent of all adolescent criminals return to court It to look on the issue from another point, then even if a juvenile had committed violent crime and will go to prison for a long term, still there nothing good will happen in the life of that person. In the age of 16-18 if a juvenile would be sentenced to a life term life will actually will be over. There were some precedents when people after spending 40 years in prison came out almost in their 60's, but will that person adjust to live in a society after spending such a long time in jail and what actually this person will be able to do?

A little different approach is brought up by 14th Dalai Lam, spiritual leader of Tibet, who says: "I believe that as long as one is alive there is the possibility to change and redress whatever wrong one has done". Current statistics shows that there are 83 juveniles on the death row and all of them are males. They constitute approximately two percent of all death row population. In 16 states and according to federal government the minimum age for capital punishment is 18.

In the United Stated, there had been 18 cases in which men were executed for the crimes committed as juveniles. As of January 1, 2001, 73 persons were on the death row under the death sentences received for juvenile crimes. At the time when they committed their violent crimes, all of them were age 16 or 17, now their ages wary from 18 to 42. Their time of being on the death row is from several months to 22 years. The largest death row for juveniles is in Texas. It holds 33 percent of the national total juvenile offenders.

Two-thirds of juvenile offenders were minorities. It is also known that 83 percent of their victims were white, and half were females. The paradigm case of the juvenile offender on death row is that of the 17 year-old African-American or Hispanic male whose victim is a white adult. The total number of persons under death sentences has increased by 208% in the past fifteen years, reflecting a steady rise from 1,209 in 1983 to about 3,726 in 2000. In contrast, the number of juvenile offenders under death sentences has risen much more slowly.

Thirty-three juvenile offenders were under death sentences at the close of 1983, compared to 73 juvenile offenders today (a 121% increase), but this number has fluctuated back and forth between these two extremes during this decade. This comparatively constant death row population for juvenile offenders results from the fact that the number of new death sentences each year is roughly equal to the combination of death sentence reversals plus executions for juvenile offenders. The question should juvenile offenders get the death penalty had been covered in many articles in magazines and newspapers. This subject is quite difficult because it includes three troublesome issues, such as crime, death penalty, and children. These are very emotional things and especially when mixed together. However, many people do not share common views on them.