Know: The difference between adult and juvenile justice
Understand: The role of adolescent development in juvenile justice
Be able to do: Compare two cases of adolescent offenders
Decide which criminals should be tried as adults(if any)
Explain which criteria is important
Step 1: Schema: Should juvenile criminals be charged as adults?
Step 2: Discussion
Step 3: Compare two cases of young men that have committed crimes
Step 4: Discuss which young men should be tried as adults if any.
Step 5: Watch Keynote Address by Elizabeth Scott, Professor of Law, Columbia University Law School
Step 6: Determining criteria for adult criminals.What criteria do YOU think should be met in order to hold an adolescent in an adult court?
Step 7: Homework: Review the basic statistics. Discuss on the blog what you find troubling or worrisome about the the statistics. What would a sociologist be concerned about?
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1 comment:
Make up work.
Answer to Schema:
I think that juvenile criminals could potentially be charged as adults, under certain circumstances. I think that Teenagers should be able to be charged as adults, depending on the severity of the crime they committed. If it was something extreme, such as rape, manslaughter, or murder; then yes, they should be charged as an adult. Also, the reason that they have different ways of handling crimes for adults and minors is because scientifically, the brains of minors are not fully developed, so they don't always have the same sense of right and wrong as adults do. But, I think that if the crime is severe enough, and if the teenager's actions reflect that they knew that what they did was wrong, but chose to do it anyway, then yes, they should deffinatly be charged as an adult.
Step 7 Question:
I found some of these statistics unsettling, however, I can't say I was totally surprised. For example, one of the statistics was "Fewer than half of serious violent crimes by juveniles are reported to law enforcement. This number has not changed significantly in 20 years." I think it's bad that the majority of violent crimes by juveniles are not reported to law enforcement; but after thinking about it, this does not come as a shock to me. Parents have an instinct to protect their children from harm. Even though law enforcement is just trying to help, parents don't want their children getting into trouble when they are that young. When you get involved with the police, you've got that record for life in most cases. It's understandable that parents don't want that for their kids. I don't really like it, but it makes sense.
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