adult trials for juveniles (a poll)

[Mike70]

this is something that i am pretty well against, except for certain crimes and then it should only be applied to folks who are 16 or 17 (maybe 15 in the case of murder). kids 14 and under are not adults by any stretch of the imagination. they shouldn't be held to the same standards as adults because quite simply they aren't adults. children, in my opinion, ought to be treated like children.

when i hear of cases like in the one recently in AZ where the cops and prosecutors want to try an 8 year old as an adult, i don't know whether to laugh or cry. is that how ate up we are getting as a country that we expect an 8 year to be held to the standards of adulthood? pretty sick in my book. there are plenty of kids in the US who have been tried as adults at ages like 10 or 11. that makes no sense to me at all.

[Exatreides]

I dont think it should be by age, but by severity of crime.

[Publius]

Age should be one factor. Severity of the crime should be another. The facts of the case should be a third. That is, under the specific circumstances, should it have been obvious to someone of the defendant's age and maturity level that what they were doing was highly illegal?

[Bub666]

I think it should depend on what kind of crime the kid commits.

[Philly_SWAT]

I think it should depend on what kind of crime the kid commits.

Absolutely Bub. A big problem that has crept up in our society due to "political correctness" is that just disciplining kids can be construed as "abuse", punishable by law. Not just spanking a kid, but yelling at him mean could get parents in trouble if the law wanted to make it for them.

Some kids are just mean, have no moral center, and only want to do wrong and hurt people. Sometimes this is due to poor and/or no parenting, and sometimes it is just because of genetics...nothing the parents could have done different to make them a "good" kid. So what to do in cases like that? If jails and so called "treatment programs" were not bogged down with an overload of drug users who are called "criminals" for smoking weed, there would be more jail space, better justice system, and more doctors available to try to help kids such as this.

[SymphonicX]

I say charge the parents or guardians....

[Chic Freak]

Children shouldn't have equal responsibilities to adults unless and until they have equal rights to adults.

[Tricky]

I think they should have adult trials,then they might just grasp the severity of what they've done.Such as in the james bulger case,those "children" kidnapped, tortured & murdered that toddler,yet are now living anonymous lives among society!yes they were locked up in young offenders institutions as teenagers,but they were educated to a higher standard than most kids get the chance to be,and they now have complete police protection over their identities & have been set up in decent jobs etc,call that justice?to say they were kids at the time & didnt realise what they were doing was wrong is a cop out :mad:
A girl i know had her best friend murdered by a 16 year old chav w*nker recently ( http://www.bridlingtonfreepress.co.uk/news/Boy-16-denies-murder.4685882.jp ) and that sh*t wont be getting a proper adult trial either, meaning he'll likely get let off on a lesser charge & be back out in a few years.