Juveniles and Death Penalty
Death penalty in all the judicial systems in the world is the cruelest and the ultimate punishment. There is no harsher punishment than death itself, whether it’s administered on a juvenile, or an adult. The worst case is on the juvenile death penalty, a sentence rendered on individuals with the highest capacities for behavioral change, unlike the adults. The society teaches children to be innovative, explore, and that some life mistakes will teach them life lessons. In this regard, the petty crimes committed by children are often punishable by parents. Those whose punishments go beyond the petty crimes are anchored to the existing laws. The death penalty by definition is the punishment by execution administered to a person legally convicted of a capital crime. The types of legally recognized capital crimes range from murder to drug trafficking. Most juveniles may be convicted of these capital crimes just because they were used as vessels, and thus not the sole perpetrators of such capital offenses. Thanks to the Supreme Court verdict of 2005. Death penalty against the juveniles is a harsh and unusual punishment unless there exists an absolute warranty to offer such sanctions provided within the laws.
The death penalty as a punishment for the juveniles violates the primary purpose of the juvenile justice system. The justice system for the minors was formed with the principal purpose of holding the young offenders accountable for their delinquent acts while providing treatment (Cox et al, 2017). The rehabilitative services would ensure the juveniles do not get involved in future law-violating behaviors. Children in the society are always given second chances for behavioral change since some of the offenses they commit are rendered unintentional. However, the cruel judicial system wanted to administer the death penalty even for those offenses committed before their 18th birthdays (Siegel & Welsh, 2014). This implies that if a child commits a capital offense at 16 years, and the period for incarceration is two years, the juvenile may end up being subjected to absolute sentences. This calls for the review of the incarceration periods for the minors alongside the review on the death penalty. Courts in the US are full of juveniles who committed capital offenses before their 18th birthday, and are now subject to capital punishment, and life imprisonment without parole.
Children cannot function as adults. Most societies constitutionally recognize the fact that children are those under 18 years old. For the same reasons, most laws including those stipulated in the US judicial system take special steps to protect children from the dire consequences of their actions (Zimring & Rushin, 2013). In so doing, such laws seek to ameliorate the harms resulting from the wrong choices children make, and thus offering them a second chance (Cox et al, 2017). If the same laws prohibit individuals under the age of eighteen from serving in the military, voting, and on juries, then the same paradigm should be applied in the judicial systems while rethinking on administering the death penalty to juveniles. The alienation already speaks volumes about the indifferences between children and adults. Therefore, when serving justice, children should be served with a similar consideration different from adults. The punishment for capital offenses by death should be more inclined to adults than the juveniles (Cox et al, 2017). Psychologists have also ventured into numerous research works, and they have unanimously concluded that even though adolescents should be held accountable for the actions, they cannot be fairly held accountable to the same extent as the adult counterparts.
The social goals of the death penalty are retribution and deterrence. Punishment as a deterrence has been a goal for decades. The concept of deterrence works in most cases even if it should not be applied to all criminals, and especially the juveniles. Nevertheless, from a different perspective, some cases, which have been presented before the judicial systems in the US would attract sympathy for the prosecutors of the juveniles. Some of these prosecutions are genuine, and this made the judicial system to deliberate on giving execution to the juveniles (Zimring & Rushin, 2013). Let’s brush over the very first case of the juvenile death penalty where Thomas Graunger was executed for bestiality in 1642 to Stanford v. Kentucky in 1989. In Stanford’s case, the Supreme Court case sanctioned the imposition of the death penalty on the juvenile offenders of at least 16 years at the time of the offence (Zimring & Rushin, 2013). Kevin Stanford murdered Barbel Poore in Kentucky by shooting when he was 17 years of age. When such historical injustices are replicated in today’s American society, where debates are still on about gun control, then some justification on the juvenile death penalty arises (Cox et al, 2017). In some occasions, some juveniles are sentenced to a lesser punishment, and for a year or two, they are out of the prisons and back to the streets to execute similar offenses.
Death penalty for the juveniles is, in general, a harsh punishment. The juvenile courts must thus decide when the waiver discretions are fundamental so that not every time the juveniles are subjected to death punishments. The juvenile death penalty violates the prime purpose of the juvenile’s justice system. The main aim of the juvenile justice system was to operate like a correctional facility, where the offenders are held accountable for their acts to provide treatment. However, the different twists in the US’s judicial system seem to violate the primary goal. Children are inferior to adults in many aspects. What adults can do and the constitutional provisions are peculiar to ages. So when it comes to the death penalty, the same paradigm should apply. Nevertheless, some of the capital offenses committed by the juveniles attract punishment by death. Capital offenses such as deliberate shootings are punishable like in the case of adults.
References
Cox, S. M., Allen, J. M., & Hanser, R. D. (2017). Juvenile justice: A guide to theory, policy, and practice. Sage Publications.
Siegel, L. J., & Welsh, B. C. (2014). Juvenile delinquency: Theory, practice, and law. Cengage Learning.
Zimring, F. E., & Rushin, S. (2013). Did Changes in Juvenile Sanctions Reduce Juvenile Crime Rates; A Natural Experiment. Ohio St. J. Crim. L., 11, 57.