Hello my name is Jael Bailey I am a student at Hillcrest High school currently researching the juvenile justice system and after many encounters with the police, constantly being tormented by them, and being racially profiled. I have realized the impact the system has on today’s society. Thousands of teens are tried as adults put through traumatizing experiences that will carry a long term effect on their lives making almost impossible to function or even live in today’s society. In this letter I will elaborate my reasoning on why I feel teens should be rehabilitated more than just locked up with stone cold killers.
First ask yourself “what do we gain from locking up a 12 year old?” then go ahead and question “should they do life in prison?” Now think at 12 years old the brain is still maturing and processing we make countless mistakes some minor some major but nonetheless they are mistakes, mistakes made by an undeveloped mind honestly acting of emotion. Now I surely don't believe every kid should be off the hook, but i do feel like we should consider how this affects our young american. David Dobbs author of the article Beautiful Brains brilliantly states “ sex, crime, religion, and education believed this period of “storm and stress replicated earlier”” this is simply stating that at younger stages the brain almost persuades teen behavior and can easily give an adolescent bad judgment. Is that the child's fault? Should they be punished for lacking the maturity of an adult? In the show 60 minutes episode titled “Juvenile Injustice?” it brings another concern for juveniles being tried as adults. This concern includes unfair treatment of juveniles due to lack of appropriate gathering of evidence and autopsy. This affects juveniles they fend for themselves in court. Leaving juveniles incarcerated and put through traumatizing experiences. Now yes any form of violence towards another human being is wrong, but the fact that at such a young age and so many years to grow we decide to lock teens up for murder when really they need to rehabilitated, the chance to redeem themselves and become decent beings in humanity. This is no game yet the justice system is constantly playing with young lives not to mention the prejudice acts towards colored teens which is even a bigger problem. They do more harm than good taking lives of young adolescents who know no better. Thank you for your attention. I hope I have convinced you to rethink the trauma that we put juvenile delinquent when we try them as adults. |
From the beggining |
Where we are now |
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Edit this text to make it your own. To edit, simply click directly on the text and start typing. You can move the text by dragging and dropping the Text Element anywhere on the page. Break up your text with more than one paragraph for better readability.
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