Everyday juveniles are being tried in adult criminal court. Between 1992 and 1997 forty-four states and the District of Colombia passed laws facilitating the transfer of juveniles to the adult system. Senators are steadily weighing tougher standards for juvenile offenders, partly because of massacres like Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado. The juvenile system, which started in England, was invented to reteach values and morals to the young, rehabilitate them, and give them a second chance at a happy life (Glick 25). Juvenile offenders should not be tried as adults because they will suffer physical and psychological damage, endure societal alienation, and possibly reoffend the law.
Juvenile offenders should not be tried as adults because they suffer physical and psychological damage while incarcerated with adults. It is ironic, that American society- so concerned with preventing child pornography and protecting children from material with sexual content sets the scene for children to be sexually exploited in prison (Singer 70). According to Simon Singer, author of Recriminalizing Delinquency young or young looking inmates face a hugely magnified risk of rape in prison (72). Adult prisons tend to brutalize juveniles. They are eight times more likely to commit suicide and five times more likely to be sexually abused .
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than offenders held in juvenile facilities. "I have not heard of one making it more than a week in population without being "laid," a Nebraska inmate (Singer 72). Prison suicides occur at a rate of eighteen per 100,000 that is one third more than in the community. There are three stressors that have been identified specifically related to suicide among adolescents: recent disapproval or rejection; severe disciplinary crisis with fear of consequences; and anxiety over an impending change (Singer 74). It is believed that many youth commit suicide while incarcerated because they may have received a lengthy sentence and feel hopeless.