Nathaniel Abraham, at age thirteen, is on of the nations youngest first-degree murder defendants. When he committed his crime, at age eleven, he was to young to see rated R films but, was old enough to be tried in an ,adult court, as someone who could (Mark P. 1). Juvenile offenders should not be tried as adults under the adult justice system. Societal problems are great influence in the way a child acts and thinks. Therefore, societal problems are a great contributing factor to the reasons why a child has for committing a crime. It is unfair to punish a child as an adult because children don't have the equal amount of maturity as an adult; this is why they have different rights than adults. In many cases a child can, and should be reformed in order to be given another chance to a normal life, and so they may also realize the severity of their crimes. Punishing a child under the adult justice system in not only wrong but it is also unfair.
There are some very important questions we need to ask ourselves. Where did and eleven-year-old get a gun? How did he or she learn to shoot a gun? We forget that society is a great part of our lives, societal problems contribute greatly as to the reasons for why a child has for committing a crime. Many times we choose to only blame the child but like every other crime there is a reason behind it. Juvenile homicide has increased a great deal since 1984 through 1993. "Contributing factors include the proliferation of guns, increases in poverty and drug and alcohol abuse, and the saturation of violence in society, including television, movies and video games. A weakened family structure, which leads to child abuse and lack of supervision, is another factor" (Kaczor 6). The neighborhoods, family, school, and friends are many influencing factors a child has to deal with on a day to day basis. "Criminologist Alfred Blumstein and other have argued, that the large sudden increase in gun killings was tied to the development of crack market in the inner city where fierce turf wars were waged and juveniles were actively recruited by the organizers of the markets" (Kids and Crime 6).
