An adolescent is not allowed to drink, smoke, get married, or sign legal contracts because they aren’t capable of making mature decisions. The Brains of adolescents aren’t fully developed until the age of 25. Teenagers also like to do pointless challenges and last of all teens don’t think of the consequences their actions might have. In many poor communities, they’re born into households where they commit crimes. Teenagers are like a sponge they absorb everything they see and if they see someone steal the think it’s alright to do it.
Throughout many years, kids have been committing crimes in many states that have gotten them unreasonable sentences. Teens should be tried as teens, not as adults. The brains of adolescents aren’t fully developed till the age of 25. The adults and the teen brain works differently. The adults brain think with the prefrontal cortex. This is the brain’s rational part. This is the part that responds to situations with good judgment and awareness of their long-term consequences. In the other hand, teens process the information with the emotional part of their brains.
This part of the brain is the amygdala which is responsible for the reactions including fear and aggressive behaviors. The connection between the emotional and decision making are still being developed. This is why when teens are emotional and don’t know what they were doing. For example last year at my old high school, my friend Ivan got into a fight with another kid because of a girl. He was only processing with his emotional part of the brain. He got suspended and his parents took his car. After he came back he told me that he didn’t know what he was thinking. That she wasn’t worth getting in a fight for.
This is an example how teens don’t think about what they’re doing. Teenagers also act in an impulse they don’t stop and think about their potential consequences. They don’t know how to stop and think of a better way to solve their problem because their brain isn’t developed. Teens also misinterpret social cues and emotions that make them act with an impulse of what their feeling. Teens are also not able to modify their dangerous or inappropriate behaviors. This is why many teens get into fatal car accidents. Teens aren’t capable of thinking what they’re doing and that’s why they do pointless challenges.
Teens want to impress people by doing these challenges like the cinnamon challenge. This is a challenge where you try to eat a spoonful of cinnamon. Even though it looks like a harmless challenge it can be dangerous. You start to choke and it can lead to a lung collapse. If it is serious enough it can lead to a call of the poison control center and be out in a ventilation. Another challenge consisting of mostly girls who are doing this is the Kylie Jenner challenge. This challenge consists of a person putting their lips into a bottle. They start to such on the air creating a vacuum.
The consequences of this challenge can cause bruises, soreness and even ripped the skin. The girls doing this challenge can damage their lips by doing this. This is two perfect examples how teens don’t think about the consequences of the challenges. These are examples how teens are different from adults and they shouldn’t be treated as ones. The last reason why teens shouldn’t be treated as adults it’s because that’s the only thing they have seen. Throughout their life, they have seen people who have committed crimes and they think that this is the only way to live. These kids have been traumatized from their parents and family members.
This kid can be helped with the right guidance of the juvenile jails. The differences between the adult and juvenile jails are shocking. Children who are in adult jails are at higher risk of being sexually and physically assaulted. In a report in 2006 it showed that 13% of a juvenile’s in an adult prison were assaulted. The juveniles in a court system are the highest suicide rate of all inmates. This is a problem because we are trying to help these juveniles not make them kill themselves. The children that are put in adult prisons are denied access to an education. This is a privilege they have in a juvenile jail.
Children in adult prisons are being punished even before they are tried. Two out of three teens are denied pre-trial in adult jails. Making juveniles go into adult prisons does not reduce crimes it has increased among teens. The things we can do to change what is happening to many juveniles in adult prisons. The congress should pass a law the extends the juveniles protections. This law would prohibit juveniles to be tried as an adult and juveniles cannot be transferred to adult prisons. We can also do riots on the treats to show the government to put laws against judges putting juveniles in adult prisons.
