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Carlos Garcia

Mrs. Moore

Expository Reading/Writing Course

01 March 2017

LIfe with Parole is Inhumane

Crimes are committed by teenagers and they never have a real opportunity to actually

redeem themselves for what they have done and I think this should change. Teenager are being

sentenced to life in prison for committing Adult crimes so they are treated like adults. The

majority of the court agrees that this should change and I agree. I feel like I can relate to Gail

Garinger who thinks that kids do not deserve to be sentenced to life in prison because they are

not adults. In her article Juvenile Dont Deserve LIfe Sentence Garinger states that, Supreme

Court recognized that even in the most serious murder cases, juvenile offenders cannot with

reliability be classified among the worst offenders: they are less mature, more vulnerable to peer

pressure, cannot escape from dangerous environments, and their characters are still in formation.

And because they remain unformed, it is impossible to assume that they will always present an

unacceptable risk to public safety, which in part she is trying to say that most teens do not know

what they are doing and do not calculate the outcome of their atrocity. I feel the same way as she

does as to that teens should get punished but the sentence that they receive is inhuman. A crime

is a crime and forever will be, but that does not mean that by taking these children out of society

that they are actually doing something to help decrease crime. If they really want to help

decrease crime then they should help these kids by providing counseling. Garinger talks about

how teens brain are different than adults. Juveniles tend to commit erational decisions and not

know the consequence of it. Studies included in her article state that, The rationale for these
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earlier decisions is simple and equally applicable to the cases to be heard: Young people are

biologically different from adults. Brain imaging studies reveal that the regions of the adolescent

brain responsible for controlling thoughts, actions and emotions are not fully developed. They

cannot be held to the same standards when they commit terrible wrongs. This is logical and I

think this should be taken into consideration when sentencing teens that have committed a crime.

On the other hand, there are people like Jennifer Jenkins who was heart broken by the

loss of her sister by teenager. She despises them with all intent and she is not thinking clearly. In

Jenkins article, On Punishment and Teen Killers she states in her seventh paragraph, The

offender in our case was a serial killer in the making. He came from privilege. Whenever he got

in trouble, his parents fixed it. After a series of other crimes, he planned the murders for months,

carefully and privately. He did not act on impulse or because of peer pressure. He was not

mentally disabledin fact was quite intelligent. But he got a rush out of breaking the law and

ultimately started work on his other plan for mass murder at a local bank. Bragging to friends led

to his arrest. We can clearly see that this person did kill with intent. Although what they never

state in any case is why he did it? How was his life at home? The history of the kid. Many things

have to be taken to consideration when sentencing someone who has grown up believing it is

okay to kill.

In conclusion, teenager should be left alone to be treated jail. They will end up coming

out worse than before, that's if they ever make it out alive.