Resolved: In the US, juveniles charged with violent felonies ought to be treated as adult criminals.

Littleton, Colorado, two students at Columbine High School go into the school, armed and planning to blow up the entire school, although they did not succeed in blowing up the school, they killed thirteen people, the majority of them high school students who didn't even get a chance at life. Two kids ended thirteen lives, that is thirteen different personalities, thirteen souls, thirteen futures that these two kids ended. This crime committed by those two student would be called a violent crime. Are you saying in cases like this, people should be treated as juveniles. The question we face today is Resolved: In the United States, Juveniles charged with violent felonies ought to be treated as adults in the criminal justice system. The answer is yes. First of all, let me define a few things. According to the US code a ""juvenile" is a person who has not attained his eighteenth birthday, or for the purpose of proceedings and disposition under this chapter for an alleged act of juvenile delinquency, a person who has not attained his twenty-first birthday." Elrod and Ryder Professors of criminal justice at Eastern Kentucky University define a violent felony as any act, event, or condition resulting from human behavior that causes the death, injury, or some other damage to the physical or psychological well being of one or more individuals. Violent crimes include homicide aggravated assault including weapons offenses and attempted murder robbery including armed robbery kidnapping, voluntary manslaughter rape or attempted rape. My value is safety, public safety is very important and it can be assured by my value criterion effective incapacitation and effective deterrence. To support my value and value criteria I have three main points. First, Juveniles and adults should not be treated differently for the same thing they did. Second, Adult jails are more effective than juvenile jails. Last, simply making violent crimes for juveniles treated the same way as adults acts as a deterrence to stop the crime. My first contention is that the degree of crime should be equivalent to the degree of punishment. Why should it matter somebody's age to determine the punishment if they did the exact same thing. Violent crimes are not just small crimes, a kid cannot use the excuse that their brains are underdeveloped because at any age everybody knows at least to some extent that murder and assault is wrong, if somebody did not know the difference from right and wrong, there will be discrepancies in court to put them in the right place. There are cases like the "Central Park jogger" incident, (where more 30 teenagers attacked anyone they saw, including a 26-year-old female investment banker who was beaten with bricks and a lead pipe before being gang raped and left for dead. and high school shootings like one in Paducah Kentucky where a 14 year old high school student opened fire on classmates killing three and injuring five others.) In these cases adolescents commit a serious crime that are worse than most adult crimes. wouldn't you say regardless of whether a kid or a adult committed a serious crime they deserve a equally bad punishment? The adult court will keep the juveniles in jail for a longer time, ensuring safety for the public. My second contention is: when violent crime committing juveniles are treated like adults, it is more effective than being treated as a Juvenile. Scott and Steinberg, law professors and Psychology professor say the juvenile court system has failed to deal with today's savvy young criminals who use guns to commit serious crimes. Criminal Justice Champion and Mays, Professors at California State University said that the juvenile justice system does not have the facilities and programs to treat serious offenders, and that the youngster's behavior warrants harsher treatment that is not available in the juvenile justice system. Elrod and Ryder professors of criminal justice from Eastern Kentucky University also said something else similar that "criminal courts are better equipped to deal with chronic, serious, and Violent Judicial offenders." The juvenile court is also ineffective because the juvenile court has around a fifty one percent re- arrest rate.#is it really right to place these criminals in a place were they cannot even be handled effectively? Juveniles should be treated as adults in the criminal justice system because the adults jails can actually deal with these prisoners a way that the juvenile system cannot. Juveniles should be treated as adults because the adult system can effectively incapacitate these juveniles and hold them tell they are ready to go out in the real world My third point is that having consequences harsher for violent crimes in youths acts as a deterrence to the youth. The deterrence theory states that if the consequence of committing a crime outweighs the benefit of the crime itself, the individual will be deterred from committing the crime. professor of law Scot and professor of psychology Steinberg said "first, the threat of harsh sanctions may deter future crime generally by discouraging youths from ever getting involved in criminal activity. Second, imprisonment prevents crime by incapacitating offenders. Third, imprisonment could reduce future crime by rehabilitating young offenders so that they will mend their criminal ways" Champion and Mays, Criminal Justice Professors at California State University said Deterrence presumes that punishing an offender will prevent him or her from committing further acts of deviance, or will dissuade others from law-violating behavior, and the transfer of juveniles to adult court should serve a deterrent function. The adult criminal justice system has a worse punishment than the juvenile court therefore it will serve as a better deterrent factor to stop the juvenile violent crime. Effective deterrence will be able to ensure safety because it will stop the crime before it happens. When the consequences are worse, there will be less crime; therefore Juveniles should be treated as adults in the criminal justice system if they committed a violent crime. now on to argue his case his value is societal welfare with a value criterion of rehabilitation, however keeping the nation safe by incapacitating these violent will better achieve societal welfare. we cannot jeopardize safety by letting the violent juveniles off easy. he brings the point up that the adult court destroys rehabilitation, as i stated, safety is more important than rehabilitation. in his second contention, my opponent says that being around adult prisoners will be bad for the prisoners. in this debate, we should not be looking at how we can help the violent criminal, they committed a violent crime they need to be treated like it but we should look for how we can help the safety of society which as shown in my case, is supported by the affirmative side he brings up brain research on how they are not developed however the research defense society said "Much of what we know about the human brain comes from neuroscience research on monkeys. We have too little detail about how the human brain is organized for computer models of the brain to be of great use at this stage." so brain research cannot be accurate therefore it cannot be used in showing weather or not juveniles are matured. as i stated mortality is already present in juveniles so they should be held accountable for violent crimes.