Resolved: US Supreme Court ought favor sentences of life without parole for adolescents under 18.

This case is evaluating the potential decision of Supreme Court in Miller v. Alabama over an adolescent receiving life without the possibility of parole for a crime committed. Some observations are required for this round:Observation 1: Because of the word "ought" in the resolution, this resolution is mainly focusing on the morality of the decision. Legality arguments would be valid to an extent, but the main focus of this debate is morality. Observation 2: This sentence is specified for adult courts, meaning that this debate round can lead toward the question as to if adolescent juveniles ought be given adult sentences. With these observations in place, I will move on toward the iteration of my case. Contention 1: The mental development of juveniles makes such a sentence unjust. As my case will explain through the sub-points in this contention, the mental development of juveniles is less complex than that of adults, who can make full, rational decisions based on the fully developed structure of their brain. Making a juvenile equally responsible for an adult when their brain systems are less developed would be the epitome of being unjust and henceforth, immoral. Sub-point 1a: Adolescents are less capable of making rational decisions. " “The teenage brain is not just an adult brain with fewer miles on it,” says Frances E. Jensen, a professor of neurology. “It’s a paradoxical time of development. These are people with very sharp brains, but they’re not quite sure what to do with them. ”Research during the past 10 years, powered by technology such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, has revealed that young brains have both fast-growing synapses and sections that remain unconnected. This leaves teens easily influenced by their environment and more prone to impulsive behavior, even without the impact of souped-up hormones and any genetic or family predispositions. " Teenagers are more impulsive, driven mostly through their emotions rather than by rational decision. According to research conducted by Lawrence Steinberg, a noted Professor of Psychology at Temple University,“risky behavior in adolescence is the product of the interaction between changes in two distinct neurobiological systems: a socioemotional system [which includes the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex]. . . and a cognitive control system. ”Steinberg has noted that “changes in the socioemotional system at puberty may promote reckless, sensation-seeking behavior in early and middle adolescence, while the regions of the prefrontal cortex that govern cognitive control continue to mature over the course of adolescence and into young adulthood. This temporal gap between the increase in sensation seeking around puberty and the later development of mature selfregulatory competence may combine to make adolescence a time of inherently immature judgment. Thus, despite the fact that in many ways adolescents may appear to be as intelligent as adults (at least as indexed by performance on tests of information processing and logical reasoning), their ability to regulate their behavior in accord with these advanced intellectual abilities is more limited. ”Sub-point 1b: Rehabilitation is possible for juvenile offenders. The State of Missouri has developed the most widely respected juvenile system for rehabilitating youth in residential facilities. It has a low recidivism rate and has received national recognition from the The New York Times and the Annie E. Casey Foundation. It recently received a prestigious award from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and was profiled in Casey’s Kids Count essay, “A Road Map to Juvenile Justice Reform. ” The Baltimore Sun has also recommended its implementation. The foundation of the Missouri model is an interactive approach between youth, families, treatment center staff and community staff. It takes a caring, personal approach rather than a correctional approach to treating young people. (The source provided below will provide an explanation as to the Missouri system of juvenile justice intervention). "Juvenile Justice Missouri Practice Model. " ACY: Advocates for Children and Youth. Web. 25 Mar. 2012. <. http://www.acy.org...;. Sub-point 1c: The adult justice system causes harms to juveniles. The most recent American study on juvenile suicide in adult institutions and youth facilities was done in 1980. Funded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), Michael G. Flaherty, a researcher with the Community Research Forum at the University of Illinois surveyed the number of suicides in a thousand jails and juvenile detention centers. The study found that the suicide rate of juveniles in adult jails is 7.7 times higher than that of juvenile detention centers. In stark contrast, the survey also found that the juvenile institution suicide rate was lower than that of the general population. A more recent report on prison suicides completed by the British Prison Reform Trust supports the findings of the Flaherty study. Analyzing data collected by Her Majesty's Prison Service, the Trust found that while people aged 15 to 21 made up only 13 percent of the prison population, they comprised 22 percent of all suicide deaths. These studies confirm what law enforcement officials have been telling Congress: that children are abused more regularly and driven to desperation in prison facilities more quickly. Adult prisons and jails are not equipped to protect young offenders from these risks as well, they are more likely to fall through the cracks. A 1989 study by a team of researchers compared how youth reported being treated at a number of juvenile training schools, with those serving time in adult prisons. Five times as many youth held in adult prisons answered yes to the question "has anyone attempted to sexually attack or rape you" than those held in juvenile institutions. Close to ten percent of the youth interviewed reported a sexual attack, or rape attempt had been levied against them in the adult prisons, while closer to one -percent reported the same in the juvenile institution. The same 1989 study which found such alarming statistics on youth rape in prisons also found that children placed with adults were twice as likely to report being "beaten up" by staff: close to one in ten juveniles report being assaulted by staff. The juveniles in adult prison were also 50 percent more likely to report being attacked with a weapon. Contention 2: There is an inbalance in rights and responsibilities for juveniles. The Supreme Court has rightly judged before in these cases on maintaining the unconstitutionality of such a decision in Thompson v. Oklahoma (1988), Atkins v. Virginia (2002), and Graham v. Florida (2010) on the same reasons for Contention 1, but the main idea is if the Supreme Court rules in favor of the state rather than the juvenile, there will be an inbalance of rights and responsibilities. Juveniles cannot drink, smoke, vote, and do many other things that would be considered rights, but once they commit a crime, they can be held responsible as adults. The inequality here is obvious.