The prosecution of Juveniles as an adult should be permitted

Rebuttal to Pro's Opening argument: 1: I do not see how carrying out the crimes pro outlines displays any maturity. It may display knowledge or how to carry out acts and desire to carry them out, but that does not mean that the people carrying them out are mature such that they should be considered adults. Forethought and premeditation do not require a full understanding of the effect of one's actions. Children use forethought and premeditation all the time in video games, hide and seek, capture the flag, and any other competitive game. By that reasoning, all children are actually adults. 2: There is a bit of a contradiction there. "Justice that comes from the highest punishment allowable by law". If the law allowed for capital punishment for a robbery, that statement would mean that executing robbers is just. Justice and the law are very separate things. As to how it is right that the person escapes punishment for being under 18, I would argue that most people who have yet to reach adulthood are very different people from the adults that they become. Were you the same person when you were a kid as you are today? If we are putting juveniles in prison for crimes as if they are adults, then by the time they are released, it will have been a different person serving that sentence than the one who committed the original offense. As to examining each ease, that would be nice, but the problem with doing such an analysis after the fact of a crime is whoever is doing the analysis will be biased. If it is a police psychologist, then the doctor will be motivated to label the offender as an adult, and if it is a psychologist hired by the parents of the offender, the doctor will be motivated to label the offender as a child. What we would really need is a system where children get regular psychological screenings to determine their status. This would lead to a system with little bias. Rebuttal to Pro's Rebuttal: 1. Military-I would argue that there are plenty of 15 year olds who could physically handle combat. Look at high school wrestling teams, there are some extremely fit kids on those teams. Voting-I doubt most voters understand politics. Children are probably more well informed than most adult voters. Purchasing firearms-Please explain how allowing kids to buy guns means that gangs will get them. Porn-Please explain why trafficking is relevant if we are just talking about people under 18 that have been ruled to be adults. Kidnapping people and selling them is a problem at all ages, but I see no problem with professional, reputable, porn studios making films of people who have been determined to have the ability to understand the ramifications of their actions. Control and knowledge of one's actions do not necessarily speak to an understanding of the ramifications. I knew a kid who was annoyed by a gerbil because the gerbil would not play with him. The kid was pissed and decided to kill the gerbil, so he flushed the gerbil down a toilet. In the morning he proudly told us what he had done. That kid is now an adult in his 20's and mortified by what he had done. As a kid, he knew that flushing a gerbil down a toilet would kill/destroy it, and he was able to plan out and execute the murder. He did not, however, have the capability of understanding or considering the suffering that the gerbil endured as it was killed or he suffering of his brother who now had to deal with the loss of his pet. As to selectively choosing what adult things a person can and cannot do, I think you are treating psychology like it can be far more precise than it can be. Psychology is not physics. It is hard enough to determine that someone is able to understand the ramifications of their actions, let alone parse those actions out to ones he understands and ones he does not. Another problem with such a system is it would be extremely open to racism. We could see black kids being labelled as adults for crimes they might commit, but kids for voting so they can go to prison but they cannot vote. To commit a serious crime does not require maturity, often it actually shows a lack of maturity. All deliberate actions require "a certain knowledge", so that is irrelevant. I gave those examples because it should be obvious that preteens are not adults. I am surprised that you think those cases are being correctly handled. It seems like you think that committing a murder is a sufficient condition for adulthood.