Click on the viewpoints to the left to read essays on how to deal with violent juvenile offenders. Opinions on the matter are not so clear-cut, so we're departing a bit from our usual Taking Sides formula. Too Young to Incarcerate The intersection of childhood and criminality creates an uncomfortable tension. Crime is something we associate with adults.
Childhood is generally a time of innocence.
But when a dreadful crime is committed by a young offender we don't know what to do. But juvenile offenders are not magically transformed into adults by virtue of the seriousness of their crime. As hard as it is to do after tragedies like last week's shooting in a Michigan elementary school, we must remember that young offenders are children who have done something terrible, not criminals who just happen to be small. And because of this, our response to juvenile crime, no matter how serious the offense, must be different than our response to adult crime. First is the issue of culpability.