Recently in Juvenile Offenders Category

·         In 2008, 7,703 children under age 18 were held in American adult local jails.

·         3,650 children under the age 18 were held in American adult state prisons.

·         22 states allow children as young as 7 to be tried as adults.

·         Every year, nearly 80 children age 13 and younger are judicially transferred to adult court.

These are absolutely shocking statistics. The book, "From Time Out to Hard Time: Young Children in the Adult Criminal Justice System," tells of how the nation treats pre-adolescent children (age 12 and under) who commit serious crimes.

This report recommends a few things to keep children out of the harsh conditions in prisons. The first is that we should work to keep our children in the juvenile justice system. The second is that parole opportunities should be given to young children regardless of the length of the sentence. The article says that in Florida and Pennsylvania, children as young as 7 can serve life in prison without parole.

The final recommendation is that children in the adult system should not be housed with adult criminals, but instead in a juvenile facility. This I would absolutely agree with. Most seven year olds are raised by their parents in a cozy and safe environment. I can only imagine the psychological impact that growing up in a prison amongst adult criminals would have on a seven year old.

Here is a news article about a 12 year old boy being charged as an adult for the murder of his father's pregnant girlfriend:

 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/21/jordan-brown-killed-fathe_n_168862.html

My view on this is that I think our system takes it too far when trying children as adults. I understand that they do some very adult things, but I can't help but feel that we aren't realizing they are children. If we simply look at how they are developed emotionally we can see that they by no means act in adult ways. It scares me to think of my little brothers, who are around the age of 12, going to prison. Not only that, but spending their life there around the other people in prison. I believe our law system needs to get a better grip on children and charging them as adults. Any one of us can think back to the stupid things we used to do when we were kids. I even read old diaries and think, "Wow, that isn't even like me! I was so stupid!" Children at age 12 are still being molded, and I think by placing them into a prison, with adult criminals, is going to mold them in a very negative way.

This case is from my hometown and is suprising to me because I personally know this kid and my brother was good friends with him. Bryce Gully was being charged with first degree murder and robbery after supossibly shooting a man during a drug deal and bragged about it and sent pic messages with a gun and money. There are cameras in place in "crack ave."  in pleasent valley (down the street from where i live) that the police were using for surveillance on the drugs. It went to court and he was going to be charged as an adult at 15, but was found not guilty. T he reason for this was a combination of things. They had a bunch of  kids from the neighborhood come in and say so an so  did it and there was no clear descritption between all of them but there was a concensus from the people who were in the car with matt huffman when he was shot. This kid had a long string of criminal charges prior and they found him hiding under a bed. The second reason he was not convicted was because they had a minor error in the evidence and gully kept pushing for a trial since you can never be tried for the same crime twice. He bragged about being unstoppable afterwards until  he was later charged with an unrelated crime a felony for stabbing another kid. Hmmm.. I'm pretty sure he has a patern going on here    here are some of the links you can find info. on http://www.whotv.com/news/who-story-gully-trial-051209,0,4798942.story http://www.woi-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=11920122 or just google his name . So why do some guilty people go free is it because of other variables such as age etc.. The victims family even forgave him and the jury said they didn't want to possibly put an innocent kid behind bars?

The above photo is from a website I found that uses time-lapse imaging to track brain maturation from ages 5 to 20.  The images are constructed from MRI scans of health children.  Red indicates more gray matter, blue indicates less gray matter.  Gray matter wanes in a back to front wave as the brain matures and neural connections are pruned.  Areas performing more basic functions mature earlier; areas for higher-order functions (emotion, self-control) mature later.  This information is interesting in the examination of juvenile offenders, because it may explain why some juveniles commit crimes.  If emotional and self-control maturation does not occur until later, some juveniles may not have enough self-control to understand the consequences of their crimes nor even the action of committing a crime itself.

I came across this website as I was researching the case of Roper v. Simmons, in which a 17 year old boy is being convicted of first-degree murder and charged with death.  The court reviewed this case, in conjunction with public opinion, and determined that the death penalty violated the 18th amendment because it constituted as "cruel and unusual" punishment for persons under the age of 18. 

I think this information is relevant to the field of developmental psychology and how our brains evolve.  As mentioned above, brain maturation affects emotions and self-control, which could provide valid arguments when assessing the maturation of juvenile criminals and whether to try them in a juvenile court or adult court.  Based on the severity of the crime I think some juveniles should be tried in adult courts; however, if they show a deficit in brain maturation and self-control, I think there is room to argue that child's drive to commit a criminal act.

Below is the link to the website that displays human cortical development up to early adulthood. It also has other interesting images that show the brain maturing as it turns from red to blue (more gray matter to less):

http://www.loni.ucla.edu/~thompson/DEVEL/dynamic.html