On March 9, a twelve year old child, Lionel Tate, wrestled a six year old little girl and beat her to death. Lionel Tate was convinced as an adult and First-degree murder. Many people believe that convicting Lionel Tate as an adult is unfair because he still is a child and children will always be children. Others disagree; they say that trying children as adults for violent crimes is the best way to go. They say that if the child is fair because it sets a examples to other children. I believe that juveniles accused of violent crimes should be tried and sentenced as minors.
A juvenile should not be tried as an adult because children are “seriously impaired”. “Younger individuals were less likely to recognize the risks inherent in different choices and less likely to think about the long-term consequence of their choices” stated Greg Krikorian in, “Many Kids Called Unfit for Adult Trial”. Lionel Tate, mimicking his favorite wrestler, beat the little girl to death.
Wrestling is obviously phony but sometimes children do not find out until they get a little older and smarter. Lionel Tate believed that hitting the little girl will not hurt her because in wrestling no one gets seriously hurt, the wrestlers come back the next week and wrestle again. He did not kill the little girl on purpose; he did not understand the consequences of hitting her.
I was about thirteen years old when I was into the whole wrestling ordeal. My brother and I would wrestle around the house and we believed that wrestling was real. I thought that wrestlers were unstoppable and if they were unstoppable, I was too. People would tell us wrestling was fake and not to wrestle because we might get hurt, but we ignored them. Being at a young age doesn’t really make you think about your consequences. At a young age, you are most likely to think about having fun and what’s for dinner, not thinking that you’ll go to jail for a mistake.
A juvenile should not be tried as an adult because children are influenced by things on TV and on the media. “A 15 year-old Yuba City youth who reportedly claimed he was mimicking a TV program about little girls who rob a bank was given a 26-year-to-life prison term” stated Marjie Lundstrom in “Kids are Kids”. The 15 year old boy was tried as an adult because he stabbed to death a minimart clerk. “Monkey See, Monkey Do” is the saying that people say for those who copy someone else’s actions the little boy copied the little girls on TV, this shows that TV programs have a big influence on children.
The 15 year-old did not understand that his actions would put him in jail for life. If he would have knew his consequences he wouldn’t have stabbed the clerk. TV and the media have a lot to do with the influence of children committing violent crimes, but children would not commit crimes if they knew their consequences.
Others believe that if a child commits a violent crime they should be tried as adults. Tom Reilly states that “The public has a right to expect that a killer will never, ever have the chance to kill again. Juveniles accused of murder should be tried as adults and, if convicted, sentenced as adults”. Others say, a murderer is a murderer and they should not have another chance. I say, a child is a child give them another chance and make the child learn from the consequence and mistake.
I was arrested my freshman year of high school for stealing a car. I got caught and booked in the local police department. I did not understand my consequences of getting cought stealing a car, so I didn’t care, I still stole it. After I got caught they gave me one hundred hours of community service and one year of probation. Now, I know and been through the consequences and I won’t be stealing anymore cars.
Juveniles make mistakes, a matter a fact everyone does. Many juveniles don’t know what the consequences of committing a crime would be, because their still kids and kids don’t think like that. Juveniles don’t quite know what they really get themselves into compared to a 25 year-old man. I believe that juveniles should not be tried as adults because they are still children and they don’t really know what they put themselves to do, and accept the consequence.
