Mercy Or Not!

8 Pages 1885 Words

Each night as I sit down to watch the news or open the paper to a headline screaming “Kids Attack Again!” I sigh. This dilemma is not growing any smaller no matter how hard we wish for it to do so. Instead it is manifesting and spreading like an unstoppable disease. What our nation faces is a problem that does not have a straight answer. Should the juvenile offenders, we often like to call them as kids, be tried in adult legal systems? Should we throw them away into jail with other hard adult criminals, and not bestow any mercy upon them? Is it right morally and ethically? “We romance childhood as a time of innocence and beauty…” (William A 1999) I do not have an explanation for this statement when research shows that crime is going up and the age level it is done at is going down. 1998, Springfield, Oregon 15-year-old Kip Kintel opened fire in the cafeteria of Thurston High School. Two were killed, twenty-five wounded. 14-year-old Michael Carnean, in 1997, pulled out a pistol and began firing on a student prayer group. Three were killed, five wounded. (Chiou H. 2002) 13-year-old Nathaniel Brazil shoots and kills a teacher. 12-year-old Lionel Tate beats to death a 6-year-old playmate. (Little Adult Criminals May 2002 editorial. New York Times N.Y.) 11-year-old Andrew Golden and 13-year-old Mitchell Johnson pulled the fire alarm, and shot at student coming out of the school building. Five were dead, and ten wounded.
Who can give us the answers to why such horrendous crimes are done by such young kids? Do we install enough fear into the other kids, by throwing the young offenders into adult jails, locking them up and letting them rot in there to the end? Is it the only solution to solve our problem? It might seem odd to some people but I firmly believe in giving the young criminals a second chance at life. Instead of throwing the youth into prisons where they are “twice as likely to be beaten or to commit suicide, and five t...