There once was a two year-old baby boy named Bulger who was happily going around with his mother in a grocery store one day. His mom never would have expected what happened next. Her beloved child was abducted by two teenagers who had been seen on the security surveillance system spying on Bulger waiting to strike. When she turned around the baby was gone. POOF! Just like that. The mother wasn’t even aware of the situation till she turned around. Meanwhile the two teens now took the helpless infant and mutilated him. Then, with the intentions of covering up what they had done, they set the dead infant on the railroad tracks with the hope of causing catastrophic damage to the baby. Thankfully cops found them, but they weren’t sentenced to prison, jail, or some rehab center! (Wilde 2) What’s wrong with this? Why did this happen? It’s quite simple actually; it’s a little thing that people have been debating over for sometime. Should we send juvenile criminals to prison, or jail? I believe that we should send these miniature criminals to jail. Read my paper to find out why.

The first reason I believe that they should be tried as adults is because the children ARE the future. Twenty years from now we will have adults that got away with crime as a kid, and since they got away with it then they will think that they can get away with it again. True that the crimes that they commit may be considered at a different level of severity. For example, there is a huge difference between murder and stealing a candy bar. However if kids aren’t stopped soon it won’t just be a candy bar anymore, soon it may be a car. Would you want your car to be stolen? Let’s stop these minors before it’s too late.

Many people however are on a different side, and believe that kids should be given a second chance for their mistakes. They believe in rehabilitation, new identities, and other methods to keep kids away from prisoners for a year or two.

These people also have good arguments defending their side. Their first argument is that “…kids are not adults. Their brains are wired differently. They don’t think things through the way we do” (Hendricks 1). First of all, what kind of defense is that? Yes kids aren’t adults, that’s a given, but at the same time all brains have the same function. Plus kids also think about their actions as shown in the passage consisting of Bulger and his murderers. Was that not planned? “People either have morals or they don’t” (Wilde 1). There is no way that you can go kill someone without having a motive. The only people that can really get away with crimes are those with mental disabilities that are unable to think properly. They should go seek mental help because they have a disability.

People also often say that these children grew up in a ghetto neighborhood and didn’t have good role models or anything to look up to. Firstly, there aren’t any good role models in that area because when all of those adults were kids they weren’t punished or anything so it went from stealing a candy bar to stealing a car. Also, you have to take into consideration that people have motives to their actions like said earlier. Haven’t you noticed how people in that sort of area and even on regular quiet streets when committing a crime, they are doing it in a sneaky manner as if they know what they are doing?

Another argument that people state is that if you send a minor to jail, they will come out more vicious and savage than when they went in because of all of the cons and violence in the prisons and jails. I say to this, they have to be punished, and it doesn’t have to be prison there are also mental facilities and many other methods. It just depends on the their life-style, choices, and the crime that they committed.

Yes there always has to be that random argument stuck out there in a situation, and it is the question of “would you send a five year-old to jail for stealing a candy bar from a store?” The answer is no. Really all you would have to do is take it back to the store or pay for it and take away television for a week.

Minors are getting away with a lot of things now, and it must be stopped quickly. The fate of our future is in your hands now. Go confront the teens of today and hope for a brighter tomorrow.