Startling Finds On Teenage Brains: Article Analysis

Paul Thompson in the article, Startling Finds Teenage Brains, explains that a teen named Nathaniel Brazill was ruled by a Florida grand jury, who had previously ruled Brazill, was going to be tried as an adult. Thompson supports his explanation by first analyzing the problem and if Brazill had been tried before. He then investigates the situation and why teens decide to commit crimes. Lastly, the author explains how there was a university that researched why teens act the way they do. They were surprised at what they found out. They found out that massive loss of brain tissue occurs in the teen years. Thompson’s purpose is to show why teens commit crimes and act the way they act in order so that their parents take care of their teens and so

In this summary response we are summarizing the article “On Punishment and Teen Killers”. In this article Jennifer Jenkins talks about her sister’s experience and how it was caused by a teenager. And what she is basically trying to make a claim on how teens do deserve to go to life sentences. But yet she does not have any experience since she is just a teacher.

In the article “On Punishment and Teen Killers” by Jennifer Jenkins asserts that teens are becoming more violent and starting commit more crimes because of the national television they watch.Jenkins tells the reader about “JLWOP” (Juvenile Life Without Parole) and how kids are being sentenced to life in prison without parole.Some people are trying to advocate to minimize the offender culpability because of their age.While kids are getting sentenced to life without parole, this disproves juvenile advocates reliance on the undeveloped brain.Some juvenile offenders truly understand what the victim family go through and how long it takes them to recover.There were millions of dollars spent to end JLWOP and to set convicted murderers free.

The first article that was discussed in class was Startling Finds on Teenage Brains (Paul Thompson) this article has strong ethos. Thompson belives that the teeneagers that have commited crime, for example on May 16 fourteen year old Brazil was charged in May because he shot a middle school teacher. Brazil was found guilty of second-degree murder. Thompson claims that the teenage brain isn't fully developed at a young age, because of this many teens are making reckless choices. The author Paul Thompson claims “my own research group at the university of California, Los Angeles, and our colleagues at the national institutes of health have developed technology to map the patterns of brain growth in individual children and teenagers. With repeated

Americans today tend to believe that the juvenile crime rate in the United States has risen in the last decade. June 25, 2012 was an important date for this chaotic standard, because this was the day the Supreme Court declared juveniles who had been tried as adults for murder could not be sentenced to life in prison without parole. With this decision the U.S court system gave individuals who are serving life in prison, as teenagers, a chance for a better life. Adolescents should not be sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in a prison cell because of the imprudent decisions they made as minors.

The author of this article is Kallee Spooner is a PHD candidate at Sam Houston State University. Currently she works on a National Institute of Justice study as a Doctoral Research Assistant. Her focus is corrections, juvenile justice, and legal analyses in criminal justice (S.H.S University). In her article, “Juvenile Life Without Parole,” Spooner addresses the punishment of Juvenile life without parole and questions its constitutionality. She begins with raw numbers, including which states have the most juvenile serving LWOP. Further discussed are the facts that 98% of JLWOP inmates are male, and that black youth are 10 times more likely to receive the sentence than white youth. In terms of severity, LWOP is significantly harsher for

Villafana 1 Sarai Villafana Mrs. Kehmeyer ERWC 6 March 2015 Juvenile Justice research paper Minority disagrees that juveniles should have a second chance, but to be punished with a sentence to life in prison.As Latio stated,” Even a 17 and a half year old who sets off a bomb in a crowded mall or guns down a dozen students and teacher is a child and must be given a chance to persuade a judge to permit his release into society..” I strongly believe everyone within the years of 17 and younger should be able to have a second chance. The supreme court is on the right path to abolish mandatory life in prison for juveniles who commit murder. As Lundstrom states, “ but it can be used as evidence that teenagers are not yet adults, and the legal system should not treat them as such” (Lundstrom 88).

Juveniles should not receive severe adult sentences for the murders they commit due to their underdeveloped prefrontal cortex not allowing them to fully process decisions and consequences at a young age. In fact, the prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain where decision making originates and does not fully develop until the age of 25. Furthermore, sentencing a juvenile as an adult while they are at an impulsive age and subject to peer pressure is resulting to cruel and unusual punishment as defined in the eighth amendment of the United States Bill of Rights. Eventually, imposing an adult verdict over a juvenile would inhibit a proper rehabilitation for the convicted juvenile. Hence, it is recommended that states that currently have life without parole or the death penalty laws, ratify a new law for juvenile convicts for proper sentencing and rehabilitation.

Many times in the news we hear about adolescents facing charges that can forever dictate their lives. There have been cases where children have been faced with the chance of life of prison without the chance of parole. This topic has been a discussion that has been more popular and popular with the more cases that appear. This is now a major issue in our modern society with younger adolescents becoming more exposed to violence. We now have to take teenage crimes and their punishments into consideration as we all know there will be many more cases in the future so it is only reasonable to come up with a solution on how to deal with these juveniles. I for one believe that juveniles should not be sentenced to life without parole.

The United States was the only country in the United Nations (UN) to oppose the abolition of the life without parole sentence for juveniles. The US was also the only country in the UN known to sentence juveniles to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, that is until the 2012 Supreme Court Ruling that mandatory life without parole sentencing for juveniles was deemed unconstitutional (Agyepong 83). Life without the possibility of parole for minors is a very controversial and sensitive subject, with overall speculation that such a stance violates the Eighth Amendment by virtue of its nature as cruel and unusual punishment for juveniles. To argue for the claim that minors are not culpable for their actions and that the mandatory life

One of the most controversial issues in the rights of juveniles today is addressed in the question, "Should the death penalty be applied to juveniles"? For nearly a century the juvenile courts have existed to shield the majority of juvenile offenders from the full weight of criminal law and to protect their entitled "special rights and immunities." In the case of kent vs. United states in 1996, Justice Fortas stated some of these "special rights" which include; Protection from publicity, confinement only to twenty-one years of age, no confinement with adults, and protection against the consequences of adult conviction such as the loss of civil rights, the use of adjudication against him

The Supreme Court reviewed the constitutionality of mandatory life sentences without parole enforced upon persons aged fourteen and younger found guilty of homicide. The court declared unconstitutional a compulsory sentence of life without parole for children. The states have been barred from routinely imposing sentences based on the crime committed. There is a requirement for individual consideration of the child life circumstance or the defendant status as a child. The court rejected the definite ban on life sentences without parole. This is because in some cases the instances may be uncommon, but jurors

One of the most controversial questions in the juvenile justice system today is, "Should the death penalty be applied to juveniles?”. A lot of people think that the death penalty for juveniles is cruel and unusual punishment and should only be used for adults. The crimes that juveniles commit are as dangerous and as violent as adult crimes. People argue that the adolescent brain does not mature until the late teens or early twenties, and that death penalty should not be the resolution. Some studies show that childhood abuse or neglect can causes the child to commit crimes when they grow to adulthood. Debate about the use of the death penalty for juveniles has grown more intense because of the crimes they are

Supreme Court ruling Graham v. Florida (2010) banned the use of life without parole for juveniles who committed non-homicide crimes, and Roper v. Simmons (2005) abolished the use of the death penalty for juvenile offenders. They both argued that these sentences violated the 8th Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment. While these landmark cases made great strides for the rights of minors passing through the criminal justice system, they are just the first steps in creating a juvenile justice system that takes into consideration the vast differences between adolescents and adults. Using sociological (Butler, 2010) and legal (Harvard Law Review, 2010) documents, this essay will explicate why the next such step to be taken is

The article “Inside the Teenage Brain” by Marty Wolner states that recently, brain researchers have been able to do a great quantity of detailed studies on the human brain. Despite previous thoughts about the teenage brain, development of the brain through the teenage years is very dynamic. The teenage brain is still learning how to process certain information properly in the thinking part of the brain, so often teens may not process all the information necessary to make responsible decisions. Nevertheless, the teenage years can be very stressful for both parents and for teens. Getting through the teenage years can be difficult, but with the right amount of healthy communication, discipline and support the road ahead won’t be so rough. At this