Debate Paper

Is stricter punishment the answer to juvenile crime? No, there is no decency in it. Numerous of studies show that stricter punishment is not the answer to Juvenile delinquency. If anything, facts show it causes recidivism. Several studies by the U.S. Center of Disease Control and Prevention Task Force on Community Preventive Services prove this. Moreover, in a court ruling, Roper V Simmons enlightened the Department of Justice of new medical findings. Further, the eighth amendment was used to decide a court decision on cruel and unusual punishment; American juveniles were being sentenced to the death penalty. Also, Human Rights Watch made an alarming discovery, indicating that the U.S. has the highest amount of juveniles in the world, serving life without parole. Juveniles have a history of being punished harshly even though later recidivism is still blatantly present. Hence, in 1974, congress passed the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. Equally, after the failure of prison, detention centers, and boot camps, new effort is currently being made to rehabilitate America’s minors. New York has taken an initiative to reduce crime without punitive ways. Moreover, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) says that across the country , better treatment programs for juveniles caused a decrease in U.S.A murder cases caused by minors.

Human Rights Watch is an organization focused on protecting the rights of people around the world. In a statistical study completed in 2008, Human Rights Watch gathered evidence that there were approximately 2,380 people in the United States currently serving life without parole for crimes committed when they were minors. By the same token, throughout the rest of the world, there are only 7. Pursuing this further, this is a strong indication that the United States is using a failing system to fix adolescent crime.

Nobody denies that during the 1990s, there was a burst of juvenile crime. The...