Indeed, the evidence suggests that several community-based programs that do not involve imprisonment are both less costly and more effective than trying and punishing adolescents as adults.

Adolescents who are tried and punished as adults are more likely to offend again, to do so sooner and more often, and to commit more serious crimes than those kept in juvenile court.

And if it is a mistake to put juveniles on trial as adults, it may be a greater one to incarcerate them with grown-ups

Recent brain studies indicate that children and adolescents process emotionally charged information in that part of the brain responsible for instinct and gut reaction, while adults do this work in the more rational frontal section.

According to the study, nearly 40 percent of the juveniles tried as adults were charged with nonviolent crimes, and many were not convicted or were sent back to juvenile court, which suggests that their cases were neither strong nor serious.

So approximately 80 U.S. prisoners sit on death row waiting to be executed for crimes they committed at 16 or 17, and in the last decade over half of the world’s executions of juvenile offenders have been in the United States.

Sentencing juvenile offenders to death is in clear violation of a number of U.N. conventions and treaties and has been condemned by the American Bar Association, most major religious denominations and just about every human rights group with a Web site.

At 17 Beazley murdered John Luttig, and at 25 he was scheduled to become the 19th person executed in the United States since 1976 for a crime committed as a minor.

 Children in adult prisons are 5 times as likely to be sexually assaulted, twice as likely to be beaten by staff, 50 percent more likely to be attacked with a weapon and 8 times as likely to commit suicide as children in juvenile facilities.

Children are uniquely positioned for reform and redemption.  Juvenile detention facilities (generally) have the programs in place to aid in that process of reformation.  Prisons do not. 

We don't say, "this is a very important election, so let's let the kids vote".  We don't say, "this is a very important war so let's give our children weapons  and send them to fight".

Two bills before the legislature would limit the application of adult sentencing rules for those who committed serious crimes as adolescents.

youngsters are often impulsive, reckless and blissfully unaware of the consequences of their actions.

Things like sex, drugs, and adrenaline thrills feel really good, and when teens are in groups they are even more likely to go for the thrill. But as teens approach adulthood, the pathways between the brain’s CEO and the limbic system—the emotional center—increase substantially, allowing for greater impulse control. According to some studies, brain development is not complete until the mid-20s.

“Holy shit,” Sean thought as the cop cars streaked by in the opposite direction. “I just did something serious right here. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“I heard that and I had this thought—I didn’t really want to do it—but I had all these expectations riding on my shoulders. I had gotten them all involved in it up to this point.”

America’s first juvenile court in Chicago in 1899, children who had reached the age of reason (7) were often tried and sentenced along with adults, serving time in the same prisons and occasionally facing execution

Over the past decade legislators in 47 states and the District of Columbia have made it easier to put on trial and punish juveniles as adults.

In these states we would not let a 12- or 13-year-old buy a carton of cigarettes, a six-pack of beer or a ticket to the movie American Pie 2.