Adult Punishment and Juvenile Justice Day after day in this country there is a debate going on about the death penalty and whether we as people have the right to decide the fate of another persons life. When weexamine this issue we usually consider those we are arguingabout to be older men and women who are more than likelyhardened criminals with rap sheets longer than the height westand (Farley & Willwerth, 1998). They have made a career ofcrime, committing it rather than studying it, and somewherealong the line a jury of their peers decided enough wasenough. They were handed down the most severe and mostfinal punishment of them all, death. Behind all of thecontroversy that this issue raises lies a different group ofpeople that are not so often brought into the lime light,juveniles. This proposes a problem entangled with another; if we do decide to carry out death sentences, what is theminimum age limit? Can we electrocute, lethally inject, orgas any one who commits a crime that is considered capital? In this paper the issue of capital punishment forjuveniles will be discussed, basically laying out acomprehensive look at the matter. First we will brieflylook at the history of both juvenile justice and the historyof the death penalty in regards to juveniles. Secondly wewill take a short look at the two major court cases thatdealt with this issue in the United States. Next this paperwill present the factual statistics of the death penalty forjuveniles and also take a look at our country’s stance onthe issue in the international arena. We will then spend ashort time looking at some views on the juvenile deathpenalty, reasons for the death penalty itself, and thearguments for and against the death penalty for juveniles. Lastly we will conclude with a few thoughts about the issueand the implications that we might have to consider. The history of the death penalty being imposed onjuveniles spans all the way back to almost t...
