he beginning ofour country. In 1642, Thomas Graunger of Plymouth Colony,Massachusetts, was the first juvenile, to be sentenced todeath and executed in our country for a crime that hecommitted (Executions, 2000). Since the start of capitalpunishment (or the recording thereof) in 1608, there hasbeen around 19,200 executions in the United States of allages. Of that total number, experts believe approximately356 of them were juvenile executions, meaning that the crimethat the individual was sentenced for took place before theoffender was eighteen years of age (Gonnerman, 2000). Thisaccounts for about 1.8% of all executions from the start ofcapital punishment to present (Executions, 2000). Since1973 there has been 196 death sentences handed out tojuveniles and seventeen of those have ended in actualexecution (Streib, 2000). Table 1 lists those seventeenindividuals that have been executed since 1973, their dateand place of execution, their race, and their age both whenthey committed their crime and when they were executed. The juvenile justice system was born in 1899 at whichtime it was recognized as separate from the regular justicesystem that dealt with adult offenders (Ricotta, 1988). Atthe start, the stated objectives of the juvenile justicesystem was “...to provide measures of guidance andrehabilitation for the child and protection for society, notto fix criminal responsibility, guilt, and punishment”(Ricotta, 1988). By the stated objectives it would seem asthough rehabilitation would be one of the most importantgoals of the juvenile system. So how are we able to decidenow that a teenager is past the point of rehabilitation anddeserves the final punishment? Or does the obligation to“protect society” become more overwhelming and leave us withno other option but to put someone to death? These are justa few questions that one might ask about our present goalsin comparison to the initial goals that were e...
