t of their assessment of these two ideas inrelationship to juveniles seemed to show that capitalpunishment was not a very effective punishment. From theretributive standpoint, the justices concluded that it couldnot be applied to juveniles because of their potential andcapacity to grow and their lower standard of “culpability”(Ricotta, 1988). From the deterrent standpoint, theyquestioned whether a certain age would be more deterred thananother based on the assumption that teenagers do not reallyengage in a cost-benefit analysis before they commit theircrimes (1988). Finally, the overall assessment, whetherinconclusive or not, was that without retribution and/ordeterrence, capital punishment “is nothing more than thepurposeless and needless imposition of pain and suffering”(1998). Thompson’s sentence was eventually reversed and hiscase set a precedent still in use today. Victor Streib outlines a few arguments for and againsta juvenile death penalty in his collection of research. Wewill look at a few of each starting with the arguments for. The first argument is that the problem that we have withteenagers committing homicide is much more severe than inother countries (2000). Juveniles also do not respond verywell to punishment that is less harsh, forcing the need formore intense corrections, which is the second argument. Thethird reason deals with our political leaders and theirstrong emphasis on “harsher punishments” (2000). The lastargument for the juvenile death penalty is simply that wecan not solve the root of the problem, the “societalconditions which breed violent juvenile crime.” Thereforewe must try to correct the problem through the end resultwhich is punishment for the crime (2000). The first argument against the juvenile death penaltydeals with the study that was mentioned above. Many ofthese kids come from very bad backgrounds and therefore theyhave not had the ...
