to military like boot camps. The boot camps are very similar to Marine Corps basic training, where there is strict discipline. Boot camp can last for several months, at the end of which the juvenile either succeeds and graduates or fails and returns to the system. Another new form of punishment is not new at all. Corporal punishment has been used for thousands of years. Presently it is illegal in the United States. However, the recent event in Singapore, where a teenager from the United States was caught spray-painting a car and was sentenced to be caned (whipped) changed the way many viewed the laws of the United States. “Had he been caught spray-painting cars in his hometown of Dayton, his crime would have been regarded as commonplace and his neighbors’ opinion would not have mattered” (Rush 3). While Singapore is relatively crime free, there is an epidemic of crime in the United States. To some people, corporal punishment should be brought back. What about murder? Perhaps the most vicious crime that society has to deal with. Remember Craig Price? “If Craig Price had been two and a half weeks older, and if he had murdered the Heaton Family in Oklahoma -- or in one of the several other states which authorize the imposition of Capital punishment of sixteen-year-olds-- he almost certainly would have been sentenced to death for his crimes” (Dershowitz 2). Should all juveniles convicted of murder be put to death? Probably not, but, certainly those teenagers guilty of the most violent and vicious killings should at least be tried as adults and sent to prison. Everyone agrees that the juvenile justice system needs to be improved. The question is how can this be accomplished. Is the present system in such bad shape that we should abandon it all together, or should we keep it and simply make small changes to make a better system? I believe that the whole system in the United States should be cha...
