Expert: Michael Troy - 4/14/2006

Question
Hi my name is Diana and I am in the 10th grade. I am doing a research project on minor prosecution and I would like to know how you feel about this subject. I would like to ask you the following questions.
1. How do you feel about trying minors as adults?
2. At what age do you think is the age that you should be tried as an adult?
3. What can we do to stop all of the crimes committed by minors?
4. Should minors be tried as adults? Why or why not?
5. How do you feel about trying minors as adults without parole?
6. In your opinion, what is minor prosecution and how does this affect our country or communities?
7. If you were president what would you do to stop or at least decrease the growing number of crimes committed by minors?

This will be very helpful for my project being that I have to interview someone for my research paper. Please write back as soon as possible. Thank you very much, I really appreciate it.

Answer
Hi Diana,

This is not really a First Amendment question, but I am happy to help.

1. I personally don't think minors should be tried as adults.  While I some criminal laws regarding minors in the past were not sufficient, I think children cannot be held to the same standards as adults.  They are not fully developed and are often more capable of reform.

2. The age of 18 is the age at which people are generally considered an adult by society.  It is hard to define an exact age for maturity since people mature a different levels, but that is as good as any.

3. We will never stop all crimes committed by minors.  Crime is an unfortunate part of human existence.  The best we can do is minimize it and keep it under control.  Minors who commit crimes need to face serious consequences.  We must also offer alternatives to occupy the time of at risk youth through other activities and give them a clear chance toward success later in life.

4.  I think I answered this as well as I could in question 1.

5.  Since I don't think we should try minors as adults, I don't think this is appropriate either.  Unless you plan to lock up someone for life, which should be in very rare cases, parole needs to be an option to help them reintegrate back into society.

6. For minors who commit crimes, there needs to be a system to punish them and help them reform so that they can see the error of their ways.  Without such a system, minors would have a free ride to commit whatever crimes they like.  There always need to be consequences, but the focus should be on turning them around, not warehousing them.  But prosecution of minors does the same thing as prosecution of adults: getting dangerous people off the streets and keeping our communities safer from anti-social activity.

7. If I were President, I would recognize that crimes not involving interstate commerce were not federal issues and should be left to the States.  Therefore, I would do nothing.  If I were a Governor, I suppose I would want focus on setting up juvenile prisons that focused on psychological therapy where appropriate, that taught delinquents that they needed to turn their lives around before it was too late, and that there would be even more serious consequences if they did not, and which provided education and job training to give them alternatives to crime.  For at-risk youth, I would focus on helping private organizations to get more involved with at-risk youth, helping them to find activities or causes that interested them and to help them connect on a positive path toward adulthood.

Good luck with your paper.  If you have any questions about this, feel free to send a follow-up.

- Mike