Current Interpretations

There hasn't been much decision on how to deal with this topic right now. One of the reasons for this is the fact that the legal age of adulthood varies depending on the state. Some states believe that you should not be tried as an adult until you are eighteen but others believe that with certain crimes you can be tried as an adult at the young age of fourteen. People have also recently started to notice that there is a general trend of increasing juvenile crime every fifteen years or so (Opposing Viewpoints). This means that the topic isn't always around to talk about, it fluctuates and over the years there have been many different attempts at solving this influx of crime rates. Over the years things such as boot camp, harsher sentences and being tried as an adult have all been unsuccessful attempts. More recently, in around 2007, people attempted to send juveniles home and then watch them for years to follow while they underwent intensive therapy. It worked but has not stuck and therefore not been used more recently. In recent years the general feeling has been that juveniles deserve the right to mature and develop. It was stated, in 2005, that "the state cannot extinguish his life and his potential to attain a mature understanding of his own humanity" (Annenberg Classroom). Overall people feel the punishments are too harsh and need to be better controlled. This does not mean that they have come to a conclusion but they are working towards one. More recently they have decided, in the Graham v Florida case, that it is considered cruel and unusual to sentence a juvenile to prison for life without parole.