Is there a large percentage of teens convicted of murder?
Do teens deserve the death penalty?
How many teens have been given the death penalty?
Should there be help for teens convicted of murder?
If your child was convicted of murder would you want them to be given the death penalty?
There are at least 2,225 thousand teens that are serving murder right now in the U.S. without parole. They all committed murder before the age of 18. Out of those teens 16 percent of them were convicted at the ages of 13-15 and 59 percent of them were sentenced to life without parole. Recently 52 states have laws allowing teens to be sentenced life without parole.
I do not think that teens deserve the death penalty because they are still children and are not adults yet. I think that if a teen commits a murder they should just be given 20-25 years in prison because then it will help them wise up and learn from their mistakes. To give a teen the death penalty I think is just cruel. The death penalty should be strictly only for adults.
In 2005 the supreme court said that it was cruel to give teens under the age of 18 the death penalty. In 2004 71 people were given the death penalty for juvenile crimes. The ages of the teens were 16 and 17 years of age. These juveniles were given the death penalty in 12 different states. Also, they were on death row from 4 months - 24 years. The majority of these teens were split evenly among males and females.
I believe that there should be help for teens who committed murder because they are not fully grown and their minds are still growing and developing. They have got a lot to learn in their life. Although, I think that 20-25 years in jail is enough of a learning experience.
If a child was convicted of murder I do not think anybody would want them to be given the death penalty, including me. I feel that children make a lot of mistakes and they need to learn from them. Their lives should not be ended because of one single mistake. I think that 20-25 years in prison is enough punishment because they just watched their entire life pass by from a solid cell.
Resources
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/juvenile-offenders-who-were-death-row
http://www.hrw.org/news/2005/10/11/united-states-thousands-children-sentenced-life-without-parole
http://www.teenink.com/opinion/social_issues_civics/article/803775/Should-the-Death-Penalty-Be-Allowed/
Survey
Should teens who kill people get the death sentence? 80 percent of the people said no which was 12 out of 15 students. 20 percent said yes which was 3 out of 15 students.
