Janet Garcia

Mr.Cook
ELA
14 October 2014

I support quote #1, minors who commit crimes such as El Ponchis should
receive psychiatric and psychological treatments instead of being tried as adults.
To begin with, many young teens become violent which then leads on killing
people because of the environment or tragedies they have gone through. In the text,
there was a story of a 17-year old boy that had killed 10 people and wounded 2. It said
that, he had been abandoned by his father as a baby, neglected by his mother, and
spent time in a homeless shelter. The events that had happened in his life built up
emotions in him that he did not how to take them out, so when his mentor, the man
that had adopted him, taught him how to shoot high-powered rifles at people, he
thought he was doing it for a good cause and probably taking out his emotions. The boy
had later on said that, the older man had brainwashed him into becoming a killer. The
story of this 17 year-old represents how minors who commit crimes should receive
psychiatric and psychological treatments instead of being tried as adults because they
are not stable.
To add to this, another example of young delinquents, is the case of the 14-year
old El Ponchis. He, is accused of multiple crimes, including beheading four people and
pushing their bodies off a bridge. Someone who is sane does not do these kind of
things. His father had said that, the boy was forced into service by older gang members
as a pawn in the drug wars. El Ponchis had been influenced by gang members to do
these kind of actions, and was probably threatened to get killed if he did not accomplish
what he was assigned by the gang members , like murdering people. This also shows
how young delinquents should receive psychiatric and psychological treatments instead
of being tried as adults because they are forced to join gangs and experience many
horrible things.
In conclusion, minors who commit crimes such as El Ponchis should receive
psychiatric and psychological treatments instead of being tried as adults. I support this
idea because if minors are trialed as adults there is not going to be any change. They
will still act violent in jail toward other inmates or hurt themselves, but if they get
psychological help they will be able to change themselves because they are getting the
help that they need. Sometimes we go through devastating experiences or we are
forced into doing things we do not want to do but have no other choice. That is most of
the cases for young delinquents, and they should be getting the necessary help.