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Lizbeth Loeza

Mrs. Dunham

Debate Essay

05/6/19

Is it appropriate for adolescents to be sentenced to life without parole? This is an

issue that has still been a question to many, some believe the law is the law and it should

apply to anyone that way without any exceptions but, the truth is there has to be some

exceptions done. The real question should be why can they or why can they not be

sentenced to life without parole, what reasons makes them an exception to this decision. I

will be explaining these reasons.

The very first reason would be that adolescents aren’t mature enough to know what they
are doing, they are mostly driven by adrenaline and peer pressure from their group of friends. It
has always been said to adolescents that they are too young to make their own decisions or that
their brain isn’t fully developed and they don’t know what they are doing, so why when it comes
to a sentence they don’t consider that?. I am not disagreeing with this, it is 100% true, what I am
questioning the most is that when the time comes adults try to blame adolescents for their
wrongdoings and although they do take part in their decisions. The adult’s previous statements or
assumptions of adolescents not being fully developed suddenly go away.

According to mental health daily and researchers the brain isn’t developed fully until mid
20’s. “The fact that our brains aren’t developed until the mid 20s means that “legal adults” (those
age 18+) are allowed to make adult decisions, without fully mature brains. Someone who is 18
may make riskier decisions than someone in their mid-20s in part due to lack of experience, but
primarily due to an underdeveloped brain”. As stated in this article decisions made by a younger
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person have a big impact due to the fact that their brain isn’t mature enough, lack of experience
plays a big role in this to without having a lot of knowledge of the real world and experiences,
teens believe they can do anything, they don’t really take consequences into consideration. They
act on adrenaline as I mentioned before, the rush of something fun or outgoing, they are very risk
taking. The frontal lobe is known to impair one's ability to think and make choices this part of
the brain is complet;et covered with adrenaline in younger teens they don’t think twice before
doing something they just act on it as quickly as possible.

With all that said we are back to the main question again should adolescents to be
sentenced to life without parole?. In my opinion the answer is no, they should not. Adolescents
that are tried at an early age should be given a second chance once they have reached a level of
maturity. Even with that first bad experience their brain will remember that situation
tremendously and will mature from that decision almost instantly. They will feel remorse, or
guilt. A great example for this situation is the case of Taylor and jordan, Although she will be
tried and sentenced due to all the injuries her friend suffered and after trauma the thing that was
mentioned in court is that they are teens and they were just having fun which is a true statement,
when teens do something they think it will be fun and as she stated it has changed her life
because she didn’t “think” about any of this happening to her friend it was just the moment of
adrenaline that led her to push her.

The use for that example is to show that things like this happen very often some
definitely don’t make it to the news but the truth is teens live life a little recklessly. I personally
know a few teens, including my siblings that have been through this, and their excuses all fall
along the line of “it was just for fun”, “we were playing around”, “I didn’t know that would
happen”. I believe that the only exception for not giving an adolescent a chance for parole is if
they are arrested for a bigger issue even though they aren’t capable of making good enough
decisions there is a part of their brain that is conscience of telling wrong from right, another
exception would be if they have a mental illness or have trauma or did what they did was in self
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defense or to get them out of a hostile situation . I believe the judges should take all this into
consideration.

In conclusion adolescents that commit crimes at a young age should be given another
chance to redeem themselves and even give their opinion on how they see what happened after a
few years with more knowledge and experience.