Verified Document

When Kids Get Life Reaction And Peer Review Peer Reviewed Journal

¶ … beyond just the presentation of facts in the When Kids Get Life video, and asked the deeper questions, "Why do they do it? Why do teens commit heinous crimes?" Until we understand these deeper issues, it will be impossible to truly or meaningfully address the issue of how to punish or treat these adolescents. I also appreciate your willingness to share your thought processes. For example, you said that your views changed from what you learned in the course and through encountering materials like When Kids Get Life. Like you, I have also learned a lot and have changed my views. There are no easy answers. As you mention, protecting society is a primary concern and cannot be ignored. Incarceration does protect society theoretically, but as you noted, rates of juvenile offending are actually increasing. The public is not necessarily better off with the current programs. Incarceration alone is not enough. I believe that kids who offend, and adults too, need access to the services they need to rehabilitate themselves when possible.

I think most people would agree with you when you said that adolescents have different needs than adults. Adolescent brains are developing. Their hormones are still unbalanced....

These young people do need special considerations from the criminal justice system. Trying them as adults does not make sense from a developmental psychology perspective.
Like you, the Jacob Ind and Nathan Ybanez stories were the ones that had the strongest impact on me. Both of these kids were dreadfully abused throughout their childhoods. Without any help or intervention, their anger and fear reached the level where they killed their parents. I do not believe that these boys would have killed their parents otherwise. Their killings are a type of self-defense. Abuse takes its toll on the brain, and kids might not know how else to defend themselves. They might not have any recourse, or have anyone they can trust. I believe strongly that it was their abuse that is the greater problem than even the murder. Far from condoning murderous behavior, this point-of-view and understanding of the bigger picture helps us to see that incarceration is not getting to the root cause of the problem of crimes such as these. We need to recognize abuse before it gets to the point where the child becomes irreversibly damaged. Many juvenile offenders were abused. Are corrections facilities equipped enough to help people like…

Sources used in this document:
References

Bikel, O. (Director). (2007). When kids get life [Documentary]. United States: WGBH Educational Foundation: FRONTLINE.

Montes, E. (2015). When kids get life: Essay.
Cite this Document:
Copy Bibliography Citation

Related Documents

Role of Life Long Learning in Creating an Ecologically Minded Society...
Words: 15657 Length: 50 Document Type: Dissertation or Thesis complete

popularized social and cultural trends are merging, intentionally or not, toward laying the foundation for generating a new narrative about what it means to learn across a lifespan in an environment conducive to healthy living. It seeks to examine the coalescing of what is called lifelong learning side-by-side with the theories and practices related to the evolution of ecological thinking and environmental awareness. The idea that life can be

Analyzing Sebold Book Reaction Paper
Words: 2052 Length: 6 Document Type: Essay

Rape is an anti-social phenomenon that needs to be dealt with extreme care since it not only has drastic effects on the victim but also on the colleagues, peers, family members and community people in their proximity. This is a book reaction paper on "Lucky" written by Alice Sebold, in which she recounts her experiences of the rape and her journey to recovery after that. The further sections of the

Non-Traditional Families the Two Scholarly
Words: 1473 Length: 4 Document Type: Reaction Paper

She also emphasizes the fact that "…the pervasiveness of social prejudice and institutionalized discrimination against lesbians and gay men" presents a powerful influence in psychological research (160). The attack on gay and lesbian parenting research is amazingly similar to the attack on climate change by the right wing (conservatives say the scientific research is biased); and it is similar to attacks on laws prohibiting lead bullets in California Condor

Privacy for High School Students
Words: 12892 Length: 40 Document Type: Term Paper

Internet: Privacy for High School Students An Analysis of Privacy Issues and High School Students in the United States Today In the Age of Information, the issue of invasion of privacy continues to dominate the headlines. More and more people, it seems, are becoming victims of identity theft, one of the major forms of privacy invasion, and personal information on just about everyone in the world is available at the click of

Youth's Decision to Withdraw From
Words: 6240 Length: 20 Document Type: Research Proposal

The Fun Principle stated that as "we take the fun out of physical activities, we take the kids out of them" (Martens, 1996, p. 306). Martens said that learning should be enjoyable and that when winning is pursued in the extreme, it produces behaviors that destroy children's self-worth and rob them of fun. However, adults frequently violate this principle by over organizing, constantly instructing and evaluating, over drilling and routinizing

Blink 182
Words: 1835 Length: 5 Document Type: Research Paper

Current Events in the Lives of Blink-182 Formed by Tom DeLonge and Mark Hoppus in 1992, Blink-182 went on to wide acclaim as American punk rockers until 2005, when the group disbanded for a time after the loss of Delonge due to rising tensions among the members of the band. Unlike many punk rock groups that enjoyed only fleeting fame, the enduring messages of the band's music and their musicality

Sign Up for Unlimited Study Help

Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.

Get Started Now