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The idea of charging and trying juveniles as adults within the justice system directly involves the transfer and presentation of their cases from the juvenile to the criminal courts . Yet the very existence of the juvenile judicial system is based upon the developmental idea that minors ' psychological constitution differ significantly from that of an adult (Steinberg , 1 . During the years of transition from childhood to adulthood , psychological development takes place and these developments affect the ability of the person to make informed decisions about actions that might be considered offensive (6 . The

recent trend in prosecution has resulted in an increase in the number of juvenile cases that are tried in criminal courts , and this can be seen to have occurred as a direct result of a change in the focus of the prosecution . While in former times , court cases have been offender-based , recently the prosecutors of these cases have been more focused on the nature of the offence rather than on the psychological make-up of the person who has committed the offence . This , coupled with the fact that many states have a cut-off minor age of well below the 18-year mark has led to a situation in which many under-age persons are being wrongly tried as adults for offences

A person 's age should be of immense importance when one considers where and how to try them , as age has a direct bearing on the person 's ability to profit from the decision made by the court . Adult punishments are given under the assumption that the person who has committed the crime has done so with full awareness of the consequences . Even adults are sometimes allowed to plead in ways that portray them as being unaware of the consequences during the commission of the crime . Treating juveniles as adults places them at a disadvantage , as it is certain that many crimes are committed by some who have not reached a level of accountability and developmental maturity (Steinberg , 4 . It cannot be considered justice when a juvenile is accorded a similar punishment to that given an adult , when that child could not have been in a similar position of understanding regarding the consequences of the actions he or she performed . Minor offenders should at least be uniformly granted consideration of their developmental disadvantages before being taken before a criminal court judge

The trauma that a child is likely to suffer from being confined and punished as an adult is of such a magnitude from which any young person can hardly be expected to recover fully . The immaturity of these minors intellect as well as their emotional under-development almost ensures that these individuals would buckle under the pressure of such punishment . Even for adults it has been shown that The adaptation to imprisonment is almost always difficult and , at times , creates habits of thinking and acting that can be dysfunctional in periods of post-prison adjustment (Haney , par . 12 . When a psychologically under-developed child is exposed to conditions under which even adults...