Juvenile offenders are still young and can still be reformed. However, this is made more difficult when they are forced to “rehabilitate” in an adult system instead of in the juvenile system, which happens when they are prosecuted as adults.

Juvenile Offenders Prosecuted as Adults

Juvenile offenders are more likely to turn into hardened criminals or to suffer psychological damage as a result of their imprisonment in the adult system.

For example, a report shows that young people were not only put into solitary confinement regularly as punishment for bad behavior, but separated if they were vulnerable to abuse from others. Such isolation can cause severe mental health issues in young people, whose minds are still developing. Isolation can cause loneliness and depression.

Young people who are charged and incarcerated as adults are much less likely to rehabilitate; instead, preexisting problems will simply be exacerbated.

Juvenile Rehabilitation is More Effective

Research has shown that rewarding good behavior instead of punishing bad behavior is much more effective and that education can help to lower rates of delinquency amongst incarcerated youth. It should be a goal to help juvenile offenders to reform and not to punish them, or else they are more likely to end up in a vicious cycle throughout their lives in which they will be in and out of the prison system.

We believe that juvenile offenders should have every chance of being rehabilitated and, therefore, should not be charged as adults. If your child is being charged with a crime, then be sure to contact us at Garcia Law PLLC in Phoenix, AZ. We will do everything possible to keep your child from going to jail.