Juveniles face a lower chance of rehabilitation if they are tried as adults

The argument

If juveniles are tried in adult courts, they lose the chance to be rehabilitated. Instead of trying them in adult courts, their age margin should be respected. This argument stems from the fact that the human brain does not fully develop until the mid-20s, which bears directly on both halves of a criminal case. If a juvenile commits a crime, there is no guarantee that they were rational at the time of the incident — and a system that assumes full adult reasoning is measuring the defendant against a capacity they do not yet possess. The outcomes bear this out. Juveniles who have been prosecuted in adult courts are more likely to be rearrested than their adult counterparts. Research and data collected from 15 states in the U.S. show that juveniles who were tried in adult courts were rearrested 82 percent of the time, and adults were rearrested 16 percent less. That comparison is the crucial one, because it isolates the effect of the forum rather than the offence: the younger defendants, who on any developmental account have the greatest capacity to change, emerge from the adult system reoffending more often than the adults processed alongside them. A system that produces this result is not merely failing to rehabilitate; it is doing worse than the alternative on the measure it claims to care about. The explanation lies in what each system is equipped to offer. Juveniles tried and prosecuted in juvenile courts are much more likely to benefit from resources such as the counseling made available by the juvenile system, which is built around the assumption that its subjects are still forming and can be redirected. Whereas if they were prosecuted in adult court, they would be deprived of their young and impactful development, or even worse, be exposed to adult offenders — placed, at the most formative stage of their lives, among the people whose conduct they are least able to resist imitating. Juveniles should therefore not be tried as adults in court.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Juveniles take advantage of the juvenile justice system, which is designed to provide individualized rehabilitation for juveniles who commit minor crimes such as vandalism or shoplifting. If other more serious crimes such as murder or rape are committed, they should be held accountable, whatever their age. Juveniles may be more likely to commit horrible crimes because they don't fear the verdict if they are tried as juveniles/children.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P3] The counter accepts the juvenile system's design but disputes its scope, holding that individualised rehabilitation is suited to minor offences such as vandalism or shoplifting and that offences such as murder or rape call for accountability whatever the offender's age. [Rejecting C] It also reverses the incentive the argument relies on, suggesting that young people may be more willing to commit serious offences precisely because trial as a juvenile carries a verdict they do not fear, so routing them away from adult court could bear on the offending rather than only on the rehabilitation that follows.