What are the pros and cons of trying juveniles as adults in court?

Juveniles need to learn that their actions have consequences

Question: What are the pros and cons of trying juveniles as adults in court?
Position1 of 2›: Juveniles should be tried as adults in court
Argument1 of 2›: Juveniles need to learn that their actions have consequences

For the victims of crime, it does not matter if the perpetrator was 15 or 55; the trauma of the crime is the same. If juveniles are capable of committing crimes and affecting society, they should learn that they are not above justice.

The argument

The consequences of a crime will remain the same for any victim, regardless of age. Why should the consequences not be similar for a juvenile? This rule may not apply to all crimes, but the current criminal justice system leaves too much up to the discretion of individual judges rather than considering input from a jury. This system allows for frequent bias and bribery, which directly defies the standard of setting uniform consequences. There is no wrong age to learn that your actions have consequences. If the crime is of legal significance, then the punishment will be of legal significance as well. In cases of severe cognitive disfunction, special considerations may be made, but the knowledge of how to commit those crimes will exist regardless of age, so the punishment should remain the same. Juveniles who are tried as adults are less likely to become repeat offenders, which means that a harsher punishment in the eyes of the law may actually be fairer in the long-term, not to mention reducing the level of overall criminality. If there is no such thing as age-appropriate crimes, there should be no such thing as age-appropriate punishments.

Premises

[P1]The harm of a crime is the same for the victim regardless of the offender's age. [P2] There is no wrong age to learn that one's actions have consequences, and the knowledge to commit a serious crime exists regardless of age. [P3] Juveniles tried as adults are less likely to reoffend, making harsher punishment fairer in the long run. [C] Therefore, because juveniles need to learn their actions have consequences, they should be tried as adults.

Counter-arguments

The consequences for a crime will exist no matter what, but trying juveniles as adults allows for harsher consequences. If the main issue with a criminal proceeding is the severity of the punishment, then it may be best to focus reformative measures on the numerous other flaws of greater significance that exist within our criminal justice system.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] Harm to the victim is not the only thing sentencing responds to. Every criminal system also weighs culpability, and the reason age matters is that adolescents' capacity for impulse control, risk assessment and resistance to peer influence is still developing — a finding the US Supreme Court has relied on in restricting the harshest sentences for juveniles. [Rejecting P2] Knowing how to do something is not the same as being fully responsible for doing it, and the premise elides the distinction. Age-graded responsibility is applied across the law — to contracts, consent, military service and voting — so it is not a special exemption invented for offenders. [Rejecting P3] This premise has the evidence backwards. Studies comparing juveniles transferred to adult court with similar juveniles retained in the juvenile system have consistently found higher re-offending among those transferred, and a US Task Force on Community Preventive Services review concluded that transfer was counterproductive as a violence-prevention measure. [Rejecting C] The counter-argument on record makes the structural point: consequences follow either way, and what transfer changes is their severity — so the argument's stated aim, that young people learn actions have consequences, is already met by the juvenile system. The passage about judicial discretion and bribery also argues against the current arrangement generally rather than for adult trial specifically.