Juveniles and the Death Penalty

“Neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without possibilty of release shall be imposed for offenses committed by persons below eighteen years of age….” Convention on Rights of a Child (Article 37a) The actual execution of juvenile offenders sentenced to death began in 1642 by Thomas Graunger, in the Plymouth colony of Massachusetts. In over three and one-half centuries since that time, at least 362 juvenile offender executions have been imposed by 38 states and the federal government, and …

…of those intendments, people around him were hurt, physically and emtionally. But at the same time, juveniles aren’t anything but children. Children have the right to make mistakes, and learn from them. The real people, in this case, who should get punished is the child’s parents. It’s because of them that the minor is lacking a kind of necessity, and it’s because of them the child exploits the way he does.