Children Should Never Be Put In Prison With Adults No Matter How Serious Their Crime
Sample essay
According to some people, child offenders should never have to spend time in prison with adults regardless of the gravity of their crime. I fully agree with this view.
It is dangerous to put children who commit crimes with adult prisoners. Children have highly impressionable minds and they are easily influenced by the people they spend time with. So, if a child finds the company of an adult criminal in prison, their chances of getting reformed are non-existent. Worse still, the child offender will learn from the adult and become a hardened criminal by the time they leave prison. Putting children with adults may also endanger their safety. These children may even have to face physical abuse and sexual assault. Such experiences in prison will only leave a scar on their mind and sow the seeds of misanthropic feelings. For these reasons, in nearly all countries there are separate correction homes for juveniles.
In the juvenile correction home also child offenders are in the company of other child offenders. Even so, the influence is minimal because children are not hardened criminals and can easily be corrected. Children who commit heinous crimes may require more than a few years in a juvenile correction home to learn their mistake. Still putting them in prison with adults is not the solution. Instead, the government needs to find other solutions and address the issues that triggered the criminal tendencies in the first place. Once these triggers are identified, prison authorities can find appropriate ways to reform the juvenile offender. Even after spending several years in a correction home, if they still do not show any improvement they can perhaps be moved to an adult prison after they turn 18.
To sum up, no matter how heinous the crime is, child offenders should never have to spend time in prison with adults. Putting them in the same prison as adults will not only endanger their safety but also reinforce their criminal tendencies.
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