A twelve-year-old boy named Lionel Tate was charged as an adult with first-degree murder in the death of a six-year-old playmate. Tate was imitating wrestling moves that he saw on television when the girl was killed (The Associated Press). This boy was just playing with a friend when this accident occurred. Tate went to trial and was tried as an adult. He was found guilty of murder and was sent to an adult prison to serve a life sentence, but after three days was moved to juvenile prison to finish his sentence (The Associated Press). How can a twelve-year-old boy be sentenced to life in prison for playing? I believe that it is wrong for children under the age of sixteen to be tried as adults as long as the child was not planning a pre-meditated crime.
             Children should not be tried as adults for many reasons relating to their age, maturity, and family life. A child's age is an important factor in judging whether an individual should be tried as and adult. There is not one certain age that it can be determined whether someone is capable of being tried as an adult. As children grow up they go though changes in their physical appearance, intelligence, emotions, and social behavior. Because of all o these transformations some children are more mature in certain areas than others.
             Children mature at different rates. Dr. Laurence Steinberg, professor of psychology at Temple University, and Dr. Elizabeth Cauffman, assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, state that "a given teenager may be mature physically but immature emotionally, socially precocious but an intellectual late bloomer." Just because a teenager may look like and adult because he or she is physically developed does not mean that he or she has the mental skills to make adult decisions. Of the junior high students that I have observed the girls seem more mature than the boys.
             Two children of the same age in the same grade at school...