juvenile crime began to sharply increase and high profile cases of juvenile crime became common lead stories in the media. From 1984 through 1994, juvenile arrests for violent offenses rose 78%. From 1989 to 1993, arrests rates for murders committed by minors increased by 45%. During the same time period, aggravated assault arrests rose 37%( ). In order to combat peoples rising fears of this new bred of violent criminal, politicians began to take strides to make it easier to prosecute minors as adults. Some of these steps included: lowering the age in which a juvenile can be prosecuted as an adult; expanding the list of crimes for which juveniles are automatically charged as adults; handing prosecutors the sole determinism for when juveniles are to be prosecuted as adults; limiting the power of judges to overturn decisions by the prosecutors( ).These steps have lead to an explosion of minors being tried in the adult court system and subsequently being imprisoned in adult facilities.
             From 1985 to 1997, the number of convicts under the age of eighteen sent to adult state prisons has more than doubled, going from 3,400 to 7,800 kids. From 1983 to 1998, the number of minors admitted to adult jails has increased even more dramatically. While there were 1,736 minors in adult jails in 1983, there were 8,090 admitted in 1998, representing an increase by 366%( ).
             While proponents of charging juveniles as adults may view these trends as a positive step towards battling crime in our society, the negative impacts of this trend are overwhelming. Race has been proven to be a huge factor in deciding which minors are to be prosecuted as adults, along with the length of sentences being dealt out. In addition, with the ages for which minors are being tried as adults constantly decreasing, one question is being ignored; how young is too young to prosecute? There have also been numerous examples to show that the adult court system is not prop...