Legal Issues

    The youth (or juveniles, as the law often refers to them), though not fully punished like adults in violation of existing laws, are still prosecuted and detained in facilities that hold juvenile delinquents. In cases where juveniles are processed like adults and even in juvenile courts, the underage people involved get eaten up by the system, ruining their lives. In line with this, I believe that juveniles should be left alone if they are just suspected of criminal activity. What should be done is just to keep an eye on them without invading their space that can lead to some stressful even traumatic experiences.

    Our law follows the rule that a person is innocent until proven guilty, so the same should be applied to the youth even when they are suspected of criminal activities. After all, they are just suspected and not really proven of doing anything illegal. Everyone should be given the benefit of the doubt. Once the underage individual is caught red-handed or proven guilty, then it is the time when he or she should be processed according to the law. We should not base our legal actions on hunches especially when the future of juveniles are at stake.

    Just imagine what a kid would undergo to if he or she would be processed formally on the basis of mere suspicion. Anybody would be traumatized, guilty or not. The accused would be separated from his or her family and be exposed to kids who may be psychologically unstable. There is also a possibility that the kid would be abused by the adult officers and the bullies in juvenile prison. To put it simply, the kid would suffer physically, emotionally, and psychologically.

    With these consequences of formally processing juvenile suspects, I would have to reassert my position that I do not agree with the idea that underage individuals should be processed formally. The trauma and possible harm that the kids could experience are far tooю.