How should children in trouble with the law be responded to by Essay

How should children in trouble with the law be responded to by prioritizing their welfare or by prioritizing justice - Essay Example The cognitive development of children is not at the same level as it is when they have reached adulthood. The way in which they understand complex social concepts is not the same as the concepts that adults have developed. Therefore, when children commit crimes they do not have the same perspective from which to draw logical choices. The decisions that lead to an illegal act are driven by concepts that have been twisted to include the acceptability of those decisions. Children have a centralized need to draw in all of the education that they can take, which often includes exploring less than legal experiences. As well, sometimes they perceive an action that must be taken because they do not see an alternative. The problem with treating children as criminals is that they begin to behave and adopt the identity of a criminal. The crime that they commit later in life can be far worse than the crimes of childhood, thus creating a scenario where society has the choice of growing a better a dult or creating a new criminal. Because the actions of a child do not define the future identity of the potential adult within, the welfare of the child should be protected and nurtured in order to prioritize the security of justice in the future by implementing a welfare approach to handling youth offenders. According to Barrouillet and Gaillard (2011), children do not have the capacity to understand all of the factors involved in situations that have sophisticated complexities in forming the circumstances. Cognitive capacity increases with age allowing for more information to be considered in making a decision (p. 2). Children do not have the capacity to considered highly complex situations, thus creating impulsivity and spontaneity in the way in which they react to different situations. Circumstances are often such that the immediacy of the benefit will outweigh any ability to fully consider the consequences of the action. Therefore, it is often the case that illegal activity is not framed from the point of view of an understanding of all of the potential outcomes. Without the ability to form and recognized all of the outcomes, a child does not have the ability to make a true decision about right and wrong. Using the perspective of prioritizing justice does nothing to address the causes of youthful crime. It does nothing to attend to the safety of the public and causes more harm further down the line when now trained criminals are released from prison. This is not to suggest that children cannot be taught right from wrong, but it is too much to expect that every situation can be successfully framed within that conceptualization. According to Smith, Cowie, and Blades (2003), children are seeking to learn what is right and wrong and why it is right or wrong and as they grow, they are better able to comprehend more complex concepts (p. 270). However, children will not necessarily understand what makes a situation right or wrong and this misunderstanding can c reate a gap between understanding the action in regard to the outcome. As an example, take into consideration a childhood activity of throwing apples at cars as they pass. The child is aiming at a moving target, creating a game out of the explosion of the apple as it hits the car. However, the possible outcomes of startling the driver and causing an accident, causing damage to the car, or of breaking a window and injuring the passengers, may be well beyond the capacity of the child to understand. Even if those concepts are known, the child may still believe that nothing bad will happen and give into the temptation of throwing the fruit to see what will happen. Pearson (1984) writes eloquently about a world that has become more dangerous and filled with socially reforming do-gooders who have tied the hands of those