More and more violent crimes are being commited by children. While some people consider that under-18 criminals should be judged the same as adults, I believe that they must be judged separately and have a chance for rehabilitation.
On the one hand, treating young criminals like they are adults might have substantial meaning to the victims side. When people encounter serious crimes towards their loved ones, they strongly oppose the idea of forgiving the crime. They often claim that adolescents are able to carry out crimes that are even more violent than those commited by adults. For example, some surveys showed that 92% of victims demand justice, regardless of the age of a criminal. They explained this by the fact that they do not suffer less depending on how old is a criminal. However, i believe that the age of a person who carried out the crime must be taken into consideration.
On the other hand, teenagers are not developed enough to take responsibility for their actions. Teenage brain often diminishes most external factors and fails to reason certain actions. By other means, children do not always understand what are they doing at full extension and can not be aware of their next step. For instance, Oxford University researches demonstrated that teenagers reach maturity and consciousness only by their 18s
which also means that young offencers need special attitude apart from adults.
In conclusion, although treating young criminals with the same attitude as with adults might temporarily isolate them from committing more offences, i believe that rehabilitating children can entirely root out their anti-social behaviour and significantly impact the global scale of the crimes.