In recent years, the question of whether young criminals should be treated similarly to adults by the law has sparked heated controversy. I firmly disagree with this opinion, as young people who commit crimes require different punishments to grown-ups.
To begin with, the main driving factor for giving different treatments for young offenders is the lack of cognitive ability and undeveloped mental health. To clarify this point, as immature criminals break the law, it is usually due to the lack of knowledge and conscience required to avoid attempting such wrongdoings. For that reason, authorities should make an effort to educate them rather than enforce strict penalties. For instance, many teenagers are susceptible to impulsive decisions and peer-pressure, which sometimes lead to misdeeds and offends at a young age.
Furthermore, juvenile criminals are more capable of being rehabilitated to fully develop their understanding about law and ethics. Since the youth are generally more open-minded and easier to educate, they can be reformed to suit conventional morality. Therefore, charging them with life imprisonment or death sentences, which are exclusively applied to adults, is unsuitable and undermines rehabilitation for them. In fact, there are a lot of reformative centres that aim toward rehabilitating adolescents and reintroducing them into society.
To recapitulate, although equality in courts is essential, treating young offenders as adults is not viable. Enforcing a system that considers their differences is required to ensure ethicality and also foster rehabilitation.