At the age of 12,\u00a0a boy named Evan\u00a0Savoi\u00a0stabbed and killed his developmentally disabled playmate,\u00a013-year-old\u00a0Craig\u00a0Sorger.\u00a0He is currently\u00a0serving\u00a0a\u00a026-year prison sentence for first-degree murder.\u00a0He was tried as an adult for his crime even though he was legally still a minor.\u00a0Many would argue that his crime was violent enough to validate his sentence, but what many don\u2019t realize is what a 12-year-old fails to conceptualize. The age of 12\u00a0is the very beginning of an adolescent being able to\u00a0understand that death is irreversible. How can we allow the government to try children for crimes where they don\u2019t understand the repercussions? Savoi\u00a0is an example of a childhood lost to incarceration in the juvenile-justice system.\u00a0 Currently in America, over 20\u00a0states allow\u00a0children as young as 7 to be tried as adults, and in some states this includes\u00a0sentencing children to life in prison without parole.\u00a0For all those parents out there, do you believe your child could understand that they had done something so wrong that they need to be punished for years?\u00a0 A 7-year-old\u2019s cognitive ability is at the level of simple mathematics and includes a vocabulary of only several thousand words.\u00a0 A 7-year-old is at the stage of emotional development where they are only beginning to understand and feel guilt and shame.\u00a0Although we\u00a0cannot\u00a0ignore that a child has committed a crime, we can better\u00a0deal with it by rehabilitating instead of punishing the children.\u00a0The juvenile-justice system in America is obviously in need of reform, and a rehabilitation program would be the most successful and advantageous option. A rehabilitation program would look very much like a group home setting.\u00a0Rehabilitation facilities would house 30 to 40\u00a0children and have live-in therapists\u00a0available to children\u00a024 hours a day.\u00a0The therapists and adults within the rehabilitation program would show the kids the love and encouragement they need and may or may not have had at their home.\u00a0 At the rehabilitation facility, the children would live the lifestyle of an average child\u00a0while receiving the therapy necessary to become a working member of society.\u00a0They would each have responsibilities around the facility and receive an education.\u00a0They would also have individual therapy sessions to find the core reason why they have committed and or want to commit crimes, so that those issues could be addressed before the child\u2019s release.\u00a0As a part of the rehabilitation program, the length of their sentence would be contingent on the child\u2019s progress in the program and\u00a0change in morale. This rehabilitative approach has been proven to work in Missouri\u2019s juvenile-justice system.\u00a0 Missouri has a recidivism rate of about 10 percent, which means that only about 10 percent of the children who go through the rehabilitation program are rearrested after their release.\u00a0Currently, the average recidivism rate in the national juvenile- justice system is about 40 percent.\u00a0Comparing these two statistics, it seems as though a switch to a rehabilitative program would be the logical solution, but there is even more incentive.\u00a0A rehabilitation program costs about $50,000 per year per child, whereas incarceration costs $100,000 per year per child.\u00a0 Knowing\u00a0that\u00a0it is necessary for\u00a0the United States government to reform\u00a0its\u00a0juvenile-justice system, rehabilitation is clearly the best way to do so. It is the most cost effective and is the longest-lasting solution.\u00a0 If you would like to help, go to\u00a0http:\/\/www.petitionon line.com\/merc1234\/petition.html\u00a0and sign the mock petition to show some of the California representatives that people care about this problem. \u00a0 \u2014 Mariah Ciani is a high school senior who lives in La Jolla.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At the age of 12,\u00a0a boy named Evan\u00a0Savoi\u00a0stabbed and killed his developmentally disabled playmate,\u00a013-year-old\u00a0Craig\u00a0Sorger.\u00a0He is currently\u00a0serving\u00a0a\u00a026-year prison sentence for first-degree murder.\u00a0He was tried as an adult for his crime even though he was legally still a minor.\u00a0Many would argue that his crime was violent enough to validate his sentence, but what many don\u2019t realize is […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11560","_seopress_titles_title":"Juvenile justice: another idea","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11560,11593,11552,11550],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-297807","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-la-jolla-village-news","category-no-images","category-opinion","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297807","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297807"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297807\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297807"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297807"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297807"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}