Blake Potvin

6/6/19

2nd Hour

Mrs. Valentino

When a Child Breaks the Law, How Should we Hold Him/Her Accountable?

A child should be held accountable for a law(s) broken and should be charged as an adult,

if needed. The reason for this is because many kids commit horrible crimes and it affects the

people surrounding them more than it affects the person committing the crime. For example,

Morgan Springer writes on Michigan Radio, “James says he, Retta and Steve agreed if that

meant killing them, they’d do it” (1). James knew exactly what he was doing when he committed

the crime and he is held accountable for it. Family members never saw it in him to do such a

thing, but now everyone hates James with a dying passion for a very good reason. Being

sentenced to life without parole was a godsend for the family, until he was qualified for

resentencing in 2018. One of James’ cousins said “I wish [Michigan] had the death penalty, says

Rick. I think he shouldn’t be living for what he did. That was two innocent brutally murdered

like that – I mean brutal” (Springer 1). Other cases of this have brought up the question of

holding a child accountable for crimes like these. This also can be seen in the book Lord of the

Flies, where Jack’s tribe has gone insane and murdered Simon. “At once the crowd surged after

it… leapt on to the beast, screamed struck, bit, tore” (Golding 153). Not paying attention that it

was Simon crying and not the beast, Jack’s whole tribe followed and tortured Simon to death.

Crimes like these would most likely hold very high consequences nevertheless of your age as

you could be charged as an adult. They show no mercy, and it shows a lasting effect on Piggy
 and Ralph that something should be done to stop Jack’s wrath. Jack also shows how inhumane

his tribe is by leaving the body in the sea. “… Simon’s dead body moved out toward the open

sea” (Golding 154). Children today should be raised right and if they weren’t, they should still

know basic common sense of right and wrong, unlike James who landed himself a free one way

ticket to prison.

Golding, William. Lord of the Flies: William Golding. Putnam, 1954.

Springer, Morgan. “A Michigan Teen Got Life without Parole for Killing Grandparents. Now He's

up for Resentencing.” RSS, 24 Jan. 2018, www.michiganradio.org/post/michigan-teen-got-life-

without-parole-killing-grandparents-now-he-s-resentencing.