Draft #1 of Inquiry-Based Research Project

 Skylah Nix 

ENG 101 Section FY20 

Prof. Matayakubova

                                                        Adult Prison with Kids Inside It? 

        How would you react if you saw a young teen in an adult prison like Rikers Island? Would you feel shocked, angry, surprised, or happy? For a long time, teens and kids who commit crimes go to facilities and juvenile detention until they get their act together. They were never allowed to go to adult prison. That was until the case of Nathaniel Abraham who in 1999 was the first boy to get sentenced to adult prison for second degree murder. He was only 11 years old when he committed murder was tried as an adult. This case changed the history and sparked controversy on if it's ethical to send kids and teens to adult prison. A large amount of society believes that kids shouldn’t be sentenced to adult prison because they are young, and it sounds inhumane. However, some people believe that kids and teens who commit crimes should go to adult prison because if they do the crime then they serve the time. They believe that age shouldn’t be used as an excuse for the crimes they committed. I think that teens who commit crimes shouldn't be sentenced to adult prison. Going to an adult prison that young can badly alter their mind. There should be more programs to help kids who commit crimes and more positive police involvement to help keep teens off the streets and from doing crime.

        Adult prison is a facility where men and women aged 18 and above “are kept as punishment for a crime they have committed, or while they are awaiting trial.” (Oxford English Dictionary Outline 2023) When a person who is 18 years and above commits a crime they go to trial where they get sentenced. If they get a sentence of 2 years and above, they go to prison until their sentence is complete. Men and women in prison are kept in separate locations and they have to follow very strict rules that if not followed are faced with punishment. Guards and even inmates face verbal abuse, physical abuse, and unhealthy living conditions.

        The first prison to ever be created was the Massachusetts State Prison that opened in 1785 which was just after the American Revolution. The first case that sparked controversy with kids and teens being tried as adults was the case of Nathaniel Abraham. Nathaniel Abraham was found guilty of second-degree murder at only 11 years old. His trial lasted from October 29th-November 16, 1999. He “became the youngest American convicted of murder as an adult.” (Nathaniel Abraham Trial: 1999 by Encyclopedia). He stayed in juvenile detention until the age of 21 where he was then transferred to an adult prison. Now, in 2023, 27 states including the District of Columbia have banned life sentences without the possibility of parole for people under the age of 18, and in nine more states no person under the age of 18 can serve life in prison without parole. However, the United States is the only nation that can give people under the age of 18 life sentences without parole.

        Teens who commit crimes shouldn’t be sentenced to prison because they are not mentally capable of serving time with adults that have been in prison longer than they have and are much older than the teen is. If close to “70% of youths in the juvenile justice system have a diagnosed mental health disorder, and approximately 30 percent suffer from a mental illness so severe it impairs their ability to function as a responsible adult” (American Correctional Association Inc, 2016, p.24). How do you expect a teen to survive and cope in an adult prison that has a worse environment. Their brains are not meant to adapt to such harsh conditions too quickly. Their mental health can deteriorate fast and cause teens to develop depression, ADHD, anxiety, PTSD, and so much more worse symptoms. This is why teens shouldn’t be sent to adult prison because it’s going to make them become a worse person instead of coming out as a better person. The way adult prisons are set up and run doesn’t make the situation any better.