Research Proposal

 Skylah Nix ENG 101

 - FY20 

Narigza Matayakubova 

    Imagine visiting a prison like Rikers Island and seeing a 16-year-old kid in there! What would you do? The decision to try a teen as an adult is usually decided by a judge or by a prosecutor. Kids and teens will be sentenced as an adult if they commit serious violent crimes like assault or murder. However, there has been great controversy on whether or not it's ethical to sentence a kid to an adult prison regardless of the crime. If a kid kills somebody, there is a question on if the child should be sentenced based on the crime or if the child should be sentenced based on the age. This leads me to think if it's ethical to sentence children as adults if they commit serious crimes.

     I watch a great amount of crime documentaries on the daily and a lot of them that I watch deal with children committing serious violent offenses like assaulting other kids and adults and even murder. What made me more interested in this topic was the case of Cyntoia Brown. She was a 16-year-old girl when she shot and killed 43-year-old Johnny Mithell. She was then tried as an adult and sentenced to life in prison. This sparked outcry and questions from the public regarding the idea of a 16-year-old girl being sentenced to life in prison as an adult at such a young age. There have been many documentaries about her and the laws that surround teens committing crimes. I'm seeking more knowledge on different laws in all the states and how they deal with teen crimes. I'm seeking more information on cases where teens were sentenced as adults and how it affected them mentally and physically and also how the public reacted to these events. I will also research other ways to deal with teens who commit violent crimes then to try them as adults. And to add on I will also look for the backstory behind the child who committed the crime.

     The goal that I’m trying to accomplish by doing this as a researcher and a scientist is to create a safer environment for children and to decrease the number of crimes in the world. As a forensic scientist we deal with crime all the time and it's sad to see that the person behind the crime is a child. If I can find the root behind the cause of the crimes and the laws being made, then that can make way for more ethical laws being created that can keep children from stopping crimes. Children being sentenced as an adult not only damages their mental health, but it also damages them physically and makes them worse than better.