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At age sixteen, teens can drive. At eighteen they can smoke and at twenty- one they can drink. But when are they really considered adults? Perhaps once teens commit a crime and are tried in adult courts. Therefore, if caught shoplifting adolescents can be tried as an adult. So, children can be tried as adults for something as simple as truancy to something as serious as murder.

A 1995 Gallup Youth Survey found the majority of teens believe their peers should be judged like adults ("Punish" 1). Ninety-five percent of the teens surveyed felt young adults charged with murder should be tried as adults ("Punish" 1). Ninety-four percent of the teens say rapists should be tried as adults, also ("Punish" 1). Nine out of ten feel when a teen commits a robbery while armed with a weapon, he or she should be tried as an adult ("Punish" 1). Those who take a risk of selling drugs and are caught should be tried as adults. Some eighty-two percent of the teens support this view ("Punish" 1). Most teens think its time to be treated like an adult.

"Dear Family,

Imagine getting a letter like this from a son or daughter, brother or sister. Unfortunately this letter is real. Shareef Cousin was found guilty of murdering Michael Geraradi in 1995, when he was sixteen. Cousin, now nineteen, is on death row at Louisiana State Prison at Angola . Cousin’s cell is small and stark, with cement floors, a metal sleeping bunk and a steel toilet. Locked in the cell for twenty-three hours a day, Cousin only gets one hour to exercise or use the telephone. Cousin gets breakfast at 5:30 in the morning, lunch at 10:30 and supper at 3:30. All meals are slipped through a slot in the door. The air is heavy, hot, and stirred by large fans. Cousin will die by lethal injection. The first shot, sodium thiopental, will bring unconsciousness. The second shot, pancuronium bromide, will paralyze the body functions. Last will be potassium chloride, which will stop the heart. At the moment Cousin doesn’t know the date or the time of his injection. "The years fifteen to eighteen are when you should learn most of the things about life," Cousin says. "Right now, I know more about the justice system, than I do about life" (Farley 1).

In May of 1997, the House of Representatives passed a bill giving $1.6 million to states agreeing to toughen their handling of kids committing serious felonies, making it easier to try them as adults ("Teen" 1). The states would have to "keep adult style criminal records on juvenile offenders" ("Teen" 1). Over the past five years every state except Hawaii has decided to allow some kids to be tried in adult criminal courts ("Teen" 2). 12,300 youths are being prosecuted as adults each year in state courts ("Teen" 2). Of these youth how many will have their lives end because they are on death row. Christopher John Farley writes "of the thirty-eight states that allow the death penalty: thirteen set the minimum age at eighteen, four set it at seventeen, and twenty- one have a minimum age of sixteen or no minimum age at all" (2). But in the article "Are they too young to die?" it states twenty of the thirty-eight death penalty states allow executions for people as young as sixteen (4). Four other states, the minimum age for the death penalty is seventeen ("Are" 4).

The state of Texas wants to lower the execution age to eleven, because of the Jonesboro murders ("Legislator" 1). Rep. Jim Pitts said "I realize this is a drastic step, but kids that are growing up today aren’t the Leave it to Beaver kids I grew up with" ("Legislator" 1). Mr. Pitts said he will introduce a juvenile- crime package ("Legislator" 1). The package will ask to lower the age a juvenile can be tried as an adult from fourteen to ten and the age at which an offender could be put to death from seventeen to eleven ("Legislator" 1). Under the Pitts proposal, someone as young as eleven who is convicted of capital murder could face either life without parole or the death penalty ("Legislator" 2). " These are children being killed, and this idea of killing eleven year olds or having them charged as adults is not answering a principal question in our society," Mr. Jordan said. "How do we get the best of our human resources of our society? It certainly won’t be to kill the young" ("Legislator" 2). Mr. Jordan said he did not think Mr. Pitts’ proposal would have much chance of passing ("Legislator" 3). "There is no hope for the young if we make a practice of cutting off all their chances of development," Mr. Jordan said ("Legislator" 3).

Eighth graders discuss how their earth sciences teacher, John Gillette, was shot right in front of them at their graduation dance ("A Test" 1). The suspect is a fourteen-year-old classmate ("A Test" 1). Little work was done on Monday as students returned to James W. Parker Middle School ("A Test" 1). Lucien Haury, fourteen, who huddled in a closet with a dozen friends during the shooting, said lessons were abandoned in all seven of his classes ("A Test" 1). He said he once wanted to be a geophysicist but will pursue a career as a teacher to honor Gillette ("A Test" 1). When asked how they felt about this Sarah* said " I think it is terrible how kids are able to get their hands on guns and use them to hurt or kill people." Sarah also mentioned that the kids aren’t the only ones who should be punished. So should the parents for having the guns where the kids could get at them.

Children can be tried as adults for truancy to murder, no matter how serious. No matter what people think, it will eventually happen. Youth as young as eleven will be tried as adults and not just in Texas. More teens will be convicted and tried in adult courts. So maybe some day more and more people will be getting letters like the one Shareef Cousin wrote. "When we talk about sixteen and seventeen year olds being sent to death row, there is no deterrence," says Steven Hawkins, director of National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP) ("Are" 3).

*Real name withheld on request