Age of Accountability and Age of Consent should be the same

Age of Accountability and Age of Consent should be the same

By DEMETRIUS HARRISON

News Editor

North Carolina has the lowest age of criminal liability, the age at which children are able to be prosecuted as adults, in the U.S. at sevenyears-old.

This means if a first-grade student were to get into his or her parents’ gun, thinking they are playing with a toy, and kill someone, that child can be charged as an adult and sentenced to prison.

The age of consent for sexual intercourse in North Carolina is 16-years-old. The government determines the age of consent by when they believe a minor has mentally developed enough to act as an adult.

The question is: if you aren’t able to think as an adult until 16-years-old, how on Earth can you be knowledgeable enough to knowingly commit a crime at 7-years-old?

I believe that each state should eliminate the possibility of trying children as adults, however; in the unlikelihood of that ever happening, I believe that each state should match its age of criminal liability with its age of consent.

Even worse, there are thirteen states holding no minimum age requirement for children to be prosecuted as adults. Could you imagine your child who hasn’t even had his tenth birthday party to be forced behind bars?

Alaska, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia are the states who have no regulations in place regarding what age limit they will try children as adults in the court of law.

The primary issue with this is not the lack of consistency the United States government has in who they view as adults, it is the extreme neglect they are displaying for our adolescents.

According to the Population Reference Bureau, more crime happens within prisons than outside of prison due to the lack of personal security and integration of felony offenders. Saying this, children, in no circumstances, should be cell-mates with rapists, stalkers, serial killers, drug addicts, and pedophiles.

This is actually a very ineffective way to eliminate intolerable behavior within our youth, it worsens it.

It has been proven through research by the Vanderbilt University Psychology department that most children model what they grew up around.

So, if children are witnessing, or experiencing the trauma and abuse that takes place within the U.S. Correctional Facilities, how will they ever better themselves?

Not only are adult prisons physically unfit for children, but they are also developmentally harmful to them according to Psychology Today. Children need to eat a lot of healthy food to receive the proteins and nutrition to help them grow into young adults.

Eating low-budget meals in prison and not having the space to exercise frequently is extremely harmful or adolescents. Children also lose a sense of developing moral righteousness when in prison, which are mental downfalls of institutionalization.

I am not sure I could ever say goodbye to my child because of a mistake they made at a young age before knowing right from wrong.

Could you imagine getting collect calls from you seven-year-old crying about how someone pulled a knife on them in the bathroom?

It’s sickening, and something needs to be changed. I am shocked the government has not updated these laws this far along.