Running head: LIFE FOR KIDS 1

Life for Kids
John Wayne
North College

LIFE FOR KIDS 2
The documentary “When Kids Get Life” is an in depth look of juveniles who have committed terrible crimes and are now serving life in prison. Murder is never acceptable for any reason, and to think a child can murder is frightening. All the juveniles in this documentary have issues, for some are related but not all are the same. There are larger issues that play a role in these stories besides just murder. Some things that contributed to the decision these juveniles made were poor parenting, friends, inability to change, and drug issues. As far as the law goes Colorado is a very strict state when it comes to juvenile justice as you well see. The big question is do these juveniles deserve life in prison? Should juveniles be sentenced to life in prison? The question is more detailed than it seems, and a number of factors are involved. In my perspective the number one issue that should be looked at when youths commit violent crimes is how they are raised and treated as children. As you see in this documentary the poor parenting or lack of parenting can play a major role in the life of these juveniles. It is evident that children that grow up abused, and raised around drugs have a much higher risk of being incarcerated. The fist story the child was constantly abused by his father and told many times by his mom he shouldn’t have been born. Those to factors alone to a child can be damning alone, and only make matters worse. Some juveniles in this situation rarely will bring these issues up to a classmate or adult, for most keep all this inside because they don’t want to upset there parents or they believe this is the norm. For example, in the second case the parents of the killers friends tried to bring this to the attention of the appropriate party, but they were told the resources were not available. In my opinion that
LIFE FOR KIDS 3 is a terrible response and to an extent the blood is on their hands, for ultimately murder is never an acceptable thing to do. Just ask yourself how would you feel if you were constantly being abused and told you were worthless?
You definitely wouldn’t have a great outlook on life, and some could fill as if they are in a black hole they can’t get out of. In situations where poor parenting is brought up it should definitely be thoroughly looked at by the state. If the state contacted some of these parents loss of life could have been saved. In some cases the juveniles are in a phase where the life they are living is destined to land them in trouble with the law. For instance, one of the juveniles who shot another teen during a gun sale wasn’t by his own words living a very legitimate life. He was in the phase of getting in trouble, drugs, and other influences made an impact on his life. In these situations the juveniles need to make a change in their life before its too late, but too many times the juveniles don’t change. For the reason of some juveniles to change I believe there should be more juvenile outreach programs in the community. This can’t bring back those that have already been killed, but it could make a difference in juveniles today and prevent senseless killings. I believe the state also has a major role to play in treating juveniles far, and treated with dignity. After watching this documentary the laws for juveniles in Colorado sound atrocious. There is no way in my opinion a juvenile should ever receive life in prison. The Erik Jensen