Should teenagers be charged as adults when they commit heinous crimes?

Recently in my city they have been doing hold-ups, killing for fun, burglarizing elderly people, damaging property and holding up immigrant businesses and killing the owners. Any opinions?
Answer:
This is just my opinion

I feel that teens that make adult crimes should be charged and treated as adults, these teens do know its wrong, but they do it any way, also with all the media out there, kids are learning more at younger ages, the one thing they don't learn anymore is that are consequences for their actions, I also feel that the system that no longer allows parents to discipline their children, needs to be changed. When the "child abuse" laws became more and more strict that is when children started becoming more and more violent, and all around bad.
I hope you find this help full.

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They should be tried as adults.

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Absolutely! They must be held accountable and punishment should be meted out to fit the crime, regardless of age.

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Based on past history and crime comitted yes.

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ABSOLUTELY. AGE IS NO FACTOR IN KNOWING RIGHT FROM WRONG. YOU COMMIT A CRIME AND WHAT AWAITS YOU IS PRISON.

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They should absolutely be held as adults for any crime that results in bodily harm.

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yes they should be tried as adults

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I have problems with this.

There are situations where I can see that this might be necessary. But kids are not adults. They don't reason like adults, they often don't understand consequences. There is good evidence that if they get appropriate care they can be rehabilitated.

Our justice system needs to look for alternatives to locking eveybody up.

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YES

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Yes. They're old enough to know right from wrong, even if they might not be mature enough to exercise the proper choices. The real problem is that our entertainment and broadcast industries have infiltrated the teen-agers' world with tens of thousands of murders, rapes, and other violence acts - teens certainly have trouble distinguishing 'entertainment' from reality. But that doesn't mean they should be exempted from those heinous crimes they do commit. -RKO- 04/24/07

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If they want to commit grown up crimes, give them grown up sentences. If Justice is truly blind and unbiased, then each criminal should be equally sentenced. Murder is murder is murder. Violence is the same.

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I think Texas in the 1800's had it right when they hung a 10 yr old for stealing ahorse. Maybe hanging for car theft would show these young punks that society is sick of them and their garbage.

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yes they are doing adult crimes they should be tried as an adult