Kids are Not Adults
Published Dec 1, 2013, National Conference of State Legislatures
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Research distinguishing adolescents from adults has led states to re-establish boundaries between the criminal and juvenile justice systems. New policies reflect the growing body of research on how the brain develops, which has discovered teens’ brains do not fully develop until about age 25, according to the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice. Other social science and behavioral science also shows that kids focus on short-term payoffs rather than long-term consequences of their actions and engage in immature, emotional, risky, aggressive and impulsive behavior and delinquent acts.
