Young people who commit serious crimes, such as robbery or violent attacks should be punished in the same way as adults. To what extent do you agree or disagree

Crime

has always been an unwanted part of society. Serious efforts have been made by governments at different times to either eliminate or reduce it to an acceptable level. Recent trend depicts that the ratio of crimes committed by young people is surprisingly increasing. There are different opinions regarding the

punishment

of crimes committed by the youth. Some argue that the

punishment

should be the same as that of adults while others think the other way. I am of the opinion that the action taken by the judicial system should be consistent for all those convicted of the

crime

. Some people are of the view that lack of maturity and peer pressure are the root causes which causes the juvenile to indulge in crimes like robbery or violent attack. They believe that keeping the children with real criminals will have a bad impact on their personality and

therefore

instead

of punishing them in the usual manner they should be provided with proper counselling programs as

this

will help them to differentiate between right and wrong and after serving their

punishment

they can live a normal life without involving in any

further

crime

.

However

,I am of the view that the

punishment

should be irrespective of the age because showing leniency to one class will somehow reduce the fear of

punishment

amongst the young ones.

Further

,

this

will be unfair to the victims as they will not be compensated properly for their emotional, mental and physical loss.

For instance

, recently in Pakistan, two youngsters ageing somewhere between 18 - 20 years were convicted of brutally beating, looting and

then

rapping the mother of two children on the main highway.

This

is a serious

crime

and the decision by the judicial system should be based merely on the intensity of the

crime

. To conclude

this

, I would say that the

punishment

should be accorded based on the seriousness of the

crime

and should not be linked with the age as

this

will weaken the faith of the people in the system.