The Moral Asymmetry of Juvenile and Adult Offenders
Criminal Law and Philosophy, Forthcoming
13 Pages Posted: 15 Jul 2019
Date Written: April 1, 2019
Abstract
Many commentators agree that the trend to try juveniles as adults fails to recognize that there should be an asymmetry in our treatment of juvenile and adult crime such that all else being equal juvenile crime deserves less punishment than adult crime. This essay explores different rationales for this asymmetry. A political rationale claims that the disenfranchisement of juveniles compromises the state’s democratic authority to punish juveniles in the same way it can punish adults. A developmental rationale claims that juveniles deserve to be punished less than adults because their immaturity makes them less responsible and, hence, less culpable for their wrongdoing. Gideon Yaffe’s new book The Age of Culpability expresses skepticism about the developmental rationale and defends a version of the political rationale. By contrast, this essay finds important limits to the political rationale and defends a qualified version of the developmental rationale. In the process, it argues against treating the asymmetry between juvenile and adult crime as a categorical one.
Keywords: asymmetry, categorical asymmetry, deliberative rationale, democratic authority, desert, disenfranchisment, juvenile justice, political rationale
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