Download Unjust Treatment of Juvenile Offenders: Analyzing Cohen's 'Kids Who Kill Are Still Kids' - and more Papers Grammar and Composition in PDF only on Docsity! English 104 22 September 2008 20,000 Murdering Kids: A Critical Analysis Did you know that 200,000 (Cohen, 537) kids have been tried as adults for various crimes? This statement alone, sounds rather unjust to columnist Richard Cohen since a young child cannot possibly be treated the same as a murdering terrorist. Throughout this article that was published in newspapers on August 3, 2001 he continuously points out that a “childish” mistake (538) is by no means punishable by adult law. Yet Cohen fails to say what crime committed by a child is enough to be tried on the adult level (if there are any), and also fails to state what should happen to these murdering minors if they are not to be treated the same as the adult murders. Cohen uses various scenarios about common day accidents that could happen to anyone that result in death or bodily injury to try and persuade his readers that the way that our government conducts law on the minor level is unjust in many cases. The majority of this article has to do with a fourteen year-old boy by the name of Nathanial Brazill. Nathanial shot and killed his schoolteacher at the age of only 13 and was sentenced to 28 years in prison. Cohen’s tone while describing this incident was very calm and he portrays the story to be simple and blunt. He does this in hopes of grapping the reader’s sympathy by not sharing very many details that may sway their opinion elsewhere. The match to Cohen’s fuse was “someone’s” (537) explanation for Brazill being tried and charged as an adult. That “someone” states that it was simply to send a message to other kids on serious crimes such as this. Cohen argues that this “message” (537) to kids is unreliable because of the fact that they are minors. However, 2 it makes a reader wonder who that source is and why he left the name unknown. Reading this particular section one can only conclude that this source he refers to doesn’t exist at all. Cohen made up this opposition to strengthen his own opinion about the kids not getting the message. Whether or not it is relevant to Cohen’s point; it takes the readers mind off of what he believes is important when they start to think about possible opposition. When a troubled kid starts to think about doing something stupid, Cohen hardly believes that the kid is going to think of the Brazill story and change his mind. According to Cohen, Brazill shot a teacher that he liked without any reason simply because he was unaware of the consequences. Cohen first describes that the boy shot his teacher on the final day of school. I think he made sure the readers knew this because of the automatic assumption that, “he must not have hated his teacher so bad if he made it to the last day of school without killing him.” In the sentence directly following the teacher is described as “beloved.” (Cohen par. 3) So the point is clear that this teacher of Brazill’s was no enemy, but a friend. Cohen makes these facts clear before he gets to in-depth with the story to create sympathy, but comes into the next paragraph with a rather offensive tone. He makes it clear that this crime was done in front of many people, it was no robbery or mugging done to gain something of value, and was “different” than the murders one might usually hear about. Cohen throws yet another story in after Brazill’s is over to back up his point of view that trying kids as adults is ridiculous. He very solidly believes that these children acted in means of pure childish stupidity, and were “messed-up,” (537) with little or no self-control. When he changes his previously calm tone and sarcastically compares the kids to mob bosses or hit men making a kill, the reader puts them on two entirely different levels.
