The Curious Researcher Exercise 4.1

               For my final essay of the semester, I decided to write about the topic of child execution. This has been a controversial topic that has since recent been a bit of a concern globally. It used to occur all over the world, but now it only happens in, I believe, 7 countries. This has continued to occur because people are not exactly sure how to handle a child who has committed an 'adult' crime. When I say child execution, I mean children being incarcerated and put on death row. Most people have mixed feelings about the situation. They are not entirely sure how to handle a child who actually murdered someone. I feel that this really should not be happening in the first place because kids are still growing and maturing. Although this does not excuse the action, the child still needs time to grow as an individual. I have not found much more out at this point rather than the bits of history I have scrounged up and a list of the cases done in the United States. For example, the last known execution in the United States was in 1947. It did not surprise me that it has been so long since the last case. A few questions rise when dealing with this subject, such as why is this still happening or how are people okay with these kinds of decisions? This affects mostly the families of the children being executed and the people dealing with the case. I think we should put a stop to this and discover what actually causes a child to come to this point rather than killing them off immediately. I believe this because again, children are still growing and maturing, so they should be given a second chance seeing as that may be all they know. I think we should offer therapy sessions and do whatever we can to help these children as much as possible and then returning to the case when they are adults to see if anything has changed.