Every time we are subjected to another brutal school shooting with bloodied, dead bodies littering a school yard, the clamor rises to a deafening level for new and harsher forms of punishment for the young criminals. New research, however, is leading us to a different conclusion — that young teens are so completely different in their brain formation that it is an injustice of the worst kind to treat them as adults.

Over the last few years, many states have taken harsh measures to punish teens who commit adult crimes. Thirteen-year-olds are being tried as adults, and every week another prosecutor talks about meting out stern justice to young offenders.

Stern and appropriate justice is certainly deserved for the young perpetrators, but we must keep in mind the word appropriate. As we make advances in brain research, we have made some startling findings about youths.

Paul Thompson is an assistant professor of neurology at the UCLA School of Medicine. In a recent essay published in many newspapers across the country, Thompson argues that the cognitive development of young teens is way below that of adults.

According to Thompson, a massive loss of brain tissue occurs during the teen years in every individual studied at UCLA and in National Institute of Health studies. The brain cells are lost in the areas that control impulses, risk-taking and self-control. The frontal lobes that warn us against taking risks and regulate our emotions are immature throughout teenage years, Thompson writes.

The implications of this research are vast and, to many, not surprising. Teens have always exhibited rash behavior that was typically associated with growing up. Now, scientists have actually shown that the part of brain that warns against doing things they might regret is being reshaped at an incredible speed during the teen years.

Making a logical conclusion about how to connect scientific research with the judicial process is terribly complex. Teenagers who commit murder and other crimes must be held accountable, must be shown that their actions do have consequences. No amount of brain research will do away with that truth.

But perhaps it may be a little easier for those making laws to see that youths who commit crimes also have a greater propensity to change their ways. It is as much a physiological maturation as a psychological one. That is something we should bear in mind as we consider just how to punish young criminals.

 

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