According to the Department of Justice, 27 out of the 50 US states have set minimum age of criminal culpability. Most states such as California set the age at 14, states like Colorado at 12 and two states including Kansas at 10. In states where there is nominimum age of criminal culpability, judges can decide to try juvenile offenders in juvenile courts or transfer them to ordinary criminal courts according to the seriousness of the crimes. In 2002, a 15-year-old student, who killed two of his classmates in ashooting rampage, was sentenced to 50 years in prison. In the sameyear, Brian Robertson, an 18-year-old student in a high school in Oklahoma was arrested for his writing a novel with "extraordinaryviolent" plots on a school computer and if convicted, he faces upto 10 years in prison.
The U.S. is the country that has handed most of the death penalties to juvenile offenders and carried out the executions in the world. According to a report released by the Amnesty International on Jan. 21, two-thirds of the documented executions of juvenile offenders in the world occurred in the U.S. in the past decade and more. Since 1990, there have been a total of 34 documented executions of juvenile offenders worldwide, and 19 of them happened in the U.S. (an AP dispatch from London on Jan. 2, 2004).
While many countries around the world are abolishing executions of minors, some politicians in the U.S. are asking to lower the minimum age for death penalty, and the Federal Supreme Court has even set the age at 16. Up to date, there are 80 such juvenile inmates on the death row waiting to be executed (a Prensa Latina from Havana on Aug. 4, 2003).
Among the developed nations, the United States ranks the first in terms of the number of children living under the poverty line and the last in the life expectancy of its children (Britain's Guardian newspaper on Nov. 3, 2003). According to statistics released by the US Census Bureau in September 2003, 10.4 percent of all US minors lived in poverty by the definition of income in 2002 (Poverty: 2002 Highlights, www.census.gov), up to 13 million people (Britain's Guardian newspaper on Nov. 3, 2003).
Of all the children, 11.6 percent could not afford health insurance. Of the millions of homeless population in the United States, kids account for a considerable proportion. The US Conference of Mayors said in its 2003 annual report that of all homeless families, 40 percent were families with children, and among all the families applying for food subsidies, 59 percent of them had at least one kid. And according to the United Nations Children's Fund, of the 27 well-off nations in the world, the United States ranks the first in the number of deaths of its children as a result of violence and negligence (see Reuters dispatch from Geneva on Sept. 18, 2003).
The under-aged population are under threat in terms of physicaland mental health. According to statistics from the US Federal Government, of all the kids under the age of 18, 10 percent suffer from psychological illness to varying extent, some to the point of committing crimes. But only one fifth of them have been provided with medical treatment (see the edition of USA Today on Oct. 26, 2003). Violent acts plaguing the US public media are bringing adverse impact to the minors. Statistics show that before coming of age at 18, kids and youngsters could be exposed to at least 40,000 murder scenes and 200,000 other acts of violence in various public media (an AP dispatch on Feb. 5, 2004). They are so accustomed to fist fights, bloody killings that some have been worshipping for violence, which gives rise to more malignant acts of violence in the country accordingly.
Children are often the victims of sexual assault. In recent years, more and more scandals have come to light that children were harassed, molested and raped by priests in the U.S.. In June 2003, USA Today reported that in the past 18 months, of all the 46,000 clergymen in the United States, around 425 were dismissed by churches for crime allegations involved, including the crime of sexual assault against children (edition of USA Today on June 17, 2003). According to other reports, at least 1,000 people were arrested in the United States for accused acts of eroticism targeting at kids since June 2003. Of all the arrested, 400 were charged with the crime of making and spreading erotic materials relating to children via the Internet.
The senior citizens are prejudiced against and mistreated, which led to a higher rate of suicides among them. In the United States, people aged over 65 account for 13 percent of the national population, and of all the people who committed suicide, the senior population make up 19 percent. According to a report of the Christian Science Monitor, of every 100,000 people between the ageof 15 to 24, 10.3 such people killed themselves in 1999, and the number rose to 15.9 for the elderly people above the age of 65, which was nearly 50 percent higher than the national average level.All the numbers boiled down to the fact that more than 6,000 senior citizens committed suicide in the United States in 1999.