As the U.S. Supreme Court con­sid­ers Roper v. Simmons, a case that will deter­mine the con­sti­tu­tion­al­i­ty of exe­cut­ing juve­nile offend­ers, new sci­en­tif­ic research con­tin­ues to emerge regard­ing the brain devel­op­ment of those under 18 years of age. New MRI-based research has shown that the brain con­tin­ues to devel­op and mature into the mid-20’s, and that pri­or to the com­ple­tion of this process, ado­les­cents use their brains in dif­fer­ent ways than adults. For exam­ple, teens often oper­ate from a more instinc­tu­al and reflex­ive part of the brain, and researchers have found that ado­les­cents in stress­ful sit­u­a­tions lack the abil­i­ty draw on cer­tain parts of the brain that are ful­ly devel­oped in adults to con­trol their behav­ior. This is why kids who are good kids, who know right from wrong, some­times do stu­pid things. They act on impulse,” said Dr. David Fassler, a psy­chi­a­trist in Burlington, Vermont, and a spokesman for the American Psychiatric Association. The arti­cle in the New York Times Magazine quot­ed the brief of the American Medical Association: Scientists can now demon­strate that ado­les­cents are imma­ture not only to the observer’s naked eye but in the very fibers of their brain. Normal ado­les­cents can­not be expect­ed to oper­ate with the lev­el of matu­ri­ty, judg­ment, risk aver­sion or impulse con­trol of an adult.” While the med­ical com­mu­ni­ty is quick to point out that these sci­en­tif­ic devel­op­ments do not excuse the actions of teen offend­ers, they do believe that these devel­op­ments prove that juve­nile offend­ers are less cul­pa­ble than adults and should not be held to the same stan­dard as those whose brains are ful­ly devel­oped. (The New York Times Magazine, October 17, 2004). See Juvenile Death Penalty. See DPIC’s Roper v. Simmons Web page.

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