Young Adults and Criminal Culpability
Amber Venturelli * | 23.5 | Comment | Citation: Amber Venturelli, Young Adults and Criminal Culpability, 23 U. Pa. J. Const. L. 1142 (2021).
This Comment will consider whether the growing scholarship on the culpability of young adults should influence how courts and society blame and punish persons that commit crimes while between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. This Comment makes the assumption that “desert based on moral fault is at least a necessary pre-condition for just punishment.” That is, whether a young adult is punished like a juvenile or an adult is, in part, dependent on his or her moral blameworthiness. This Comment explores the evidence that indicates that young adults are more similarly situated to juveniles than adults with regard to their moral blameworthiness and how, if it all, this will impact criminal punishment for young adults.
Part I will provide a comprehensive overview on the history of juvenile justice in order to provide context on the philosophical attitudes and jurisprudence over time. Part II will examine findings from scientific research on the blameworthiness of juveniles and young adults. This section will also consider the scientific evidence cited by the U.S. Supreme Court in its recent decisions on juvenile culpability. Part III will evaluate possible responses to addressing the diminished criminal culpability of young adults. Specifically, this section reviews young adult court, a problem-solving court that is gaining popularity across the United States, and constitutional arguments that seek to extend juvenile sentencing philosophies to young adults. This Comment will argue that, despite the neurological and behavioral similarities between young adults and juveniles, the courts will not interfere in any meaningful way to change the relationship between young adults and the criminal justice system because young adults do not invoke the same deep-rooted historical attitudes that exist towards juveniles.
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*J.D. 2021, University of Pennsylvania Law School; B.A. 2018, the State University of New York at Albany. I would like to thank Professor Stephen J. Morse for his feedback and guidance on this Comment. Thank you also to the Editors of Volume 23 of the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their constant support throughout my academic career.