Steinberg and Scott

1. Adolescents should be treated differently because they are more vulnerable. They are going through changes, their cognitive abilities are still immature and they are more likely to be influenced by coercive factors. People are not the same as they were when they were adolscents which proves that adolescents ARE different from adults and should not be held as or tried as adults.

2. On the other hand, adolscents should not be held differently because their body changes should not be a valid excuse to commit crime. What about all the other adolscents that do not commit crime? Does that mean that the non offenders do not go through the same changes that offenders go through? No. All adolscents go through the same changes, some choose to commit crimes and others do not. So we should hold them accountable for their actions. In my opinion it should be the severity of their crime that deems their sentence and how they are tried. If these kids are starting out young, then how will their crimes intensify if they are not held for life?

Shedler and Block

1. What I found the most interesting is that scientists were able to pinpoint early in life the characteristics that would make children nonusers, some users and high users when they were in elementaty school. And the fact that they were able to predict which child would be which user is something that I had never seen before in a study.

2. The authors say that this study is important because it builds on a previous study done by Block and Block. Their study followed kids from preschool to the age of fourteen. And this study is building on that, interviewing those same kids at age 18 This study is different from others because it is the longest longitudinal study, spanning 13 years rather than three or four.