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posted by cmn32480 on Saturday March 17 2018, @01:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the now-we-know-who-to-blame dept.

Teenagers are more likely to plead guilty to crimes they did not commit because they are less able to make mature decisions, new research shows.

Experts have called for major changes to the criminal justice system after finding innocent younger people are far more likely admit to offences, even when innocent, than adults.

Those who carried out the study say teenagers should not be allowed to make deals where they face a lesser charge in return for pleading guilty. The study suggests young people are more likely to be enticed by these deals, and take what they see as an advantageous offer even when they have done nothing wrong.

Most criminal convictions in the UK and the USA occur as the result of guilty pleas, rather than trial. This means the majority of convictions are the result of decisions made by people accused of crimes rather than jurors.

The research was carried out in the USA, where a system known as "plea bargaining" is utilised, but the academics say their discovery has implications for countries across the world that allow teenagers accused of crimes to receive a sentence or charge reduction by pleading guilty. Specifically, the researchers recommend restricting reductions that may entice innocent teenagers into pleading guilty and making it easier for teenagers to change pleas after they have been entered.

Other research has found adolescents are less able to perceive risk and resist the influence of peers because of developmental immaturity.

https://phys.org/news/2018-03-teenagers-guilty-crimes-didnt-commit.html

-- submitted from IRC


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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday March 17 2018, @06:33PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Saturday March 17 2018, @06:33PM (#654169)

    The alternate effect of that could be to induce legislators to establish more courtrooms, which would be the other obvious solution to this problem. About 1/3 of people who graduate from law school don't actually end up working in law, so we have the people available to give a lot more people proper trials if we actually wanted to do so.

    Of course, we'd rather not do so, because that really screws up the private prison revenue models.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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