Kids Are Kids-Until They Commit Crimes

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Juvenile Crime Articles Essay Over the past several weeks, we read four articles about sentencing juvenile offenders as adults when they commit violent crimes. All four authors use both logical and emotional persuasion to convince readers that their position is the correct one. As they develop their arguments, each author also develops his or her own ethos, or credibility, with readers. To me, the article with the weakest ethos is “Kids Are Kids-Until They Commit Crimes” because she gives very little facts, uses aggressive forms of persuasion, and the facts she gives contradict her own argument. On the other hand the,”Juveniles Don’t Deserve Life Sentences” Has the strongest ethos because it has many supporting facts, quotes important officials…show more content…
She uses an aggressive form of persuasion to evoke a lot of emotion in the reader, but I believe she uses it poorly. When she is explaining one case where a kid is sentenced to life in prison, she says, “Who was twelve when he savagely beat to death a six year old girl. (lundstrom)” This makes the reader feel bad for the girl, and makes the reader angry at the kid, which sense she is advocating for the kids release, is the opposite effect she should want. It also shows that the writer has conflicted emotions on the topic, and that if she is advocating for their release, then she should back the kid up, not make him look bad. Not only was she using aggressive terms that made the kids she was advocating for look bad, she gave very little facts. In paragraph 19, Marjie Lundstrom says,” the nations juvenile arrest rate for murder fell 68% from 1993-1999 hitting its lowest level since 1966.(lundsrom)” This and a very similar fact are the only ones given throughout the entire 25 paragraph article and show that she has not put much research into the topic. Not only does she not give very many facts, she uses them poorly, and they can be taken out of context to undermine her argument. Overall, her ethos is quite weak because she could not convey her point across properly and with many supporting facts, and was not believable to me. (267…show more content…
She uses many facts to help her argument, including quoting important officials, and uses her own position to show her authority in the field. Gail Garinger uses many facts to support her argument that kids should not be given life sentences, and uses them well. Gail Garinger quotes a supreme court judge saying, “ the Supreme Court recognized that even the most serious murder cases, '” juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders.(Garinger )'” This shows that she has put ample research into the topic she is promoting. This also shows that people who are very respected in the legal field agree with her already, and only backs up her argument. Garinger also uses her own position in the field to show she knows what she is talking about. In the article she says,” As a former court judge, I have seen first hand the enormous capacity of children to change and turn themselves around.(Garinger )” This shows that she is not someone who has just been pressed with this issue, but someone who works with the kids who get sentenced to these life sentences in prison. Overall her argument is very solid and has a lot of argument backing it up, while giving slight hints of ethos because she has been the one who was working with these kids, and I believe her argument is very believable. (248
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