Juvenile Offenders vs. Adult Offenders

Piaget’s formal operations stage seems to group 13-year-olds and adults into the same cognitive category. But many societies maintain different justice systems and punishments for juvenile offenders, reflecting the belief that an early teen who commits a crime is not as culpable as an adult who does so. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court continues to wrestle with questions of the degree to which juvenile offenders should be treated differently than adults, often drawing upon psychological research regarding the cognitive development of adolescents in that process (Albert, Chein, & Steinberg, 2013; Steinberg, 2007).