William Ayers

Trying youths as adults is a faulty approach to juvenile crime, contends William Ayers in the following viewpoint. Ayers argues that juveniles placed in adult prisons are more likely to be sexually assaulted, to commit suicide, and to return to crime after they are released. He asserts that a more appropriate approach to juvenile crime is to provide young people with better educational and employment opportunities. Ayers is a professor of education and a university scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He is also the author of A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. According to Ayers, what is the “schizophrenic view of children”"

2. Why has youth murder increased, in the author’s opinion"

3. Why...