Topic:  Young people who commit serious crimes, suchas robberies or violent attacks should be punished in the same way as adults.To what extent do you agree or disagree?

例文：

Inalmost all countries, authorities do not punish underage criminals as harshlyas adult lawbreakers.  I am in support ofthis practice as young crime convicts are more fragile and they deserveopportunities to turn over a new leaf.

However,different voices can sometimes be heard vowing young criminals should not betreated in a more gentle way.  Thesepeople argue that the consequences of some serious crimes are severe, no matterif they are committed by youngsters or adults. It is also believed that the climbing youth crime rates require morestringent punishments given to those misbehaving youngsters.  Thus, there is no reason to apply differentforms of penalties to people of different ages.

Thatbeing said, we must not ignore the fact that young people are generally morevulnerable.  Unlike some adult criminals,juvenile offenders commit crimes often as a result of various external factors,such as peer pressure, family circumstances and socio-economic inferiority.  To put harsh punishments on these young peopleis just unfair.  In other words, weshould not only look at the consequences of crimes, but instead take intoconsideration of the incentives, to show some compassion to these underageconvicts. 

Moreimportantly, youngsters are still developing their values and beliefs.  At this stage, enlightenment and guidance arecritical.  Therefore, rehabilitation andmoderate punishments, rather than jail sentences, work more effectively tobring these young criminals back on track. If we apply heavy penalties to them, they are more likely to becomerebellious and develop anti-social attitudes. 

Afterall, young offenders are just children, no matter how serious the crimes theycommit are.  As such, it is both unfairand futile to penalise them in the same way as we do to mature criminals.

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