According to most legislation, a person under the age of eighteen is not considered an adult. It has been proven that a person does not mature mentally until around the age of twenty-five. Many basic adult rights are not afforded to minors because they are not responsible enough to assume the role of adults. It goes without saying that the law considers minors under the age of eighteen to be minors, and therefore these minors can never be treated as adults in a court of law. Three fundamental reasons why minors should not be tried as adults are the reduced mental capacity of minors, the fundamental rights of adults which are not guaranteed to minors, and the fact that prison is an unsuitable environment for minors. Young people and adults do not have a parallel mental capacity; therefore, a minor should not be tried as an adult in a court of law, and should instead be subject to separate age-specific judicial procedures and laws. Mental capacity is defined by Merriam-Webster as “comprehension and memory sufficient to understand in a general way, the situation in which one finds oneself and the nature, purpose, and consequences of any act or transaction in which one proposes to engage ” or “the degree of understanding and memory that the law requires to support the validity of or charge someone with responsibility for a particular act or transaction.” In other words, a person of adequate mental capacity to be charged and tested by As an adult, she must be fully developed and mature mentally, which, according to the latest research, only happens around the age of twenty-five. Up to this point, the part of the brain responsible for decision-making, the prefrontal cortex, is not yet fully mature an early age, the most mature eleven year old at...... middle of paper ......r the age of eighteen is not considered an adult. It has been proven that a person does not mature mentally until about twenty-one years old. Many basic adult rights are not afforded to minors because they are not responsible enough to assume the role of adults. It goes without saying that the law considers minors under the age of eighteen to be minors, and therefore these minors can never be treated as adults in a court of law. Three basic reasons why minors should not be tried as adults are minors' reduced mental capacity, basic adult rights are not afforded to minors, and the fact that prison is an unsuitable environment for minors. Young people and adults do not have a parallel mental capacity; therefore, a minor should not be tried as an adult in a court of law, but should instead be subject to separate age-specific judicial procedures and laws.