Age 18 is in line with other laws in this country, such as contractual capacity and eligibility for military service. However, here in Illinois, a youth can be prosecuted as an adult for petty crimes at age 16. For more serious crimes, there is no defined age limit. Wasn’t some kid in SC sent to prison for life for a crime he committed at age 12? I see a disparity here. Why is a child not a child when he commits a crime? A 16-year-old can be prosecuted under laws he has no say about making. Is that right? Doesn’t that violate the principle of equal protection?
Note: any degeneration of this discussion into the severity of crime and the necessity of harsh punishment will be politely ignored. Have you forgotten how dumb you were as a kid?
Make it 16 then? Or take it back to 21, when a person can walk into a bar and legally order a drink? Or 25, when she can rent a car? When is an adult really an adult? Who gets to say?
Make it 18 for everything, voting, drinking, majority, contractual capacity, and eligibility for prosecution as an adult, and be done with it. Anything else is hypocrisy.