This January, three offenders were executed for crimes they had committed when they were under 18. Douglas Christopher Thomas and Steve Roach were executed in Virginia for first degree murders committed when they were both 17 years old. In the same month, Glen McGinnis, also a teenage offender, was executed in Texas, where 25 minors are currently on death row.

More minors are being tried and executed as adults. Before last January, only 10 juvenile offenders had been executed since 1990. This trend is likely to continue, since 70 offenders are now on death row in the U.S. for crimes they committed as minors. Of the 38 states which have statutes authorizing the death penalty for certain forms of murder, 24 allow the execution of those over 15. This is in line with a 1988 Supreme Court ruling Thompson v. Oklahoma that executing children under 15 constitutes cruel and unusual punishment.

On One Hand...

Murder is a serious offense at any age. Excusing an offender simply because he or she is under 18 sends a signal to other young offenders that they can commit serious crimes and get away with it. Minors who commit serious crimes because they do not recognize the value of life should be subject to the same punishment that adults are. Recent declines in homicide rates among minors indicate that the threat of execution makes potential offenders think twice.

Those that are put to death serve to show others that our society will not defer to minors in capitol offenses.

On the Other Hand...

Homicide among juveniles is a tragedy which doesn't always begin with the offender. Young offenders often come from broken homes and turbulent childhoods. Some are victims of abuse and many grow up using the survival instincts they learn on the streets. Society must take these factors into consideration when dealing with violence, by young people, and execution of juveniles clearly does not address the source of the problem.

The United States is almost alone in a world which overwhelmingly opposes executions of minors. The only other countries on the globe that execute children under 18 are Iran, Yemen, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Nigeria. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, prohibits the execution for crimes committed under the age of 18. Only the U.S. and Somalia have failed to ratify the convention guidelines.

• Since 1985, the U.S. has executed more juvenile offenders than all other countries combined.

• In 1997, juvenile homicides were the lowest in the decade but still 21 percent above the average of the 1980s.

• Douglas Christopher Thomas carried a loaded shotgun to his victims' bedroom and shot them. His girlfriend's parents' still managed to struggle to their daughter's bedroom, where either he or his girlfriend-that's under dispute-fired a second shot that killed the mother.

• Steve E. Roach, executed recently by lethal injection in Virginia, robbed and murdered a 70-year-old woman in Stanardsville, Va., when he was 17.

• Americans have expressed a steadily increasing support for the death penalty. In 1965, a Harris poll reported that only 38 percent of Americans supported capital punishment; 47 percent opposed it. Today, 71 percent favor it; 21 percent oppose it.

United Nations, U.S. News & World Report, ABC News, Death Penalty Information Center, Amnesty International, Prof. Victor L. Streib; Ohio Northern University Study