Does an 11-year-old deserve life in prison?'

Eleven-year-old Jordan Brown is accused of killing his father's pregnant fiancé with a hunting rifle. Does that means he belongs in an adult prison with rapists, murderers, and hardened criminals?

The funeral was held Tuesday, and the facts of the case are still unfolding, but police believe that before getting on the school bus last Friday, an 11-year-old named Jordan Anthony Brown shot his father's pregnant fiancé, Kenzie Marie Houk, with a hunting rifle he'd gotten for Christmas.

Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, has charged Jordan with two counts of first-degree murder in the February 20 shooting, and placed the fifth grader behind bars. Jordan's new home is the Lawrence County jail's 8-by-10 suicide-watch cell. Why is a "super-juvenile" being held in something less like juvie and more like a "super-max"?

"That's when I realized: Oh my goodness, I’m 15 years old," said Joshua Phillips, serving a life sentence at a facility for adults.

In Pennsylvania, like in most states, a child over the age of ten can be charged and tried as an adult.

source: Article 'Does an 11-Year-Old Deserve Life in Prison?' by Anita L. Allen (Henry R. Silverman professor of law and professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania); www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2009/02/26/caring-for-kids-who-kill.html; The Daily Beast; 26 February 2009