Eliud Felix asked a serious question in the January issue. When a sixteen-year-old from the community killed a girl with a baseball bat because she had turned down his offer of a date, Eliud asked if the "murderer" should be tried as a juvenile or as an adult.

My first reaction was that the killer should definitely be tried as an adult. His crime was murder and he should have known better. He should have been able to control himself. The victim had a right to refuse his invitation without losing her life.

However, after much thought, I became confused. If the boy were tried as an adult, he would be punished as an adult and would probably spend many years in prison with adult theives, rapists and murderers. Chances are he would be a worse person when he left prison than when he entered.

His crime was serious, but I believe that he would be better off if he were imprisoned in a facility with people his own age. Hopefully, he would get help and be rehabilitated when he got out of the facility. In addition to paying the price for his crime, he might learn to be a better person. n