Teens Crime and Late Developing Frontal Lobes

Experts link teen brains' immaturity, juvenile crime

By MALCOLM RITTER
ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK

The teenage brain, Laurence Steinberg says, is like a car with a good accelerator but a weak brake. With powerful impulses under poor control, the likely result is a crash.

And, perhaps, a crime.

Steinberg, a Temple University psychology professor, helped draft an American Psychological Association brief for a 2005 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for crimes committed before age 18.

"What we really want," he said, "is to turn delinquent kids into good adults."