The legal system doesn't work well with fuzzy or ambiguous terms. It works much better with the quantifiable. There needs to be a legal age, upon which one is an adult, has adult privilages, and can be charged as an adult in a court of law. It really does need to be written in stone.
I agree. My son is almost 21, will be 21 in May, in the meantime he can't even buy a beer.
"There needs to be a legal age, upon which one is an adult, has adult privilages, and can be charged as an adult in a court of law."
Adult privileges are something that is allowed based on a person's presumption of maturity.
Crimes are based on what a person does.
No, we do not need to have them equal.
Sometimes the nebulous is necessary, and correct. Remember that these "children" have taken another human being's life - and in some cases numerous lives. By the consentual act of murdering one or more people, they have cast off the protections afforded by our society to those under 18.
What you see as a 'lack of privelege' for kids can also be viewed as an abundance of protection. Seventeen year olds have been deemed to not be prepared for entering into long-term financial contracts (like credit cards), and thus are not allowed to do so, ostensibly for their own protection. The same reasoning applies to entering the armed forces - a seventeen year old needs parental permission to sign up.
For "kids" who get into a big fight, where someone is seriously injured or killed, without wantonly looking for the trouble they ended landing in, I could perhaps agree with your standpoint. But for a fifteen year old to go on a murder spree because they know they will not receive serious punishment (i.e.: they won't be prosecuted as an adult) means that the protections afforded a 'child' have now become license to kill - without having any lasting effect on their adult lives.
IMO, for the law to provide such a legal umbrella to individuals who wantonly destroy life is chilling - it means that the sixteen year old boy next door now can rape, murder, and dismember my twelve year old daughter with less than two years of his life in jeopardy - and an expunged record when he hits eighteen.
It is not the provision of "adult privelege" that is at issue here - it is the application of juvenile protections as a shield against all lasting effects of the worst possible behaviors of an individual 'child'.