Just a thought. If you are still going through late adolescence (18, 19 or 20) your geographical location determines how your constitutional rights to life and liberty are interpreted by the judicial system. According to Dr. Laurence Steinberg (United States Supreme Court Adolescence Expert), this is the most dangerous time of their lives for making bad choices.
In some states 18, 19 and 20 year-olds can be executed without a second thought. In other states they can't receive a life without parole sentence due to their age. The same medical science the U.S. Supreme Court used in Miller v. Alabama, Jackson v. Hobbs and Graham v. Florida to justify giving those under 18 a chance for parole due to their bad decision making and mental culpability, also supports those under 21 as well. Inadvertently or not, this creates huge sentencing disparities between minorities and poor whites who get public defenders and the rich who can afford paid attorneys. In essence creating two systems of justice.
It's true you can join the military at age 17 if a guardian signs for you - but you can't buy a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of beer until your 21 in many states and you're prohibited from entering certain legal contracts while under age 21. Something has to be done so that everyone has EQUAL rights to life and liberty in this country.
With the disproportionate number of African Americans effected by these sentencing disparities you can't help but reflect upon the inhumane history of our judicial system. At one time the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that blacks could be held in slavery as animals (1857 Dred Scott case). This is the same court system operating today. The great emancipation clause of the 13th Amendment DID NOT end slavery. "Slavery and involuntary servitude is hereby abolished EXCEPT where one is convicted of a crime... So slavery was only more narrowly defined as the former slaves and impoverished ones who were thrown into prison.
Yes, many times the justice system which did not recognize all humans as being humans turned a blind eye as the "jim crow style" laws took effect to keep the former slaves segregated from the rest of the nation. We couldn't even get a civil rights bill passed until 1964. Yes, again, we have made great racial strides on one hand. But on the other we still have the putrid residue of systemic judicial racism from the time when it was legal to use the justice system to wreak severe INJUSTICE (in the name of justice), to those of African American descent. That is an undeniable fact of history. It takes time to remake a judicial system that started at its core by legalizing inhumane treatment of others it considered "less than human.
Just think - we have all survived the turning points of the judicial system slowly becoming more humane throughout the last century and a half, slowly extending equal justice to all. And it's only going to get better.