Juvenile Crimes

This subject was prompted by a crime committed by a 16 year old in New York, The crime allegedly committed by the young man was that he set an apartment on fire and when the cops responded, they were engulfed with flames and fell unconscious and recently one of the two cops died due to it. The suspect has confessed that he was bored so he started the fire. And this is just one allegedly perpetuated by a Juvenile. Every day you pick up the newspaper, read or watch it on the internet or on the television and you see Juveniles as young as 13 doing bad things and taking law into their own hands and then they don’t feel a bit of a remorse of what they are doing since they think that they will either not be caught and if caught will be dealt with lightly since they are below the legal age. And this kind of impunity on the minds of young folks sometimes drives them to do things which are not the norm for the age. I can understand that a mind of a 13 or 14 year old cannot comprehend the consequences of the actions they take but what about the minds of Juveniles who are 15 years to 17 years of age, do we also consider their minds to be confused when they commit some crime? Who decides that the actions of this age of Juveniles do not fall under the jurisdiction of crimes committed by a knowing adult? Why we don’t treat them as adults and not as Juveniles if the crime is as heinous as murder or something that leads to murder?