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    Kids Serving Time as Adults

    By Donal on Tue, 10/05/2010 - 2:25pm |

    One of my college profs told us that the concept of childhood is fairly recent. In Western culture, children were considered, and depicted, as small adults until the 17th century, which is roughly coincident with the early beginnings of the industrial revolution. Children always had chores in agrarian societies, but were thrust into more dangerous industrial jobs in tanneries and mills, leading to arguments by Rousseau, and later Dickens, that childhood be given special consideration and protection. Such sentiments resonated with the growing middle class, and by the early 20th century, as education lasted longer, the concept of adolescence, a state between childhood and adulthood, entered Western culture.

    But sentiment only goes so far. Adolescence is, of course, confusing, both for those going through it and those observing, and defies easy definition. The angst of Splendor in the Grass and To Sir With Love seems vastly preferable to what adolescents are faced with today. Adolescents are the focus of many industries, some spend a great deal of money, some are greatly exploited and ... some commit a great many crimes. While the law seems to distinguish between juveniles and adults, adolescents may fall into either category, depending on their class and the crime with which they are charged.

    According to the Baltimore Sun, teenaged offenders are often automatically charged as adults and according to most of the commenters on their website, they should be.

    Report says trying juveniles as adults is counterproductive

    When he was 16, Haymond Burton hit a man over the head twice with a bottle. He says it was in self defense, but prosecutors charged him with attempted murder, which meant he would be tried as an adult under state law.


    In the video, Burton does look a lot like a big kid. I couldn't tell, but one of the commenters says those were gang colors showing under his shirt.

    He was put in a Baltimore jail, in a separate wing for minor defendants, and waited more than a year for his trial, at which a jury acquitted him of all charges but second-degree assault — a crime that's usually dealt with in juvenile court. He was sentenced to five years' incarceration, spending his days among adults with long-term sentences and seemingly little to lose.

    "The [adult pre-trial] jail experience was bad, you watched people get beat up, jumped on … people taking stuff from you, stealing stuff from you," Burton, now 19, said in a telephone interview last week. "Then you get into the prison, and it's a lot different. It's men. It's grown men. I seen people dying."

    In the 1990s, concern over a rise in juvenile crime led many states, including Maryland, to implement laws that automatically put teens into the adult court system under certain circumstances. But a report being released today says that model doesn't work, even as the state prepares to begin construction on a $100 million facility to house kids charged as adults.

    The Just Kids Partnership, made up of youth and legal advocacy organizations, spent a year following the cases of 135 Baltimore youths charged as grownups in the first half of 2009. The authors found, among other things, that the adult justice system:

    •teaches teens to become violent criminals;

    •subjects them to sexual and physical abuse;

    •wastes taxpayers' money;

    •unfairly targets African Americans.

    "The juvenile system is designed to rehabilitate … whereas the adult system is designed to punish only," said Laura E. Furr, who oversees Youth Justice Initiatives within Community Law In Action Inc.


    I actually thought rehabilitation was the design goal of both systems, if not the reality.

    If Burton had stayed in the juvenile system, Furr said, he would have likely had a trial within 45 days, instead of 15 months. He would have been required to attend school and treatment programs, and he would not have been segregated in a Baltimore jail cell for 23 hours a day while awaiting trial.


    As I mentioned, despite the findings of Just Kids, there isn't much sympathy for juvenile offenders among the commenters.

    extratall9

    Gee Ms. Bishop, the caption in Mr. Burton's picture says he was convicted of handgun violations as well, yet you failed to discuss the gun at all in the article.  I'm betting that would have given the reader a better understanding of why he was charged as an adult.  ... Predators with guns need to go to big-boy jail.  That's why Jessamy does not have a job anymore.


    African-American Prosecutor Patricia Jessamy just lost a primary campaign to white attorney Gregg Bernstein, who pummeled Jessamy over crimes by repeat offenders that had been lightly-sentenced. There is a recognizable dynamic in Baltimore whereby the police catch and the courts release. While many residents feel that black officials are too lenient with black offenders, others don't want their relatives languishing in prison.

    Johnny C

    The juvenile system is designed to rehabilitate … whereas the adult system is designed to punish only," said Laura E. Furr....saying it does not make it so.  The rate of recitivism amongst the so called rehabilitated juveniles is the real story here.  I bought into that whole rehabilitation thing long ago because I was idealistic and wanted to believe there was good in all.  I'm more realistic now having seen horrific chronic criminal behavior amongst many who started young.  The concept of rehabilitation is a pure concept, kind of like communism.  Both are proven failures and they both open the door for the corrupt.  In reality, swift deeply painful justice is the only real deterent.  Look at societies with harsh punishments and you will see statistically much lesser crime rates.  Why can't people like Ms. Furr and Mr. O'Malley wake up to this?

    da6012

    I'm tired of crime talk that totally ignores the perspectives of victims and communities. How much safer did Burton's neighbors feel while he was behind bars? My guess is A LOT safer! What is a victim of assault supposed to do? Forgive and forget, ignore the pain and injuries because they were inflicted by a youth? Do you think the victim bled less? Hurt less because the hitter was 16? Problems with the juv and/or adult system should not direct our strategy of justice.  Either a crime deserves punishment or it doesn't, regardless of where it is served. Fix what ails the juv system, prove that rehab is possible, and the community will stop demanding every thug kid's head on a platter.  Fix the adult system so the delays and threats can be controlled, so we don't get the victim card played everytime a young violent offender who deserves adult incarceration is, in fact, sent there.

     

    There used to be a time not so long ago when hearing of a juv committing a violent crime was so absurd, so infrequent, that when it did happen, you knew you were seeing the worst of society, the warped kids from sick families.  Just Kids would be helping a lot more people if they intervened BEFORE crimes occurred, rather than trying to rescue people who already have a victim(s) and a history of bad behavior to be accountable for.

    IPFrehley (seems like this name occurs in every comment section)

    Before they say it is counterproductive or "doesn't work", why don't they define what a policy that "works" looks like. A pretty good argument can be made that a prison sentence is working if the person serving it is not committing crimes against society while they are in there. There is always going to be a balance between the punishment and the correctional aspects of serving a prison sentence, regardless whether the offender is a juvenile or adult.  I agree with the general principle that a juvenile's sentence should be weighted more toward the correctional/reform mode than it would be if the same person with the same prior record were older when committing the crime.

    By sending a juvenile to prison, do you make it more likely that the person becomes more likely to offend in the future?  Maybe.  But how would you ever know that?  And couldn't you just put them in prison for longer when they commit another crime?  This is one area where the right could have a better contribution to the dialog if it weren't for the people they align themselves with.

    Comments

    "A pretty good argument can be made that a prison sentence is working if the person serving it is not committing crimes against society while they are in there."

    We have such low expectations sometimes.  It's really sad.


    by Michael Maiello on Tue, 10/05/2010 - 2:54pm

    This is a new development in criminal law, at least in the North.

    I think these scandals involving private Juvenile facilities has put a new emphasis on this development.

    One idea that was prevalent involved an individual's record. So if you were convicted in a juvenile court, at age 18 you received a fresh start. Your file was permanently sealed.

    So you could answer, truthfully, on a job app that you had never been arrested. Things committed as a juvenile could not be used against you later on...as in the context of a three strikes rule or as evidence in some criminal trial later on in life.

    But when you are tried as an adult, its over. Your record is permanent and open to public scrutiny.

    I recall the former Senator from Wyoming had set a postal box on fire when he was 13 or so. That was a Federal Offense. But he was cut some slack on the charge and he certainly never maltreated a mail box again.

    There are no easy answers to the problem of teen gangs and such; especially when guns are being used. And what is the government supposed to do when a 17 year old rapes a 12 year old?

    Sorry, just some thoughts on a good post.


    by Richard Day on Tue, 10/05/2010 - 2:55pm

    It would seem that we are going backwards in our evolution as human beings with the capacity for empathy. 

    Punish the children, first, apparently. Not only in America, but abroad. For example, I was shocked yesterday when I read the following in the Guardian UK, which details imminent, and seemingly unequal cuts to assistance for minor children:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/04/child-benefit-for-all-ended

    Further discussions of which can be found here:

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/child-benefit

     

     


    by wws on Tue, 10/05/2010 - 3:37pm

    It seems the concept of children as little adults lasted at least until 1911 in America, that's when Lewis Hine took the picture below, Breaker Boys, Ewen Breaker, Pennsylvania. "(In the US) The number of children under the age of 15 who worked in industrial jobs for wages climbed to 2 million in 1910." linkBreaker Boys, 1911


    by NCD on Tue, 10/05/2010 - 5:00pm

    Brain studies seem to back up those whacky middle class folks.  The brain it appears is not fully developed until approximately 12 or 13, until which time abstract thought is not yet achievable.  So things like understanding moral obligation cannot be really understood beyond concrete example until this time.  Moreover, the portion of the brain that deals with impulse control (in part based on abstract consideration) is not fully developed until the later years of teenhood.  To top it off adolescents experience radical surges in hormones during which time they are trying to deal with this "new brain" and what it can do.

    In other words a sixteen year from the perspective of the physiology of his or her brain cannot be held to the same standard as an adult. 


    by Elusive Trope on Tue, 10/05/2010 - 5:03pm

    There's a tendency to oversimpfly the arguments of those historians who work on the topic of our conception of childhood being different from the past. It's not like people didn't have the recognition that a newborn goat is not as capable of doing things as a full grown one. It's more like that they trained their children like one trains an animal, with carrots and sticks. So history doesn't really conflict with the science. Perhaps a way of putting it is that it comes more from a perspective of thinking that age brings wisdom. Another piece of evidence is language--for example in English you might still call a young married teen with children a girl or a lass, and not a woman. Yes, they thought children had adult skills or abilities that we now know they don't, but they weren't totally unaware of differences.


    by artappraiser on Tue, 10/05/2010 - 5:28pm

    Well I didn't say they were totally unaware of differences. But I guess my point is that culturally today we are still living with the legacy.  We see some teenagers on youtube re-creating a scene from Jackass the Movie, causing them to do bodily harm to themselves and we think to ourselves - "what were they thinking?"  well, they were thinking like adolescents not as adults because they are literally wired differently, so to say.

    http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/573211_4

    But here we are in the 21st century trying a 16 year old as if he or she had a 22 year old brain, with decision making, critical skills and integration of moods of a 22 year old.  So we are still in some ways just like those of olden days.  And we look at how high school and jr highs are structured they tend to reflect the idea that they are little adults who experience reality in the same manner as adults, just without the "life experience." 


    by Elusive Trope on Tue, 10/05/2010 - 6:32pm

    There's often a lot of misunderstandings about youth, the criminal system, and so-called juvenile justice.  We lump together the idea of child labor laws with juvenile systems and fail to understand the relationship between the two.  The fact is, our Common Law - which existed hundreds of years before "juvenile" systems - prevented all children under age 7 from being found crimnally responsible based on the concept on incapcity.  Also, prosecutors had to PROVE that a child between 7 and 14 had the capacity to commit a crime as one of the elements of their courtroom presentation.  Many children, especially those under 12, were routinely found not guilty based on incapacity.  The closer to 7, the less likely a child was to be found criminally responsible for his or her acts.

     

    During the industrial revolution, children often worked alongside their adult counterparts, and often for lesser wages.  But children also were developing an independent streak away from the agragrian "father as master model" and so-called progressives and reformers hated this situation.  Young people - like my own grandfather (born in 1891) left home and struck out on their own at 14.  Many children were married at that age and a large number settled our frontier as 15-20 year olds.  Also, there was a large amount of crime attributed to that age group, during the same period that Americans were decrying out of control Irish, Italians, and Eastern Europeans.  The Juvenile Justice systems may have been supported by some as a mechanism to help children, but for many others, it was a social control mechanism.  All of a sudden, acts that were not criminal in nature became criminal in nature - truancy, "running away", being an uncontrollable juvenile, etc...  Young people who a few years earlier had supported themselves and their own families with little problem, were labled criminals if they were under age 21 and on their own.

     

    What most Americans fail to understand is that very violent juvenile offenders have always existed and many states - before the so-called reforms of the 1990's, already tried children as adults in certain cases.  Even though capacity went out the window with the advent of juvenile systems, prosecutors still were willing to try many kids as juveniles because until In Re Gault in 1969, the prosecutors and police had complete control over the lives and destinies of children.  Young people could be thrown into reform schools (i.e. youth prisons) for making dirty phone calls or talking back to adults.  If they were poor, they might be locked up for that status alone.  A great many children spent the years 10-21 locked up in hellish facilities merely because they lacked a parent.  Some were made infertile as part of state run experiments.

     

    By the 70's, things had changed and the juvenile system became the whipping boy of the mainstream media.  Kids get off with slaps on the wrist, everyone declared!  The "everyone" really represented police agencies and the like who were angry that because of In Re Gaul they had to actually prove that a child committed some sort of offense before locking a youngster up.  During this era, some states changed their laws to stop the automatic incarceration of children for status offenses.  Since children had some basic level of rights in the juvenile system, the cops no longer liked the system.  Mainstream media gave us a whole host of urban myths from 1970 - 1990 based on fake, Hollywood stories of kids running loose and getting away with all manner of crime.  Then came the bizarre influx of guns in the 80's and 90's, where kids were able to get their hands on almost any sort of weapon because of the balooning drug trade, and we had a recipe for disaster.

     

    Today, most children incarcerated are in fact there for status offenses and not crimes.  Kids still don't routinely have the right to jury trials in the juvenile system.  The maintsream media fails to let America know that most crimes are committed by adults and that children are far more likely to be a victim of an adult than vice versa. Children commit a very small percentage of violent crimes - less than 20 percent.  And violent crimes committed by children have long been decreasing.

     

    Children today don't have the right to an incapacity defense in most regions, and in places like Florida, children less than 7 can be charged with crimes.  America still holds to 7 as the basic age of criminal responsibility, but masks this by calling these children juveniles - yet we have seen images on YOUTUBE of extremely small children - who overtly have no understanding - being handcuffed and shackled.  The use of shackles on very small children - certainly those under 10 - is a recent, and very AMERICAN development.  No civilized nation in the world permits this conduct by its law enforcement agencies (except Great Britian, which sets its criminal responsibility at 10). 

    What we have now is an insane system - a hodgepodge of state programs, some good and many bad.  We have a school to prison pipeline where zero tolerance policies have turned playground behavior into criminal behavior.  A child's overt lack of understanding, or his tendency to be led by others in no defense to any act except in a few states, and even there, it is extremely limited.  Prosecutors during the past few years have been going full-force after children as young as 11 to try them as "adults".  It's happening in South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Florida, and Indiana, to name just a few.  What would have once been considered unseemly child abuse by prosecutors is now considered the norm by lawyers who become prosecutors because they lack any semblance of a conscience.

     

    Last month, Blade Reed celebrated his 15th birthday in the solitary confinement unit of WABASH State Prison for a crime committed at age 13.  His year old brother led the mentally impaired youth to a house and committed a murder there, and encouraged the younger child to participate.  After two sexual assaults in adult prison at age 14, Reed fought back and received his lockdown sentence.  In the meantime, 12 year old Paul Gingerich, who was talked into participating in a murder by a 15 year old, is constantly paraded before the press - his small, gaunt figure covered in black and white prison stripes and oversized shackles.  The then-6th grader received no psych exam before being deemed by the adults in Indiana as fit for WABASH. 

     

    While I feel sorry for the Indiana boys, the kid that really troubles me is Deonte Moore of Peoria, who received a 25 year sentence for bank robbery at age 13.  He had left home because of domestic problems with his cargivers, who had called the cops on him (the usual scenario is always to blame the child if there is mutual combat involved).  Lots of little African American boys in Peoria have been shunned by the juvenile system because Judge Chris Frederickson considers black skinned youth unworthy of his attention - no matter how young the child might be.  And there are so many more like them -- kids in Georgia sentenced under the so-called "deadly sins" laws who face automatic adult treatment.  Little boys and girls in Texas who have been sent up to a youth facility plagued by sexual scandals.  And let's not forget PA, where we had the Kids for Cash scandal.  Youngsters served lengthy sentences so that two corrupt judges could make money off of their incarceration. 

     

    Kids in America are kids only when it suits the needs of those in power.  They are kids when we want to control them - prevent a 17 year old from making an independent decision, or control the life of a 16 year old who wants to get a job and quit school.  They are children when we want to punish those who had sexual relations with them.  Then they are adults as soon as they act out in any fashion.  And some children are adults when they are but 11, in order to serve the needs of politically minded prosecutors who reap budgetary and media rewards by charging "the youngest ever."  But despite their youth, these small children lack the ability to prove that their age made them incapable of forming intent or understanding the nature and consequences of their actions.

     

    It's all great for adults but it sure stinks for kids.


    by alawyer (not verified) on Thu, 10/07/2010 - 3:05pm

    That's a very informative comment, thanks.


    by Donal on Sun, 10/17/2010 - 10:51am

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