dagblog - Comments for "Kids Serving Time as Adults"

That's a very informative

Donal — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 14:51:11 +0000

That's a very informative comment, thanks.

There's often a lot of

alawyer — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 19:05:16 +0000

In reply to Kids Serving Time as Adults

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.

Well I didn't say they were

Elusive Trope — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 22:32:25 +0000

In reply to There's a tendency to

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."

There's a tendency to

artappraiser — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 21:28:56 +0000

In reply to Brain studies seem to back up

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.

Brain studies seem to back up

Elusive Trope — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 21:03:59 +0000

In reply to Kids Serving Time as Adults

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.

It seems the concept of

NCD — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 21:00:15 +0000

In reply to Kids Serving Time as Adults

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." link

It would seem that we are

wws — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 19:37:44 +0000

In reply to Kids Serving Time as Adults

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

This is a new development in

Richard Day — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:55:33 +0000

In reply to Kids Serving Time as Adults

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.

"A pretty good argument can

Michael Maiello — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 18:54:47 +0000

In reply to Kids Serving Time as Adults

"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.