Youth in the Criminal Justice System
Dear Editor,
The criminal justice system is failing the young adults of the United States. Excessive punishment impedes young Americans from becoming productive members of society. According to Gilna (2019), nearly one-third of young adults who get arrested by age 25 and, young adults, aged 18-25, are the most likely to re-offend. Young Americans are stuck in prisons, institutions that are neither productive nor educational. The U.S. imprisons young Americans at an astonishing rate using excessive laws and passing harsh and mandatory minimum penalties. Compared with juvenile criminal justice in Germany, the United States is far behind protecting our young adults. According to Foundation for Economic Education (2018), nearly 2.3 million people in prison overall, millennials make up approximately 38 percent of federal prison inmates, and more than half of all inmates in state prisons.
Brief History
In the late 18th and 19th century, courts punished and confined teenagers in the same institutions as adults. However, Thomas Eddy and John Griscom, who are the pioneering penal reformers, opposed the housing of the delinquent teenagers with adult criminals and pushed for the creation of a new type of reform institution (Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 2019). As such, New York opened a reform institution for teenagers, a move that was copied by other cities like Boston and Philadelphia.
The juvenile court system was initially meant to rehabilitate young people instead of punishing them. However, in the 1980s, the public concern grew about the effectiveness of the juvenile justice system since minor crimes were on the rise. When severe juvenile crimes ascended, many states passed punitive laws, including mandatory sentencing and blanket transfers to adult courts for certain crimes (Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 2019). As such, the punishment for delinquent juveniles began to rise and created a disparity between the original goal which was rehabilitation rather than punishment.
Case Studies
Roy Ayala was sentenced in California to serve a life sentence without the possibility of parole for a murder committed during a robbery (Arthur et al., 2017). Ayala is a Latino who was 17 years old at the time of his conviction. Ayala was then a homeless lad, and also, he was addicted to morphine. His dad beat him, sometimes to the point of unconsciousness and due to abuse; Ayala left home at 13 and lived mostly on the streets. As he puts it, “I was searching for direction in the wrong crowd.” Now, at 26 years, approximately ten years in prison, Ayala hopes and prays for a second chance to get his freedom and give back to society. Devastated that he will never see outside the walls of the prison, Ayala attempted to commit suicide in the past. Ayala receives neither education nor programming of imprisonment and he, therefore, spends most of his time idling around. To forget his reality, Ayala reads and writes and one of his poems got featured on ‘The Facing Page.’
Sara Kruzan grew up in Riverside, California. She is bi-racial and was raised by her mother, a Caucasian, who was not only addicted to drugs but also abusive to Sara. Sara got placed in foster care as a teenager since her mother was declared unfit to raise a child. Besides, Sara met her African-American father only three times in her life since he was in prison serving time for serious felony convictions. Since the age of 9, Sara has suffered from severe depression to the extent of getting hospitalized several times. Also, due to her depressed state, Sarah attempted to commit suicide on several occasions. At the age of 11, Sara met a 31-year-old man named “G.G.” Soon after they met, G.G. sexually molested Sara and began grooming her to become a prostitute. At age the age of 13, Sara began working as a prostitute for G.G. Sara had just turned 16 years when she got convicted of killing G.G. According to Sara, the friend of her then-boyfriend , who was much older and a rival of G.G., was involved in the murder but he was never prosecuted (Arthur et al., 2017). Even though Sara had never gotten arrested before, she was tried as an adult in an adult court and sentenced to spend the rest of her life in prison.
Evan Miller also got sentenced to serve life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. The jury convicted Miller of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole while his friend got a life sentence with the possibility of parole in exchange for his testimony against Miller (Schwatzapel, 2017). Miller lived with an alcoholic, drug-addicted mother and an abusive stepfather. Also, Miller had been in and out of foster care, and he had attempted suicide severally. Miller hit his neighbor repeatedly with a bat and set his trailer on fire. The unlucky man died due to smoke inhalation and the injuries from the beating by Miller.
Opposition Viewpoint
As stated earlier, the goal of the juvenile justice system was to rehabilitate delinquent teenage offenders. However, the introduction of harsh laws and referring juvenile cases to adult courts has since changed the goal from rehabilitation to punishment. According to Smith (2013), although the delinquent teenagers are offenders, they are still in their developmental stage, and as such, the justice system should incorporate disciplinary measures meant to re-model their moral character rather than lock them up. The infamous psychology experiment called ‘The Stanford Prison Experiment’ by Zimbardo proved that the physical condition of a place could manipulate one physically into changing their attitude and behavior. At present, the juvenile justice system relies on law enforcement controls, in some cases adult courts and locked facilities to punish delinquent teenagers. When teenagers get exposed to such harsh programmes, rather than reforming, the harsh environment manipulates them psychologically into changing their attitude and behavior and adapt to prison life. As such, many teenage delinquents end up becoming repeat offenders since the justice system used on them is not sufficient enough to re-model their moral characters.
Furthermore, teenage offenders are not well-represented in adult courts. First and foremost, most of the people involved in the proceedings involving a juvenile offender in an adult court form an attitude towards the offender. After all, it is a common belief that for a teenager to be referred to an adult court, he or she must be a hardened criminal. Thus, such teenagers receive treatment equal to their crime rather than their age and state of mind. In line with Buss (2011), if a young person presented in an adult court succeeds in following the jargon-ridden presentations of the lawyers and various agents of the state, he or she sees that their role is that of a polite listener with a chance to say some words; not that of an active and engaged participant, let alone a chief author and executor of the plans for his future. Such a teenager gets overwhelmed with the court proceedings that even asked to say something regarding their case; they shrug their shoulders or shake their heads. The lack of engagement by teenage offenders in court proceedings should be a matter of concern. When teenagers presented in adult courts, the stakeholders should ensure that the adolescent offender understands the charges filed against them and also, they should proceedings should be jargon-free to enable the teenager feel at ease and become an active participant in the circumstances.
Solution and implementation of the problem
The juvenile justice system should strive to restore teenage delinquents rather than punishing them. An ideal justice system aims to achieve retribution which is punishment for breaking the law, deterrence which is preventing an offender from breaking the code again and rehabilitation which prepares inmates to go back to society as reformed citizens. In the case of juvenile offenders, deterrence and rehabilitation are often assigned the most significant weight.
According to Arthur et al., (2017), a sentence of life in prison is excessively harsh for such young people, many of whom were themselves victims of abuse or neglect. Evident from the examples used earlier, most of the teenage offenders are victims of abuse and in most cases suicidal or depressed. As such, the justice system should take into consideration the psychological state of child offenders before passing such harsh sentences like life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Such teenagers who were once victims of abuse and then later get such severe penalties end up becoming questioning the justice system wondering where the same justice system was when they were getting abused.
Also, the juvenile justice system should aim to implement a restorative system of justice. As stated by Daly (2005), a therapeutic justice system aims at rehabilitating the offender rather than punishing the offender. Considering that the offenders, in this case, are children, they have a higher chance of reforming compared to adult offenders. The juvenile jails should be focused on developmental rehabilitation programmes like vocational training programmes to equip teenagers with income earning skills. Such plans not only reform the offenders but also give them a better chance of fitting into society upon their release.
Also, child offenders should be offered psychological treatment. In line with Young et al. (2017), rates of mental health problems among juvenile offenders are significantly higher than in their non-offender peers. As stated earlier, most child offenders are victims of abuse, and as such, they have post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Therefore, unless the delinquents receive treatment for their mental disorders, they are more likely to become repeat offenders even after rehabilitation.
Furthermore, the judges and lawyers who drive the juvenile proceedings, whether in juvenile courts of adult courts, should be committed to ensuring that the child offenders understand the procedures (Buss, 2011). The judges and the lawyers should reflect the special obligation to teenagers and respond to their essential developmental needs. As such, the justice system will be more focused on rehabilitating the offender than punishing the crime. Rather than reading charges and giving a verdict, the judges should ensure that the child offenders understand the nature of their offense and that the judgment rendered in not meant to punish, but to reform.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the juvenile justice system in America is failing the youths of the United States. Rather than reforming the young offenders in juvenile, the justice system is placing the teenagers in lock-up facilities without implementing any developmental programmes. Young offenders are still in their developmental stage and such; they have a high possibility of reforming. Instead of locking away future citizens of America, the justice system should aim at re-modeling the offenders into becoming morally upright citizens.
References
Arthur, P., & Armstrong, B. S. (2017). LOCKED AWAY FOREVER: THE CASE AGAINST JUVENILE LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE. Retrieved May 8, 2019, from National Center for Youth Law: https://youthlaw.org/publication/locked-away-forever-the-case-against-juvenile-life-without-parole/
Buss, E. (2011). Failing Juvenile Courts and What Lawyers and Judges Can Do about It. Nw. JL & Soc. Pol’y, 6, 318.
Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. (2019). Juvenile Justice History. Retrieved May 8, 2019, from Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice: http://www.cjcj.org/education1/juvenile-justice-history.html
Daly, K. (2005). Restorative versus retributive justice.
Foundation For Economic Education . (2018, January 15). Too Many Millennial Men Are Behind Bars. Retrieved May 8, 2019, from Foundation For Economic Education : https://fee.org/articles/too-many-millennial-men-are-behind-bars/
Gilna, D. (2019, January 21). Prison Policy Institute Study Says Juvenile Justice System Problems Mirror Adult Issues. Retrieved May 8, 2019, from Prison Legal News : https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2019/jan/21/prison-policy-institute-study-says-juvenile-justice-system-problems-mirror-adult-issues/
Schwartzapfel, B. (2017, March 12). Was Evan Miller ‘The Rare Juvenile’ Who Deserved Life Without Parole? Retrieved May 8, 2019, from The Marshall Project: https://www.themarshallproject.org/2017/03/12/was-evan-miller-the-rare-juvenile-who-deserved-life-without-parole
Smith, C. K. (2013). Nothing About Us Without Us! The Failure of the Modern Juvenile Justice System and a Call for Community-Based Justice. Journal of Applied Research on Children: Informing Policy for Children at Risk, 4(1).
Young, S., Greer, B., & Church, R. (2017). Juvenile delinquency, welfare, justice and therapeutic interventions: a global perspective. BJPsych bulletin, 41(1), 21-29.