Does putting juveniles into the adult system work?

[Melissa]

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Trying Juveniles as Adults

In the past 20 years, 45 states in America passed laws to make it possible for children and teenagers to be tried in the adult criminal justice system and sentenced to adult jails and prisons. The result of this action has been profound in that the number of children incarcerated in these facilities more than doubled between 1992 and the late 1990s.

The United States and Somalia are currently the only countries that sentence children and teenagers to life without the possibility of parole. This sentencing goes against the philosophy that facilitated the creation of a separate system for juveniles a century ago - a system that recognizes children are not adults, do not make decisions with the same rationality as adults, and should therefore be treated differently in the courts.

Legislation requiring children to be tried as adults contradicts that philosophy, making juvenile offenders responsible for criminal actions as though they are capable of making decisions on an adult level. Additionally, these laws subject children and teenagers to an adult system that does not focus on rehabilitation as it is merely punitive in nature. The American society is seeking to punish children by placing them with adult criminals, denying them access to rehabilitative resources.

Do you think that when these children (the ones who are not sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, that is) emerge from these jails and prisons, they are better people for having survived those conditions? Or is it possible the American justice system is actually helping to mold and shape future criminals?

What if the United States justice system still worked? What if juvenile offenders were treated as the children and teens they are, provided with opportunities to change and thrive? Is it possible that the reason the United States has the highest percentage of adult offenders prosecuted because the country as a whole refuses to acknowledge that the way it deal with crime is not working?

How does America Rank?

In 2008, the United States ranked first in the number of adults prosecuted in the justice system, coming in at 59.6%. The second country was Turkey at 8.6%. The United States also ranks first when it comes to the amount of crime perpetrated by region. America was listed at 18.7%. The second country, the United Kingdom, was given a 10.3%.

Changing the laws to subject children to the adult criminal justice system certainly hasn't acted as a deterrent. The United States ranks third in the world when it comes to the number of juveniles committing murder. Ironically, America is third only to Brazil and Colombia.

Does Sentencing Juveniles as Adults Reduce Crime?

Two studies have been conducted to determine if children subjected to the adult criminal justice system learn their lesson as a result. The first study, conducted by a researcher from Columbia University, determined that juveniles processed in the adult system are more likely to reoffend and return to prison or jail after their release.

Another study, conducted by researchers at Northeastern University concluded the same thing: juveniles sentenced and incarcerated in adult facilities were more likely to reoffend than those who remained in the juvenile justice system. The Florida study was conducted in 1996. It would be interesting to see what a present day study would find since the number of children processed and incarcerated as adults have dramatically increased.

So we know two important things based on the above studies and existing crime data. We know that juveniles are not deterred from committing crimes as a result of being tried, convicted, and sentenced in the adult system. We also know that placing juveniles in this system does not improve recidivism rates. In fact, it increases the chances that when the individuals are released they will reoffend, reoffend sooner, and commit more crimes than their counterparts who are tried, convicted, and sentenced in the juvenile system.

If we know the system is not working, why do we continue to support it?

[gloria]

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The truth is that recidivism is higher among teenagers who have been charged as adults for their crimes. Incarcerating childrens in adult prisons deprives children offenders of adequate counseling and education. Honestely  "Adult time for adult crime" is a failure. It may be a catchy sentence but it doesn't work.

http://www.juvjustice.org/media/resources/resource_115.pdf

[Melissa]

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Thank you for posting that link, Gloria. That's good information. 

[Bryan]

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Seriously, many people are thinking they are playing roulette when it coumes to letting a child not to be charged as an juvenile. Think of those cases in the past that were not taken to adult court and the boy or girl was set free after a set number of years, which usually ended at 21. The chances are 50/50 to the public's viewpoint, either they that these reformed miscreants kill or do not kill again. This game of criminal roulette makes a person encountering a case of a former juvenile killer in their neighborhood uncomfortable if they do not know them and trust that they are of sound mind and body to remain out of serious trouble. Many adults who see video of news footage or home video of themselves can honestly tell some reporter or curious person years later that this was not the person they were at the time. Our dreams of being a firefighter or cop while still a kid morphs into what became of them over the course of time.

The differences in the child's brain compared to an adult's brain were not fully understood when the laws were changed throughout the 1970's to the 1990's. That old "little adult" mentality that existed since ancient times is hard to shake off when one hears news of a murder committed by a youngster. That little experiment in the Victorian Era with juvenile courts seemed so quaint as human's improved the ability to further confound the law as the law made improvements in their detection of a crime and the possibility a child could commit the unthinkable.

Those who support tougher time for juveniles would say that these systems were never designed for kids who did capital crimes, but I tend to disagree. Up to the late ninteenth century, a kid could be hung for even a non-capital offenses like robbery or being in the company of known crooks. The reformers of the mid to late 1800's had some sense to point out the folly of that reasoning.

I have reminded myself of that scene in the 1983 movie, "Places in the Heart" when it comes to this subject. You know who killed Sally Field's husband in the beginning of the movie? It was a African-American teen who was a little wild with his gun. It was set in the 1930's Southern USA, when people of color were lynched for such crimes no matter how old they were. A few minutes into the movie after the death of her hubby, we see this kid's remains being drug off by a white man's pickup truck, the victim of an obvious lynching. Sally's character would get even with the public who did that dirty deed by helping a black man after he was badly beaten by a mob of locals disguised as Klansmen. It is a good movie that garnered an Oscar for Ms. Field. And it showed me over repeated viewings how vicious people in even idyllic rural areas can be to their fellow humans. (It would make a good double feature with "The River" with Sissy Spacek and Mel Gibson, also battling a bunch of nasty men.)

That people in their tender years can murder someone else still shocks people to the point they let their base instincts at frontier justice get to their moral instinct at fair justice. In today's world, would we lynch someone for a murder? We do not do this because we know we would go to jail for the rest of our lives because we killed a human being and we are adults. The age of Lynching died in the 1960's. The cases inspired restorative justice decades later, documented in such flicks as "Mississippi Burning". When a public are twisted to misunderstand a human being, unjust laws are made. Look at how hard it was to make adultry a non-punishable offense! Look how hard it is to make sodemy a crime one does not have to serve prison time anymore in this country! As long as the juvenile mind remains a mystery to modern psychiatry, we will continue this abuse of our power over right and wrong over our children when they screw up. We would continue to push for locking them up and throwing away the key. Just as we did with the Sodmite or the adulterer or to a person lynched because of the color of their skin or their political or religious beliefs, it will come at the cost of anger, fear and foot dragging until it comes to a point in hisotry that it does not matter anymore. We have to come to that point, even to the point of martyrdom.

[gloria]

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I think the mentality of trying childrens as adults in the USA is starting to go down a little, maybe. People are now starting to realise it does not help the public or anyone to try childrens as adults. It will take time to change that mentality in america but I'm sure it will come in the end. This is a case that is starting to show some common sense and is that childrens are not adults and you just can't make a transfer so quick without even looking at the case. This are really good news. I don't know if you have heard about this case. But he was tried and sentenced as an adult. Now he is back in juvenile. He was only 13 at the time. This would be good news for other cases like Paul's and so many kids who are sent to adult court so quick.

http://www.pjstar.com/news/x227168060/Convicted-Peoria-teens-robbery-case-back-in-juvenile-court