"From Time Out to Hard Time" (Children in the adult system)

[Melissa]

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My friend Ann sent me this report from the University of Texas at Austin. I have been reading through it and it is very interesting. I'll provide some highlights contained in the report to follow.

Click here to download report.

[Melissa]

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This report was released in 2009. One very interesting thing about this report is that it analyzes specific cases where children were tried and sentenced as adults.

It has direct implications for cases like Jordan Brown because it says "As this report illustrates, pre-adolescents - defined as children under the age of 12 - do not belong in the adult criminal justice system, regardless of the seriousness of the crime."

Then it says, "Whatever policy-makers may think about treating older teen offenders, as adults, we hope that our research demonstrates that pre-adolescents present an entirely different set of challenges."

Now, I know they are giving the cut-off age as 12, but keep in mind that since Cristian Fernandez was born in January, he was just barely 12 when he was charged with murder and aggravated battery. He has been deemed as emotionally immature by psychologists, suggesting his mental age is less than that of 12.

This report stresses the importance of accountability, even for children, but emphasizes that the juvenile justice system is "well-equipped to handle even the most violent juveniles, and is especially designed to meet the unique social, physical, emotional, educational, and treatment needs of this young population".

The report makes references to Jordan Brown, and the 8 year old in Arizona who was charged with murdering his father and another adult.

The report says that more than half of the states in America allow children under the age of 12 to be tried as adults.

22 states allow children as young as 7 to be tried as adults (outrageous!).

"Among the states with the most problematic theoretical and actual outcomes for young children who commit serious crimes are Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina."

I think Indiana might fit in there too.

Here's a quote for Angela Corey. "The practice of treating children as adults for criminal justice purposes also poses serious public safety risks, as well as risks to the individual child. The research unequivocally shows that children prosecuted as adults are more likely to re-offend and to pose a threat to society."

[Marie]

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This comment by "alawyer" was on Dan Daley's site under "sheepdog"--which was very good by the way.  Is this what Cristian has to look forward to?  Is this really the best they can do for an abused child in Florida?  Does not seem right at all.  We see the damage this did to Alex King. 

Curious if this is the best they can do?

alawyer
October 14, 2011 at 2:03 pm

Melissa did a great service in helping young Cristian, who was grossly overcharged with intentional murder in what is really a manslaughter case. A glitch in the Florida law permits prosecutors to charge young children with murder in unintentional homicide cases by bootstrapping felony murder to an underlying child abuse charge. That’s what the prosecutor did here.

I have been writing extensively on this problem for a number of years – prosecutors must be forced to show intent to kill to obtain a murder conviction where children are charged. Not doing so undermines thousands of years of commonlaw. I was hoping this case might be the test case, but unfortunately, the boy’s underpaid and overworked public defender has been bargaining with the prosecutor. His plea will be in adult court, and he will be tagged with a felony conviction for homicide which will dog him for the rest of his life, and cripple his ability to grow. He will spend years in one of Florida’s notorious youth prisons, just like Alex King did, and emerge scarred. Because he lacks King’s general coping skills, he will not do well in prison and likely will reoffend before he leaves or after. He is more like Nate Tate in this instance.

You seem to believe that the prosecutor did what she did because of the headlines – in part – that is true – but it is common for these prosecutors to overcharge children in adult court and then bargain down to some “reasonable sentence” and claim thhat they care about the kids. That way, they can paint themselves as tough on crime, while at the same time claiming to be compassionate. Unfortunately, the adult felony conviction ruins the kid – as is the case here. Your friend Alex King and his brother can attest to the damage of the adult felony conviction – it prevents someone from obtaining gainful employment or receiving educational benefits.
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[Melissa]

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Yes, this is an example of someone who understands exactly what is going on in terms of what Cristian was charged with and what the precise consequences of that overcharge are. When a prosecutor does this and says it was not their intention to seek a life without parole sentence, you have to then ask: so the child must agree to a plea in order to avoid the life without parole sentence? A plea deal structured almost entirely by the prosecution? How is that fair or compassionate?

[Bryan]

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Sadly this ruining of a child with an adult charge to the point they reoffend later in life is why some people think about pitting any child charged with a capital crime with life without parole or until the SCOTUS ruled against this, the death penalty. The public at one point during the late 20th century did not want a kid that killed ever to see the light of day or breathe the air of freedom again. The survivors of the victim piled on this public fear lead by a generation of lawyers who just acted like this pressure from the public was the best thing since the origin of humans in the Garden of Eden.

When I was young man I was thinking of the old tale of a two boys (or was it a boy and a girl) whose lives were ruined when one of their fathers found out about their romance toward each other. One boy was ruined by the justice system. The other was so traumatized by his old man's prejudice that he killed himself. Once the other boy found out about this as he was cycling between free and unfree hell of the "justice" system, he harbored a grudge against his lover's old man. Then, when the kid became a man he cornered and murder the old man that betrayed him. As a result he was sentenced to death and executed. It was the worst ending I ever read in any story in my life. But it drove me to rail against any unjust law and any evil person who tries to hurt a kid. I might have skipped the mushy parts, but it surmises a line from a 1997 flick called "My Life in Pink" from France: People are... "(something related to the act of elemination that I cannot print here).

Yes. Sometimes I think the whole moral panic about bullies is real. We will always have them and we always will have them. There is no stopping human behavior. Either you are a bully or you are a victim. 50/50! No more and no less. The only way to stop a bully is to be one to the bully, I am sad to say. (Making a bully into a victim has been the oldest trick to create a martyr.) It just depends on one's point of view who is right and who is wrong. For example, there are many people out there who would not agree that John Bongivengo or Tom Corbett or their ilk are bullies. There are some folks who call us bullies just for trying to undermining their authority. It is all about power and money that creates the ultimate fallacy of bullies and victims. No more and no less. The only way to not be a bully or a victim is to be a neutral. That is, not to act as a victim or as an agressor. I think that perfect example was made by Geogre W. Bush when he said in a 2000 debate that his biggest hero was Christ.

It has to take a wimp like Bush to make me understand the inner meanings of mercy. The key to not being a bully and not being a victim is to be a neutral. However, it is very hard to be Christlike.

[Melissa]

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I found an article that discusses the report I linked to above - "From Time out to Hard Time". What I really like about this article is that it touches on a lot of really important points contained in that report so I am going to link to it and paste the article here. The full report it refers to is linked in the first post in this thread.

http://www.utexas.edu/news/2009/07/28/children_criminal_justice/

First Comprehensive Policy Study on Trying and Sentencing Children as Adults Finds 22 States May Sentence Children as Young as 7 to Adult Prison

July 28, 2009

AUSTIN, Texas — Under flawed criminal justice policy that is inconsistent with evidence-based research, trying and sentencing young children as adults occurs with alarming frequency and devastating results, according to a first policy research report on the subject released today by the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at The University of Texas at Austin.

The report, "From Time Out to Hard Time: Young Children in the Adult Criminal Justice System," is a comprehensive look at how the nation treats pre-adolescent children, primarily those age 12 and under, who commit serious crimes. The report analyzes the available data with regard to the transfer of young children to adult criminal court, documents the extremely harsh and tragic consequences that follow when young children go into the adult criminal justice system, profiles practices in states with particularly severe outcomes for these young children, looks at international practices and offers policy recommendations

The report finds that more than half the states permit children age 12 and under to be treated as adults for criminal justice purposes. In 22 states, plus the District of Columbia, children as young as 7 can be prosecuted and tried in adult court where they would be subject to harsh adult sanctions, including long prison terms, mandatory sentences and placement in adult prisons.*

Four states stand out as providing the worst outcomes for pre-adolescent offenders, given the combination of transfer policies and adult sentencing laws and practices in those states: Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and South Carolina.

Professor Michele Deitch, the report's lead author and an attorney who teaches juvenile justice policy at the LBJ School and the School of Law at The University of Texas at Austin, emphasized the national significance of the report and its findings.

"State policies allowing for the prosecution of children in adult court contradict the consensus of the most up-to-date scientific research.  The adult criminal justice system is a poor and dangerous fit in every way for these young kids," Deitch said. "Children should be handled in the juvenile justice system, where they can obtain the rehabilitative services and programs necessary to help them become productive adults. Lawmakers must reconsider and reverse these punitive laws."

Other key findings of "From Time Out to Hard Time: Young Children in the Adult Criminal Justice System":

Every year, nearly 80 children age 13 and younger are judicially transferred to adult court. Between 1985 and 2004, 703 children age 12 and under, and 961 children age 13 were judicially transferred to adult court. The total number of young children in adult criminal court is much higher than this. The data do not include the number of children sent to the adult system through automatic transfer laws or laws allowing prosecutors to file cases directly in adult court.

Many of these young children are being treated as adults for relatively minor offenses. There are almost as many youth treated as adults for property crimes as for crimes against persons. Determinations about when and whether a young child will be treated as an adult are marked by extreme arbitrariness, unpredictability and racial disparities.

On a single day in 2008, 7,703 children under age 18 were held in adult local jails and 3,650 in adult state prisons. In these adult facilities, the youth face vastly higher risks of physical and sexual assault and suicide than they would face in juvenile facilities. The youngest children are at particular risk.
The United States is severely out of step with international law and practice. Most countries—including those Western nations most similar to the United States, countries in the developing world, Islamic nations and even countries often considered to be human rights violators—repudiate the practice of trying young children as adults and giving them long sentences.

The report makes recommendations to national and state policymakers, including:

Keep young children in the juvenile justice system. Access to the adult system must be restricted in several ways, including by raising the age for transfer, eliminating automatic-transfer laws and direct-file laws for young children and creating reverse-transfer laws allowing criminal court judges to return children to juvenile court at any stage of processing.

Disallow mandatory sentencing of young children in adult criminal court. Mandatory sentencing laws intended to apply to adults should be more flexible when applied to children who are transferred to adult court. Judges should have the discretion to take account of their youth and amenability to rehabilitation as mitigating circumstances.

Always provide parole opportunities for young children transferred to the adult criminal justice system, regardless of sentence length. Children as young as 7 could receive a mandatory sentence of life without parole in Florida and Pennsylvania.

Young children in the adult criminal justice system should be housed in juvenile facilities. Young children must not be mixed with the adult criminal population. Any adult correctional facility holding juveniles should be required to comply with professional standards and should be subject to independent oversight of the children's confinement conditions.

* The 22 states (plus the District of Columbia) where children as young as 7 can be treated as adults are:  Alaska, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin. In addition, Kansas and Vermont set the age at 10, and Colorado, Missouri and Montana allow 12 year olds to be transferred to adult court.

For more information, contact: Kerri Battles, Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs, 512-232-4054;  Susan Binford, Lyndon B Johnson School of Public Affairs, 512-232-4006; Michele Deitch, 512-328-8330.

Tags: Research, automaticc transfer to adult court, children sent to adult court, Christopher Pittman, criminal justice, juvenile justice, LBJ School, LBJ School of Public Affairs, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, Michele Deitch, Pittman Case, School of Law

[Bryan]

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As fare as I am concerned the only way to stop this madness is federal sentencing reform if the states cannot agree on an arbitory age or even remaking their juvenile system to what a growing chorus of reformers really want, that is a system of secure schools similar to private school with reasonable compensated teachers who know how to deal with troubled youth. This would mean funding would have to start from the federal level with the state and local governments picking up the rest. If planned out correctly, I can forsee the savings in reduced crime among youth and that savings will be passed back to the people.

It is that no one wants to admit they have a problem with their youth system. It would be a problem that only a federal-state-local bi-partisan committee can try iron out. Then the problem states can be dragged out of the mud they put themselves in.

Why can't Washington help reform juvenile justice? If they don't the court system will have to one case at time. A federal-level fix would be less messy.