“They Are Still Children”
By:
Ms. Terry D. Glover
Date: April 28, 2014
Course: ENG:215 – Research and Writing
Professor: Robert McKinley
Across the United States, thousands of children have been
sentenced as adults and sent to adult prisons.
Nearly 3000 nationwide have been sentenced to life imprisonment without
the possibility of parole. Children as
young as 13 years old have been tried as adults and sentenced to die in prison,
typically without any consideration of their age or circumstances of the
offense.
The United States Supreme Court declared that
death-in-prison sentences imposed on children are unconstitutional and the
Court has now banned death-in-prison sentences for children convicted of
non-homicide crimes and mandatory death-in-prison sentences for all
children. Trial courts must conduct new
sentencing hearings where judges will have to consider children's individual
characters and life circumstances, including age, as well as the circumstances
of the crime. (Equal
Justice Iniative 2014 [1]).
With all the attention in the news media
concerning our children, one would wonder, what is wrong with our
children? According to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, in
1999 juveniles accounted for 103,900 violent crimes and in 2000 they accounted
for 98,900. Across the board the arrest
rate for violent crimes committed by juveniles between 1999 and 2000 dropped 5
percent. Violent crimes include: assaults; homicide; rape; robbery; arson; auto theft;
burglary; larceny/theft; vandalism; and weapons possession. (Einstein Law 2008 [2]).
However,
the Bureau of Justice, Juvenile Violent Crime Statistics, describes violent
crimes as murder, forcible rape, robbery and assault. Based on their definition of violent crimes,
their statistics from 1999 show total arrests was 67,916 thru 2008 total
arrests was 73,970, there has been a steady increase. See the chart below for total breakdown of
violent crimes:
|
Year
|
Murder
|
Forcible Rape
|
Robbery
|
Assault
|
Total
|
|
2008
|
974
|
2,505
|
27,522
|
42,969
|
73,970
|
|
2007
|
1,011
|
2,633
|
26,324
|
43,459
|
73,427
|
|
2006
|
956
|
2,519
|
26,092
|
44,424
|
73,991
|
|
2005
|
929
|
2,888
|
21,515
|
45,150
|
70,482
|
|
2004
|
1,065
|
3,038
|
18,554
|
43,611
|
66,268
|
|
2003
|
783
|
2,966
|
17,900
|
43,150
|
64,799
|
|
2002
|
806
|
2,937
|
18,288
|
43,879
|
65,910
|
|
2001
|
957
|
3,119
|
18,111
|
44,815
|
67,002
|
|
2000
|
806
|
2,937
|
18,288
|
43,879
|
65,910
|
|
1999
|
919
|
3,182
|
18,735
|
45,080
|
67,916
|
This information was last verified on April 28,
2013. (Statistic Brain [3]).
Although the statistics go back to
1999, violent crimes committed by our youths began before 1999. Our children have been on a slippery slope
that has had costly consequences on their families as well as the families of
their victims. How can we help our
children turn this behavior around, we first need to address what the goal of
the juvenile justice system is, it’s goal is to keep citizens safe and rehabilitate delinquent youth. Unfortunately, due to lack of funding,
policymakers are not always able to establish programs that achieve these
goals. While preventative and
rehabilitative measures have been shown to significantly decrease the
occurrence of juvenile offenses, the benefits of such programs can take years
to take effect. Increasing the number of juvenile penitentiaries may help keep
citizens safe; however, unless rehabilitative policies are enacted, delinquents
may continue to commit offenses when their sentences are up.
In 1974, the Juvenile Justice System
established the Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention Act, called for a "deinstitutionalization" of
juvenile delinquents. It required that
states holding youth within adult prisons for status offenses remove them
within a span of two years (this timeframe was adjusted over time). The act also provided program grants to
states, based on their youth populations, and created the Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).
Through reauthorization amendments, additional programs have been added
to the original Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.
The
system finds itself irresolute at present, faced with the discouraging
prevalence of crime, a lack of funding for preventative programs, and
disagreement over the principles that define its very foundation. Ideologically, funding, and practically are the
three main hindrances to the juvenile justice system. (Einstein Law 2008 [2]).
Additional problems facing the
juvenile justice system include mental health services, placement options,
addiction treatment service, recidivism prevention
resources, and educational programs. The U.S. Justice Department and other experts agree that a
significant majority of juvenile offenders are afflicted with different types
of mental health conditions, disorders and problems. These experts include Robert Agnew, author of
the recently published "Juvenile Delinquency: Causes and
Control." A major problem
associated with the juvenile justice system is the lack of appropriate and
suitable mental health services. This
includes a lack of community-based services for juvenile offenders who are not
in detention. Moreover, detention
facilities in many instances also lack an appropriate level of suitable and
sufficient mental health services for juvenile offenders. (Broemmel, 2009 [4]).
With
growing numbers of minors entering the juvenile justice system each and every
month, stretched resources have created problems associated with the proper placement of offenders. Detention facilities
are overcrowded and also understaffed.
There are neither enough beds nor enough supportive and therapeutic
resources available to these facilities to address appropriately the needs of
juvenile offenders.
Justice Department research
underscores that a significant percentage of juvenile offenders break the law
in the first instance either to obtain illegal drugs or while using these
illicit substances. Yet another of the
primary problems associated with the juvenile justice system is a lack of
sufficient addiction and substance abuse treatment resources.
As is the case with mental health
services, the lack of appropriate drug and alcohol abuse and addiction
treatment resources is found both in association with community-based programs
for juvenile offenders and within detention centers. (Broemmel, 2009 [4]).
Perhaps
the most significant of all problems associated with the juvenile justice
system is the high recidivism rate.
Although the U.S. Justice Department does not maintain specific
statistics in this regard, the agency does note that nearly all states continue
to report a high percentage of juveniles re-offending after serving a term of
probation or detention within the juvenile justice system.
The four primary reasons why
recidivism rates are high within the juvenile justice system are a lack of
appropriate placement options, insufficient mental health services, inadequate
substance abuse treatment programs and slim educational opportunity. In the end, the inadequacies and problems of
the juvenile justice system have created a constant cycle in which minors head
in, out and back in to the juvenile justice system. (Broemmel, 2009 [4]).
Research has
long shown that locking up young people puts them at greater risk of dropping
out of school, joining the unemployment line and becoming permanently entangled
in the criminal justice system. States and municipalities have thus been
sending fewer young offenders to juvenile institutions and more of them to
community-based programs that keep them connected to their families and reduce
the risk that they will engage in further crime. The number of children held in
custody plummeted from about 107,000 in 1995 to less than 71,000 in 2010 and is
still falling.
This is all
to the good. But the authorities could bring even more juveniles into the
mainstream if they did a significantly better job of educating them. That means
paying more attention to the learning disabilities, emotional problems and
substance abuse issues with which these youngsters are disproportionately
afflicted and which often helped land them in trouble in the first place. It is a mistake to assume that all children
held in juvenile facilities represent “hard cases” beyond redemption. Indeed, a
new study, by the Southern Education Foundation, a nonprofit group based in
Atlanta, shows that nearly two-thirds of the young people who were confined in
2010 were confined for nonviolent offenses.
Moreover,
disproportionate numbers of these young people have special needs. Federal data from 2010 show that 30 percent
had learning disabilities, 45 percent had problems paying attention, and 30
percent had experienced physical or sexual abuse. It should come as no surprise that most of
the young people entering juvenile residential institutions are behind in
reading and math. These children do not
get the attention in school that they need to succeed and get even less of it
in juvenile justice facilities. A
federal study showed that in 2009, fewer than half of students in state
juvenile justice programs earned even one course credit and that fewer than one
in 10 earned a high school diploma or a G.E.D.
This makes it unlikely that most of them will succeed at school once
they are released and more likely that they will get in trouble again. (NY Times 2014 [5]).
For children
with parole-eligible sentences, unique release and re-entry challenges too
often create insurmountable obstacles to parole and successful re-entry. Young people who have been in prison since
they were adolescents need help learning basic life skills. (Equal Justice Iniative 2014 [1]).
References:
1. Equal
Justice Initiative Article, “Children in Adult Prisons” 2014, retrieved on
04/27/14,
2. Einstein Law Article, “Juvenile Crime” 2008, retrieved on
4/28/14,
3. Statistic
Brain, “Juvenile Crime Statistics”, retrieved on 4/28/14,
4. Broemmel,
Mike, Article, “Problems with Juvenile Justice”, 2009, retrieved on 4/27/14,
5. New
York Times, Article, “The Next Juvenile Justice Reform’, dated April 20, 2014,
