WITHER CHILDHOOD? CRIME, PUNISHMENT AND JUVENILES

The latest records of Crime Records Bureau present a dreadful picture of the future of our country. Crime is soaring high but the most alarming fact is that juvenile crimes are also following the same upward trend. In the past one decade spanning 1998 to 2008, juvenile crimes have increased two and a half fold as also their proportion to the total number of crimes has doubled.
In 1998 the total number of juvenile crimes stood at 9352 whereas in 2008 it increased to 24,535. In proportion to the total crimes committed, juvenile crimes stood at .5 in 1998 which increased to 1.2 % in 2008.  As compared to 2007 in 2008, juvenile crimes increased by 7.3% i.e. just in a year. And these are only police recorded ones; what is clear to all of us is that nearly half the crimes do not reach police stations or if they do, they go unrecorded. Looking at these figures against this background presents a picture where childhood is constantly drifting into the lap of criminal activities.
Not just this, according to the Lucknow Juvenile Justice Board, sex related crimes among children are on the fastest track of growth. A paradigmatic shift is visible in the constitution of crimes. Earlier most of the crimes committed by children belonged to the category of theft and petty snatching etc. committed by those belonging to the lowest down the social ladder but the new suggests a strong inclination towards such heinous crimes as murder and rape and committed now by children belonging to the affluent section of the society. For the year 2009 the board has recorded 346 cases of which 35 are rape related and 20 to murder.
Children are the future of any society, of ours too. The constant drifting of children towards crime is both the result of as indicative of, the declining social values and breaking of the institution of family. Children are drifting towards crime as they are drifting away from the familial structure. The institution of combined family has become a thing of the past and in the new concept of nuclear family parents have no time to pay attention to their children. In their quest for material success parents lose track of their children as the children lose track of the right path.
The role of media too cannot be ignored in this process of criminalization of impressionable and gullible minds. The media either digital or print gives more coverage to crime than other things and sometimes presents criminal as heroes and this glorification suggests the children to turn to crime as a fad. For the purpose, Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 has been enacted but the provisions of this Act are not followed. As per law every police station should mandatorily have a separate branch and officers to deal with juvenile criminals but either they are not in place yet or they are diverted to other jobs due to excess work pressure on the stations. Correction Centres for children are more of a harrowing ordeal than helpful facilities. Such is the environ and constitution of these centres that either those who come to it become hardened criminals for ever or due to the stigma attached to such facilities the society does not accept the children out of it in the mainstream.
Children are treading a dangerous path in this world of today. They must be preserved if our nation wants to preserve its own future. Speedy and far reaching amendments are needed in the Juvenile Justice Act so as to give it more teeth and efficacy otherwise a whole generation will be lost to us and we would stand responsible for this human tragedy.

Advocates for Abandoned Adolescents - Our Mission is to do better!

Who is watching out for the children?

Who is watching out for the children?

The premise of the juvenile justice system
has crumbled. And what it comes down to is whether
we believe the very nature of youth
is more than just a chronological fact

Essay by Alex Kotlowitz
Illustrations by Sigrid Wonsil

Last fall, I sat in on a murder trial in Cook County's Juvenile Court. The defendant -- I'll call him Terry -- was 16 years old; he had been 14 at the time of the crime.

Terry sat between his public defenders, an oversized double-breasted blue sportcoat hanging loosely from his lanky frame. He was a handsome kid, his hair closely cropped, his eyebrows dark and full, his eyes large and attentive.

Allegedly, Terry had approached two rival gang members in an alleyway in the Chicago suburb of Cicero, shooting and killing one of them, a 16-year-old boy. The prosecution's case centered on a confession Terry had given police. There was no physical evidence, and eyewitnesses had been unable to pick him out of a line-up.

It was easy, sitting in that courtroom, listening to the testimony, to lose sight of the fact that the defendant was a child. He had been dealt with as if he had the sense and reasoning capacities of an adult.

The Cicero police had, during their investigation, put Terry into a locked jail cell after telling him, "Let me know when you're ready to talk." On another occasion, they forced him to spend the night at the station, sleeping on a mattress in the roll call room.

No officer contacted Terry's grandfather, or DCFS, his legal guardian, to let them know they had custody of the boy. No one suggested he contact a lawyer.

Terry, for all his street savvy, had just graduated from eighth grade. In the presence of experienced detectives, who had handcuffed him, he was undoubtedly intimidated. Indeed, Terry told three stories or "confessions," each of which differed from the last. In his initial statement, he said it was an older gang member who had killed the rival.

Over the three days of examination and cross-examination, it became apparent that the case against Terry mimicked in every manner -- from his arrest to the trial -- the treatment of adults. In fact, I had been drawn to the case because it was the first juvenile trial in Illinois in recent memory to be heard by a jury. That had been requested by the defense. Ordinarily, a judge hears cases in juvenile court.

Some believe this is needed. If a child is being tried for a serious crime, he should receive all of the legal protections accorded grown-ups, including, for example, jury trials. Conversely, others believe that if a child is accused of an adultlike crime, he should face adultlike treatment.

An urban problem -In 1997, eight of the more than 3,000 counties in the United States accounted for 26 percent of identified juvenile homicide offenders. -Cities included in those counties were Chicago, Baltimore, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia. -More than eight out of 10 counties across the nation reported no murders by juveniles. Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

There are two forces at work here, and they feed off one another. The public wants a no-nonsense approach to juvenile offenders; it wants to send them to prison for longer periods. With so much more at stake, children's advocates rightfully use every legal means at their disposal to defend their clients. And so the juvenile justice system becomes more punitive and more adversarial, a miniature of its adult counterpart. The line between childhood and adulthood becomes blurred, and the special protections afforded children slowly wear away. Illinois Issues May 2000 | 18

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In short, the juvenile court is pulling further and further away from its founders' intent.

As a matter of history, Chicago is the birthplace of the juvenile court. It was founded in 1899 by Jane Addams and her Hull House colleagues on the premise that childhood should be treated as a separate and distinct province from adulthood, that with children who had gone astray there was, because of their malleability, still hope. At the turn of the century, this was the revolutionary concept of activists who also pushed such child-centered reforms as compulsory school attendance and child labor laws.

The juvenile court was built on the belief that because children differed from adults developmentally, they were more susceptible to influence and psychological damage. Because children were still growing emotionally and physically, adults had a shot at steering them toward a moral life. The process was to be rehabilitative not punitive, and in that spirit the court viewed itself "as a kind and just parent" to wayward youth. In hearing cases, judges were to consider not only the offense, but also the history and background of the youth involved.

Julian Mack, an early jurist, wrote that the juvenile court's goal was "not so much to punish as to reform, not to degrade but to uplift, not to crush but to develop, not to make him a criminal but a worthy citizen." Arguably, the juvenile court is among the most critical of our public institutions. It is here, after all, that we can, as Mack suggests, provide moral ballast for children who have lost their footing.

But the premise of the juvenile justice system -- that the court should have some elasticity in dealing with children -- has crumbled. The erosion began with a challenge not from law-and-order types, but from social liberals.

In 1967, 15-year-old Gerald Gault of Arizona was sentenced to six years in prison for making an obscene phone call. He was not represented by an attorney. It wasn't unusual then for juvenile cases to be heard without the benefit of counsel. Gault appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that children charged with delinquency were entitled to legal counsel, especially if they're at risk of losing their liberty.

Certainly, that made sense. Children, after all, should be entitled to the same rights as adults. But it conflicted with Addams' original idea. The juvenile court proceedings became more adversarial, and, as in the adult courts, legal gamesmanship ruled. And so the juvenile court began walking a shaky tightrope, trying to balance a child's right to due process and the ability of the court to show some flexibility in dealing with children who need intervention in their troubled lives.

Child offenders, adult crimes -By 1998, all states had passed legislation making it easier to try children as adults. -Fourteen states have established a threshold age at which juveniles can be tried as adults. -In some instances in Illinois, judges can choose to send children as young as 13 into the adult court system. -In Oklahoma, children as young as 7 can be tried as adults. That is the lowest age of responsibility in any state. Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

The Gault decision by itself might not have changed things dramatically had there not been a surge in juvenile crime in the 1980s and 1990s, and a subsequent public outcry for more severe sanctions.

Chicago, for reasons that probably have more to do with happenstance than anything else, became the epicenter of childhood horrors, the scene of an appalling sequence of brutal crimes by children. Two of them, only a few Illinois Issues May 2000 | 19

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months apart, significantly shifted the juvenile justice terrain. In the summer of 1994, 11-year-old Robert "Yummy" Sandifer shot and killed a 14-year-old girl before he himself was gunned down by two teenage boys. That October, two boys, 10 and 11, dangled 5-year-old Eric Morse from a 14th floor window and dropped him to his death because he refused to steal candy for them.

Both crimes came on the heels of a seven-year period in which homicides committed by children had doubled. The public began to view children who had gone astray in a different light, as perpetrators, even as "superpredators," a term coined by former Princeton University professor John J. Dilulio Jr.

Race, of course, entered the equation. Most of the high-profile violent crimes committed by children, until recently, occurred in impoverished urban neighborhoods, in large part a consequence of the burgeoning drug trade. Many began to view these children, who were poor and black or Hispanic, through an otherworldly prism, as if they lived by some foreign moral code.

The response was perhaps a predictable one. Lock 'em up. For longer times. And in doing so, send a message to other would-be ruffians. Indeed, meting out punishment became paramount. And Illinois led the way.

In 1982, the state introduced one of the nation's first automatic transfer laws, which transferred children accused of murder, rape and certain other violent offenses into criminal court, where they could receive stiffer sentences. In some instances, judges can now choose to send children as young as 13 into adult court. If sentenced in juvenile court, a child cannot be detained past his 21st birthday.

An emboldened Illinois legislature passed subsequent legislation that automatically transferred teens for such nonviolent offenses as possessing drugs within 1,000 feet of a school or public housing. This meant that a 15-year-old first-time offender could be sent to prison for 30 years for the most serious drug charges. (Given that 90 percent of the state's public housing population are minorities, this law, intentionally or not, is specifically aimed at black or Hispanic children.)

The 1998 Juvenile Justice Reform Act, which on one level tries to engage the community in helping to punish and mentor child offenders, also made it easier to send children to prison for longer stretches.

As a result, the Illinois Department of Corrections' juvenile facilities are at 147.5 percent capacity. At one detention center, children sleep on cots in the recreation room.

Other states followed suit. By 1998, every other state had made it easier to transfer juvenile offenders into adult court. And after Eric Morse's death, Illinois legislators, in a frenzy to prepare for the coming wave of "superpredators," ordered a prison built to house offenders 10 to 12 years old. Yet nationally the juvenile crime rate has fallen by 30 percent since 1994. And there was never a need in Illinois for the facility intended to house that category of young offenders.

For more information The Changing Borders of Juvenile Justice: Transfer of Adolescents to the Criminal Court Edited by Jeffrey Fagan and Franklin E. Zimring University of Chicago Press, 2000 An analysis of trends in juvenile justice from a sociolegal perspective. The editors note that while juvenile crime rates are declining, the number of juveniles being tried as adults has increased throughout the nation. The book examines the origins of juvenile law and the causes behind this shift in jurisdiction. The authors also discuss the psychological and developmental ramifications of reforms. Youth on Trial A Developmental Perspective on Juvenile Justice Edited by Thomas Grisso and Robert G. Schwartz University of Chicago Press, 2000 These essays by experts in developmental psychology and law call into question American juvenile justice policy. As a whole, the collection assumes that "an enlightened juvenile justice system cannot ignore the psychological realities of adolescence." This is a call to "reintroduce sound, humane public policy into our justice system." The Editors

Something is not right. It's not only the traditional liberals who believe this. Professors at George Mason University recently asked a collection of Illinois police chiefs, sheriffs and state's attorneys what they believe is the most effective strategy for reducing youth crime. Seventy-two percent said the priority should be to provide more after-school programs and educational child-care programs. Thirteen percent said hire more police officers. Only 12 percent said prosecute juveniles as adults.

When you walk into Cook County's Juvenile Court Building, an eight-story, steel and glass structure, the first thing you encounter is the raised, circular information center. It's where children and their parents go to ask directions or to find out their courtroom assignment. It couldn't be more child-unfriendly. The deputy Illinois Issues May 2000 |20

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Youth violent crimes
The rate at which juveniles committed violent crimes remained constant from 1973 until 1989. After reaching its highest point in 1993, the rate declined to its lowest levels since the mid-'80s.



Source: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
Illinois Issues May 2000 |21

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sheriffs who staff the booth sit so high off the ground that even adults must look skyward to get directions. It's perhaps an apt metaphor for how the juvenile justice system views its relationship to the children who pass through its maze: detached and inattentive to their needs. We want to pretend they're adults, but they're not. Not at all.

One longtime child advocate once told me she believed people had lost confidence in the juvenile justice system -- as well as confidence in the ability of children to "grow up and grow out of things."

People tired of what they thought was coddling of young hoodlums. People grew weary, and they consequently made leaps in assumptions about children.

Because of their actions, children who commit crimes seem older than they actually are, and so the inclination is to imbue them with adultlike qualities, and do to them as is done to adults.

That became most apparent in the case of the two Chicago boys, ages 7 and 8, who two summers ago were accused of killing Ryan Harris, an 11-year-old girl. The police interviewed them without their parents or lawyers present -- and attributed to them adultlike cunning; the police suggested the boys were being evasive, if not out-and-out lying to cover up their alleged role in the murder. In court, the proceedings mirrored the legal maneuvering and theatrics usually reserved for criminal court. And the press didn't stop to question whether such young boys were capable of the brutality and sexual activity of which they'd been accused. In the end, DNA evidence pointed to a 29-year-old man accused of similar crimes. The boys were exonerated, and as a direct result of the case, lawmakers this spring approved legislation requiring that children under the age of 13 suspected of murder or sexual assault have an attorney present during questioning by police. But the quickness and ease with which these two boys came to be viewed as simply a small-scale version of grown-ups astonished even the most jaded observers.

This case gave reason for pause. Who, some asked afterwards, is watching out for the children?

The story of Terry, the boy whose trial I sat in on, is an instructive one. When he was 7, his father plunged into a coma after a car accident. One afternoon, his mother dropped Terry and his brother off at a friend's house, giving them $50. She told them she was going to look for an apartment to rent. She never returned. He lived with his grandparents for a while, then his aunt, but Terry, understandably angry, was too much for them to handle. He then became a ward of the state and was placed at a residential center from which he ran away frequently. His DCFS caseworker at the time of his arrest had never met him. Terry was of the streets, and at the trial the state's attorney referred to him as "a streetwise gang member" and "a punk." The 12-person jury acquitted Terry.

Was justice -- in its broadest sense -- served? If the juvenile court is to be as its founders intended, "a kind and just parent," should Terry's acquittal be the end of the state's involvement in his life? He's a boy who clearly needs adult direction, needs mentoring, needs nurturing to become, in the words of Judge Mack, "a worthy citizen."

The juvenile courts must certainly, when appropriate, punish -- and at times harshly, especially those children who maim or kill -- but if that's its only purpose, there's no need for a system separate from the adult criminal courts. Any good parent knows punishment for children is meaningless without accompanying moral guidance, without a sense of faith that they can do better.

Illinois law 1899: The first juvenile court in history is created in Chicago. All decisions about whether to send children into the adult court system are left up to the discretion of prosecutors and judges. 1966: U.S. Supreme Court decision gives sole discretion to transfer children to adult court to judges. 1982: For the first time, a requirement is established for some juveniles to be tried in the adult system. It includes defendants who were 15 or 16 and charged with the most serious violent offenses, such as first-degree murder and and aggravated criminal sexual assault. (Subsequent additional offenses include possession of weapons or drugs near a school or public housing.) 1995: Teens are charged in adult court unless they can convince the court they will make use of rehabilitation features of juvenile court. 1998: Juvenile Justice Reform Act: The determination on whether juveniles as young as 13 are transferred to adult court system is based chiefly on age and crime. It allows for judges to impose both a juvenile and adult sentence. An adult sentence kicks in only if the offender fails to complete the requirements of the juvenile sentence or faces subsequent charges. Source: Northwestern University Legal Clinic's Children and Family Justice Center

The juvenile court's reach should be expanded, not shrunk, so that it becomes a place of healing as well as a place of accountability. What's more, is it enough to simply decide guilt and innocence? Or, if we truly care about our children, can we, should we, do more? What it comes down to in the end is whether we Illinois Issues May 2000 | 22

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believe there's a need for a justice system that operates under different assumptions than its adult counterpart, whether we believe that the very nature of youth is more than just a chronological fact. A lex Kotlowitz is the author of The Other Side of the River: A Story of Two Towns, a Death and America's Dilemma, his recently published hook about race in America. In 1991, Kotlowitz, who lives outside Chicago, also wrote the best-selling There Are No Children Here: The Story of Two Boys Growing Up in the Other America, an examination of the lives of children in Chicago's public housing. It was selected by the New York Public Library as one of the 150 most important books of the century. In 1993, it was adapted as an ABC Movie of the Week starring Oprah Winfrey.
This essay was made possible through generous donations from our readers.

The trends counter the assumptions Recent youth crime trends have not lived up to expectations. The result: policy that appears to have missed its mark. In anticipation of a growing youth population and a rising tide of juvenile violence, policy-makers took a hard stance. In 1982, Illinois became one of the first states to require children to be tried through the adult court system. The idea spread throughout the nation. By 1998, all states had passed laws to make it easier to try children as adults. In Oklahoma, children as young as 7 can face trial in adult courts. In Illinois, children charged with violent crimes can be tried as adults as young as 13. Nevertheless, the juvenile crime rate has been on the decline since 1993. In 1997, the national juvenile rate reached its lowest level since 1986. Nor is the youngest segment of the population growing faster than others. In fact, the population of the youngest Americans is expected to decline. Illinois' juvenile population in 2015 is expected to have declined by as much as 15 percent from its 1995 level. And while youngsters do commit violent crimes, the problem tends to be concentrated by region. In 1997, one of every four murders committed by a juvenile occurred in eight of the nation's 3,000-plus counties. Those counties included the cities of Chicago, Baltimore, Dallas, Detroit, Houston, Los Angeles, New York and Philadelphia. The Editors

Illinois Issues May 2000 | 23 Advocates for Abandoned Adolescents - Our Mission is to do better!

Vengeance at its most shameful

Jordan Brown, a resident of western Pennsylvania, is charged with shooting Kenzie Marie Houk and her unborn child. Police say that Brown shot her once at point blank range. Today, a  judge ruled [thanks to Doc Berman via Gamso] that the prosecution against Brown can remain in his court and denied the defense’s motion for transfer of venue.
Jordan Brown is 12. At the time of the death of Houk, he was 11.
I repeat. Jordan Brown is 12. And a judge ruled that he can be tried as an adult. A state in these United States is about to prosecute an eleven year old as an adult murderer.
Here is a file picture of him, taken from CNN. Look at it. This cherubic 12 year old now faces life in prison. The rest of the post after the photo and the jump.

That this decision – to deny a transfer to juvenile court – is an abomination is an understatement. This decision makes Brown the youngest child charged as an adult anywhere in America.
The reasoning for doing so is even more shameful.

Since being charged with the murder of his father’s fiance, Jordan Brown, through his defense attorneys, has asserted his innocence.
Largely because of those denials, a Lawrence County judge ruled Monday that Brown, now 12 years old, will stand trial as an adult.
In his 17-page decision, [Judge Dominick] Motto ruled that the defense failed to meet its burden, in large part because Brown’s continued denials in the crime show an unwillingness to take responsibility for his actions, a necessary factor in rehabilitation.
Motto said that point was established by both forensic psychologists in the case — John O’Brien, who testified for the prosecution, and Kirk Heilbrun, the defense’s expert — who testified in de-certification hearings Jan. 29 and March 12

That the burden is on the defense to show that the child is capable of rehabilitation and is not a danger to society is absurd. The state of the law belies a fundamental misunderstanding about the nature and manner of the child psychology and the development of the human mind.
But again, this is an 11-12 year old we’re talking about. The law in Pennsylvania is that anyone above the age of 10 (10!!!) can be tried as an adult. In Connecticut, the threshold is 14.
To compound the travesty that is the untenably low age threshold and the burden on the defense to show something that should be presumed, the Judge then relies on the lack of “acceptance of responsibility” of an 11-12 year old to justify his decision to treat him like a full-grown adult. This is  judicial cowardice of the worst kind.
To say that in order to be treated as a juvenile, a child must display the kind of emotional maturity that most adults in the system are unable to display well into their 40s and then use the lack of that adult development to justify treating the child as an adult is mind-bogglingly contradictory and stupid.
The prosecutor gets no points, either. He, seemingly honestly, states:

“This is something that you wouldn’t even think of in your worst nightmare, that you’d have to charge an 11-year-old with homicide,” [Lawrence County District Attorney John] Bongivengo told a local CNN affiliate in Pittsburgh when Houk was killed in February 2009. “It’s heinous, the whole situation.”

This statement rings hollow. If this is your worst nightmare, John Bongivengo, then do something about it. If the decision is truly with the court to decide whether to transfer the case back to juvenile court, then side with the defense in urging the judge to do so. Don’t file a brief and argue that your relatively inexperienced “expert” correctly concluded that there is “very limited” capacity for juvenile treatment.
I understand the reasons for permitting juveniles to be tried as adults in the most serious of crimes. You do adult things, you face adult consequences. But to bring an 11-year old under aegis of such legal chicanery is appalling.
In most murder prosecutions – and certainly in death penalty prosecutions – vengeance is a driving factor. Punishment and revenge rule the day. But this is not the place for it and certainly an 11-year old is not a worthy object of the collective wrath of the adult criminal justice system.
It is a tragedy that Houk died and her unborn child along with it. But allowing this prosecution to continue does nothing but add to the utter destruction these people’s lives have already experienced. There is no need for vengeance here, but rather for the stern understanding displayed by a disappointed parent toward an unknowing, developmentally undeveloped adolescent.
When the law provides for him to be punished as juvenile for the next 10-11 years of his life, seeking to have as 12 year old incarcerated for the remainder of his natural life smells of nothing but shameful bloodlust.
As an 11-year old, Jordan Brown would still be in middle school. Maybe he just started noticing girls. Maybe he still wants to be a policeman or firefighter. He probably hasn’t stopped growing. And here we are, the best justice system in the world, condemning him to the possibility of spending the rest of his life in jail.
If this isn’t cruel and unusual, I don’t know what is.
Advocates for Abandoned Adolescents - Our Mission is to do better!

Expanding Graham

In the other criminal justice opinion issued by SCOTUS today, a 6-3 court held in  Graham v. Florida that life without parole for juveniles convicted of non-homicide crimes violates the Constitution’s ban on Cruel and Unusual Punishments.  The decision is a beautiful thing, for sure. Combined with Roper, the Supreme Court has now categorically banned the death penalty for juveniles and LWOP for those juveniles convicted of non-homicide crimes.
This, however, has left a gap in the juvenile jurisprudence, one that is sure to be addressed sooner rather than later. What of LWOP for those juveniles who have committed some sort of homicide?
I believe the issue is ripe for pickin’ and there may be enough votes on the Court to hold that such a sentence would violate the Eighth Amendment.
Consider the following quotes. First, the Court sets up the framework under which this claim is to be analyzed:

The present case involves an issue the Court has not considered previously: a categorical challenge to a term-of-years sentence. The approach in cases such as Harmelin and Ewing is suited for considering a gross proportionality challenge to a particular defendant’s sentence, but here a sentencing practice itself is in question. This case implicates a particular type of sentence as it applies to an entire class of offenders who have committed a range of crimes. As a result, a threshold comparison between the severity of the penalty and the gravity of the crime does not advance the analysis. Here, in addressing the question presented, the appropriate analysis is the one used in cases that involved the categorical approach, specifically Atkins, Roper, and Kennedy.

Shunning the case-by-case approach in favor of the “bright line” approach is a trend on the Court and certainly works in favor of those arguing that LWOP for all juveniles is cruel and unusual.

In accordance with the constitutional design, “the task of interpreting the Eighth Amendment remains our responsibility.” Roper, 543 U. S., at 575. The judicial exercise of independent judgment requires consideration of the culpability of the offenders at issue in light of their crimes and characteristics, along with the severity of the punishment in question. Id., at 568; Kennedy, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 27–28); cf. Solem, 463 U. S., at 292. In this inquiry the Court also considers whether the challenged sentencing practice serves legitimate penological goals. Kennedy, supra, at ___ (slip op., at 30–36); Roper, supra, at 571–572; Atkins, supra, at 318–320.

The Court then goes through all the research and data relied on in Roper on the mental development of juveniles to support its holding that LWOP serves no penological purpose for this category of defendants:

because juveniles have lessened culpability they are less deserving of the most severe punishments. 543 U. S., at 569. As compared to adults, juveniles have a “‘lack of maturity and an underdeveloped sense of responsibility’”; they “are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures,including peer pressure”; and their characters are “not as well formed.” Id., at 569–570. These salient characteristics mean that “[i]t is difficult even for expert psychologists to differentiate between the juvenile offender whose crime reflects unfortunate yet transient immaturity, and the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption.” Id., at 573. Accordingly, “juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst of-fenders.” Id., at 569. A juvenile is not absolved of responsibility for his actions, but his transgression “is not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult.” Thompson, supra, at 835 (plurality opinion).

Then the court ties together two threads: 1) that offenders who do not kill are categorically less deserving of the most serious punishments and 2) that LWOP is the second most serious punishment permissible. Thus, it concludes, juveniles who do not kill and are sentenced to LWOP have a “twice diminished moral culpability”.
The Court recognizes the fact that for juveniles – who have a diminished moral culpability – a sentence of LWOP is a death sentence and is unfair as it categorically denies them the opportunity to be rehabilitated and to atone for their mistakes and to prove that they are worthy of being given an opportunity to reintegrate into and contribute to society:

A sentence of life imprisonment without parole, how-ever, cannot be justified by the goal of rehabilitation. The penalty forswears altogether the rehabilitative ideal. By denying the defendant the right to reenter the community,the State makes an irrevocable judgment about that per-son’s value and place in society. This judgment is not appropriate in light of a juvenile non homicide offender’s capacity for change and limited moral culpability.

Which, if any, of the foregoing quotes excerpting the Court’s reasoning would be inapplicable to juveniles who have committed homicides? Certainly, I don’t disagree that it would be a tougher sell, but given the various rehabilitative and psychological factors underpinning the basis for the Court’s decision, one can make a strong legitimate argument that LWOP for all juveniles violates the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishments [and I'm not the only one to notice this potential]. The converse of that argument – that juveniles who kill are just incorrigible enough and irredeemable enough to warrant spending the rest of their natural lives in jail despite their particular characteristics and the development of their brains – doesn’t hold water, especially when viewed in light of the quote above.
Excited as I am by this historic decision, the potential for application of Graham to all juveniles has me doubly excited. Are you?
A Connecticut aside: the issue of whether LWOP for juveniles who commit a capital felony is cruel and unusual was considered and rejected by the Connecticut Supreme Court in post-Roper, pre-Graham 2008:
The defendant contends that the sociological and physiological evidence on which Roper relied, which demonstrates that persons under the age of eighteen differ from adults in terms of their culpability and moral responsibility,  necessarily dictates a similar result because a life sentence without the possibility of release excludes the possibility of rehabilitation, the main objective for juvenile offenders. We disagree.
Maybe then, but perhaps no longer? Quoth Justice Stevens:

Society changes. Knowledge accumulates. We learn, sometimes, from our mistakes. Punishments that did not seem cruel and unusual at one time may, in the light of reason and experience, be found cruel and unusual at a later time; unless we are to abandon the moral commitment embodied in the Eighth Amendment, proportionality review must never become effectively obsolete…Standards of decency have evolved since 1980. They will never stop doing so.

Advocates for Abandoned Adolescents - Our Mission is to do better!

Supreme Court: No Life Sentences for Juveniles Who Haven't Killed

 The Supreme Court ruled in a 6-3 vote that children may not be given a life sentence if they haven't killed anyone. The court's ruling says the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, requires that juveniles serving life sentences must at least be considered for release. In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote, "The state has denied [Terrance Graham] any chance to later demonstrate that he is fit to rejoin society based solely on a nonhomicide crime that he committed while he was a child in the eyes of the law…This the Eighth Amendment does not permit." In its opinion, the court also discussed the relevance of international law and practice, noting the "global consensus" against life sentences for juveniles who haven't committed murder, and that "the United States stands alone in a world that has turned its face against life without parole for juvenile nonhomicide offenders."
Every year in the U.S., children as young as 13 are sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison without any opportunity for release. Today, more than 2,500 juvenile offenders are sentenced to life without parole. Over 100 of those prisoners have been sentenced to life for a crime less serious than killing. Shockingly, there is no other country in the world that sentences juveniles to life without parole.
The Supreme Court's historic decision recognizes that it is cruel to pass a final judgment on adolescents, who have an enormous capacity for change and rehabilitation compared to adults. We commend the court's decision, and are hopeful that today's ruling will start a national conversation about how we sentence young people, most of whom have no opportunity to escape the negative environments that contribute to crime.
Learn more about the effort to prohibit juvenile life sentences without parole on the ACLU's site and over at The Campaign for Fair Sentencing of Youth.
Advocates for Abandoned Adolescents - Our Mission is to do better!

Defenseless children Young defendants often lack legal counsel

Waiting for justice: A male inmate sits in a holding cell in the juvenile detention center's Receiving Screening Release Unit. Juveniles can't be detained for more than 24 hours for offenses that aren't considered crimes if committed by an adult. / Kelly Wilkinson / 2005 Star file photo

The case of a child known as J is a sobering reminder of the problems juveniles face in getting a fair hearing in Marion County's courts.

J was originally convicted on charges of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest after a "fight'' at Northwest High School. (The Star generally does not identify juvenile defendants.) The state Court of Appeals, in a unanimous decision, overturned the conviction in March.

The only witness against the teen was Indianapolis Public Schools Police Officer Antonio Hairston, who admitted under cross-examination that he couldn't tell whether the 16-year-old girl was actually involved in the fight because the hallway where it occurred was crowded. Other witnesses said J, a 21st Century Scholar who also has earned a scholarship from Purdue University, and a boy were involved in horseplay but were not fighting.

No proof beyond a reasonable doubt, no conviction. Right? Not in the juvenile justice system.

Then-Magistrate Julie Cartmel found J guilty of disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, sentencing her to probation.

"There was scant evidence in the record that J's actions were hostile," wrote Appeals Court Judge Patrick Sullivan in tossing out the conviction. "[Cartmel] appeared to find that the mere act of hitting constitutes 'fighting' per se."

Sadly, J isn't alone. Juveniles in Marion County and the rest of Indiana routinely have their rights to legal representation waived before consulting with a public defender or private lawyer. Parents are allowed to waive their children's rights to a lawyer -- even when they are the ones pressing charges.

Yet, even with an attorney, a juvenile isn't guaranteed a fair hearing.

"In the juvenile system, you are at the mercy of the prosecutor and the judge," says Larry Landis, executive director of the Indiana Public Defender Council. "You don't have any checks and balances."

Judge Marilyn Moores, who took over supervision of Marion County's juvenile court last year, is blunt in her assessment of past practices, both by the court and attorneys there. "One of the things they did not do here was practice law," she says.

A Star Editorial Board review of appellate court rulings reveals a troubling pattern of magistrates in Marion County's juvenile court not following the intent of the law:

In May, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals found that Magistrate Scott Stowers "abused (his) discretion" in tacking on informal home detention to a plea agreement involving a juvenile named Santana. Judges have little latitude in changing plea agreements once they are accepted.

In a 2004 ruling, appellate court judges unanimously found that Magistrate Geoffrey Gaither based his decision to revoke the probation of a child named Cory on hearsay. Although probation hearings require a lower standard of evidence than trials, the prosecution "produced no evidence" of a drug test that Cory allegedly failed, how long the drug was in his system or prior drug screenings before he was placed on probation. Results of the drug screenings couldn't be produced because none were taken.

Another Appeals Court panel ruled unanimously in 2004 that Magistrate Beth Jansen violated state law by holding a juvenile known as William in the Marion County Detention Center for three months before initially hearing allegations that he violated his truancy probation. Under state law, juveniles can't be detained for more than 24 hours for offenses that aren't considered crimes if committed by an adult.

A three-judge panel in 2003 found that the Marion County Juvenile Court "abused its discretion" in the case of Ebonie, a Pike High School student who had served time at the state Girls School. The court's policy at the time was to automatically send juveniles back to the state prison system for any future offense.

Ebonie was returned to prison for disorderly conduct despite overwhelming evidence she had turned her life around. The appeals court ruled that Marion County's one-size-fits-all rule "conflicted with the rehabilitative goals of the juvenile justice system."

At initial hearings, children and their parents frequently find themselves making important legal decisions without the help of an attorney. The National Juvenile Defender Center and the Indiana Juvenile Task Force have found that 40 percent of juvenile cases in Indiana are handled without a defense attorney involved.

The results can be disastrous for children and teens, who can be imprisoned by the state until age 18 or in some cases 21. Judges, legal analysts argue, are apt to impose harsher sentences without defense attorneys arguing for alternatives.

The inadequacy of legal counsel came to a head in Marion County in 2004 when Chief Public Defender David Cook temporarily refused to take on new juvenile cases. Cook argued that it was unethical for him to continue accepting cases given his department's lack of resources. His office has since added 12 full-time public defenders.

Private attorneys remain something of a rarity in juvenile court. Few have expertise in juvenile law and most are unwilling to endure the long waits or the arbitrary policies associated with Marion County's court.

"There's no question, by any definition, that defense lawyers were viewed as second-class citizens in that process," says attorney Robert Hammerle, who occasionally represents juveniles. "So many of my colleagues refused to go."

The Marion County Superior Court is responsible for operation of the juvenile system. But for two decades, Judge James Payne was given wide latitude to run the juvenile court, the detention center and the juvenile probation agency as he saw fit. Payne even reviewed and signed off on all rulings by magistrates under his supervision.

"I'm not saying Judge Payne said 'Keep your nose out of my business.' He wasn't like that," says Presiding Judge Cale Bradford. "But he had always run -- he had always run -- juvenile court and there really hadn't been a clamoring from the Downtown courts or local government to have more involvement out in juvenile."

Now, serious problems in the system are beginning to emerge. Prosecutors have charged 10 detention center employees, including the director, with either sexually abusing teen inmates or helping to cover it up. The abuse is believed to have occurred over at least a six-year span. One national organization recently declared the center unsafe for inmates and staff.

In addition, Marion County has for years operated a juvenile system in which children are frequently sent to prison based on little evidence and without legal representation.

A system supposedly defined by justice has too often failed to deliver.

____________________

Why you should care

The confidential nature of juvenile cases means there are few checks and balances to assure that children get a fair hearing in court. Marion County has a long history of funneling many juveniles into the state corrections system. Local taxpayers now owe $60 million to the state to pay for juvenile offenders.

Advocates for Abandoned Adolescents - Our Mission is to do better!

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

DEFINATION OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

Juvenile delinquency refers to criminal acts performed by Juveniles. Juvenile delinquents are simply under-age criminals that are, non-adult criminals, or juveniles who engage in offences that constitute crimes when committed by adults, and are between the age of seven and 16 or 18 years, as prescribed by the law of land. Especially, Juvenile is apply to the youths who are involved in ‘status offences’ such as truancy, vagrancy, immorality and un-governability also fall within the definition of juvenile delinquency. Juvenile delinquents have been classified by different scholars on different basis.

Most Legal systems prescribe specific procedure for dealing with Juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers. There are a multitude of different theories on the causes of crime, most if not all of which can be applied to the causes of youth crime. Youth crime is an aspect of crime which receives great attention from the news media and politicians. Crime committed by young people has risen since the mid-twentieth century, as have most types of crime. The level and types of youth crime can be used by commentators as an indicator of the general state of morality and law and order in a country.

Some scholars have been classified Juvenile delinquents as quite different perceptive. Scholar Hrish has been classified them in six group on the basis of the kinds of offences committed: (1) Incorrigibility (keeping late hours, disobedience…), (2) truancy (staying away from school), (3), larceny (ranging from petty theft to armed robbery), (4) destruction of property (including both public and private property), (5) violence (against individual or community by using weapons), and (6) sex offences ( ranging from homosexuality to rape).

In addition, Scholars Eaton and Polk have classified delinquents into five groups according to the type of offence. The offences are: (1) Minor violations (including disorderly conduct and minor traffic violations), (2) Major (including automobile thefts), (3) property violations, (4) addiction (including alcoholism and drug addiction), and (5) bodily harm (including homicide and rape). Further more, Scholar Trojanowicz has classified them as accidental, un-socialized, aggressive, occasional, and professional and gang organized.

Moreover, in the psychology point of view some of psychologists have classified juvenile delinquents on the basic of their individual traits or the psychological dynamics of their personality into five groups: mentally defective, psychotic, neurotic, situational and cultural.

CAUSES OF AND CONDITIONS FOR THE FORMATION OF DELINQUENT TRAJECTORIES

The intensity and severity of juvenile offences are generally determined by the social, economic and cultural conditions prevailing in a country. There is evidence of a universal increase in juvenile crime taking place concurrently with economic decline, especially in the poor districts of large cities. In many cases street children later become young offenders, having already encountered violence in their immediate social environment as either witnesses or victims of violent acts. The educational attainments of this group are rather low as a rule, basic social experience acquired in the family is too often insufficient, and the socio-economic environment is determined by poverty or unemployment. The causes of and conditions for juvenile crime are usually found at each level of the social structure, including society as a whole, social institutions, social groups and organizations, and interpersonal relations. Juveniles’ choice of delinquent careers and the consequent perpetuation of delinquency are fostered by a wide range of factors, the most important of which are described below.

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL FACTORS

Juvenile delinquency is driven by the negative consequences of social and economic development, in particular economic crises, political instability, and the weakening of major institutions (including the State, systems of public education and public assistance, and the family). Socio-economic instability is often linked to persistent unemployment and low incomes among the young, which can increase the likelihood of their involvement in criminal activity.

CULTURAL FACTORS

Delinquent behaviour often occurs in social settings in which the norms for acceptable behaviour have broken down. Under such circumstances many of the common rules that deter people from committing socially unacceptable acts may lose their relevance for some members of society. They respond to the traumatizing and destructive changes in the social reality by engaging in rebellious, deviant or even criminal activities. An example of such a setting would be the modernization of traditional societies and the accompanying changes wrought by the application of new technologies; shifts of this magnitude affect the types and organization of labour activity, social characteristics, lifestyles and living arrangements, and these changes, in turn, affect authority structures, forms of obedience, and modes of political participation— even going so far as to influence perceptions of reality.

In both developed and developing countries, consumer standards created by the media are considerably beyond the capacity of most families to achieve. Nevertheless, these ideals become a virtual reality for many young people, some of whom will go to great lengths to maintain a lifestyle they cannot afford. Because not all population groups have access to the necessary resources, including education, professional training, satisfactory employment and income, health services, and adequate housing, there are those who are unable to achieve their goals by legal means. The contradiction between idealized and socially approved goals and the sometimes limited real-life opportunities to achieve them legally creates a sense of frustration in many young people. A criminal career becomes one form of addressing this contradiction. One of the reasons for delinquent behaviour is therefore an excessive focus on proposed goals (achieving success) coupled with insufficient means to achieve them.

The likelihood of deviant acts occurring in this context depends in many respects not only on the unavailability of legal opportunities but also on the level of access to illegal opportunities. Some juveniles, cognizant of the limitations imposed by legal behaviour, come under the influence of adult criminals. Many young people retreat into the confines of their own groups and resort to drug use for psychological or emotional escape. The use of alcohol and illegal drugs by juveniles is one cause of delinquency, as they are often compelled to commit crimes (usually theft) to obtain the cash needed to support their substance use.

URBANIZATION

Geographical analysis suggests that countries with more urbanized populations have higher registered crime rates than do those with strong rural lifestyles and communities. This may be attributable to the differences in social control and social cohesion. Rural groupings rely mainly on family and community control as a means of dealing with antisocial behaviour and exhibit markedly lower crime rates. Urban industrialized societies tend to resort to formal legal and judicial measures, an impersonal approach that appears to be linked to higher crime rates. Cultural and institutional differences are such that responses to the same offence may vary widely from one country to another.

The ongoing process of urbanization in developing countries is contributing to juvenile involvement in criminal behaviour. The basic features of the urban environment foster the development of new forms of social behaviour deriving mainly from the weakening of primary social relations and control, increasing reliance on the media at the expense of informal communication, and the tendency towards anonymity. These patterns are generated by the higher population density, degree of heterogeneity, and numbers of people found in urban contexts.

FAMILY

Studies show that children who receive adequate parental supervision are less likely to engage in criminal activities. Dysfunctional family settings characterized by conflict, inadequate parental control, weak internal linkages and integration, and premature autonomy are closely associated with juvenile delinquency. Children in disadvantaged families that have few opportunities for legitimate employment and face a higher risk of social exclusion are overrepresented among offenders. The plight of ethnic minorities and migrants, including displaced persons and refugees in certain parts of the world, is especially distressing. The countries in transition are facing particular challenges in this respect, with the associated insecurity and turmoil contributing to an increase in the numbers of children and juveniles neglected by their parents and suffering abuse and violence at home.

The family as a social institution is currently undergoing substantial changes; its form is diversifying with, for example, the increase in one-parent families and nonmarital unions. The absence of fathers in many low-income families can lead boys to seek patterns of masculinity in delinquent groups of peers. These groups in many respects substitute for the family, define male roles, and contribute to the acquisition of such attributes as cruelty, strength, excitability and anxiety.

The importance of family well-being is becoming increasingly recognized. Success in school depends greatly on whether parents have the capacity to provide their children with “starting” opportunities (including the resources to buy books and manuals and pay for studies). Adolescents from low-income families often feel excluded. To raise their self-esteem and improve their status they may choose to join a juvenile delinquent group. These groups provide equal opportunities to everyone, favourably distinguishing themselves from school and family, where positions of authority are occupied by adults.

When young people are exposed to the influence of adult offenders they have the opportunity to study delinquent behaviour, and the possibility of their engaging in adult crime becomes more real. The “criminalization” of the family also has an impact on the choice of delinquent trajectories. A study carried out in prisons reveals that families involved in criminal activities tend to push their younger members towards violating the law. More than two-thirds of those interviewed had relatives who were incarcerated; for 25 per cent it was a father and for another 25 per cent a brother or sister.

MIGRATION

Because immigrants often exist in the margins of society and the economy and have little chance of success in the framework of the existing legal order, they often seek comfort in their own environment and culture. Differences in norms and values and the varying degrees of acceptability of some acts in different ethnic subcultures result in cultural conflicts, which are one of the main sources of criminal behaviour. Native urban populations tend to perceive immigrants as obvious deviants.

THE MEDIA

Television and movies have popularized the “cult of heroes”, which promotes justice through the physical elimination of enemies. Many researchers have concluded that young people who watch violence tend to behave more aggressively or violently, particularly when provoked. This is mainly characteristic of 8- to 12-year-old boys, who are more vulnerable to such influences. Media bring an individual to violence in three ways. First, movies that demonstrate violent acts excite spectators, and the aggressive energy can then be transferred to everyday life, pushing an individual to engage in physical activity on the streets. This type of influence is temporary, lasting from several hours to several days. Second, television can portray ordinary daily violence committed by parents or peers (the imposition of penalties for failing to study or for violations of certain rules or norms of conduct). It is impossible to find television shows that do not portray such patterns of violence, because viewer approval of this type of programming has ensured its perpetuation. As a result, children are continually exposed to the use of violence in different situations—and the number of violent acts on television appears to be increasing. Third, violence depicted in the media is unreal and has a surrealistic quality; wounds bleed less, and the real pain and agony resulting from violent actions are very rarely shown, so the consequences of violent behaviour often seem negligible. Over time, television causes a shift in the system of human values and indirectly leads children to view violence as a desirable and even courageous way of reestablishing justice. The American Psychological Association has reviewed the evidence and has concluded that television violence accounts for about 10 per cent of aggressive behaviour among children.

EXCLUSION

The growing gap between rich and poor has led to the emergence of “unwanted others”. The exclusion of some people is gradually increasing with the accumulation of obstacles, ruptured social ties, unemployment and identity crises. Welfare systems that have provided relief but have not eliminated the humble socio-economic position of certain groups, together with the increased dependence of low-income families on social security services, have contributed to the development of a “new poor” class in many places.

The symbolic exclusion from society of juveniles who have committed even minor offences has important implications for the development of delinquent careers. Studies show that the act of labelling may lead to the self-adoption of a delinquent image, which later results in delinquent activity.

PEER INFLUENCE

Youth policies seldom reflect an understanding of the role of the peer group as an institution of socialization. Membership in a delinquent gang, like membership in any other natural grouping, can be part of the process of becoming an adult. Through such primary associations, an individual acquires a sense of safety and security, develops a knowledge of social interaction, and can demonstrate such qualities as loyalty or leadership. In “adult” society, factors such as social status, private welfare, race and ethnicity are of great value; however, all members of adolescent groups are essentially in an equal position and have similar opportunities for advancement in the hierarchical structure. In these groups well-being depends wholly on personal qualities such as strength, will and discipline. Quite often delinquent groups can counterbalance or compensate for the imperfections of family and school. A number of studies have shown that juvenile gang members consider their group a family. For adolescents constantly facing violence, belonging to a gang can provide protection within the neighbourhood. In some areas those who are not involved in gangs continually face the threat of assault, oppression, harassment or extortion on the street or at school. As one juvenile from the Russian Federation said, “I became involved in a gang when I was in the eighth form [about 13 years old], but I joined it only when I was in the tenth [at 15 years of age]. I had a girlfriend and I feared for her, and the gang was able to provide for her safety.”

DELINQUENT IDENTITIES

In identifying the causes of criminal behaviour, it is important to determine which factors contribute to a delinquent identity and why some adolescents who adopt a delinquent image do not discard that image in the process of becoming an adult. Delinquent identity is quite complex and is, in fact, an overlay of several identities linked to delinquency itself and to a person’s ethnicity, race, class and gender. Delinquent identity is always constructed as an alternative to the conventional identity of the larger society. Violence and conflict are necessary elements in the construction of group and delinquent identities. The foundations of group identity and activity are established and strengthened through the maintenance of conflict relations with other juvenile groups and society as a whole. Violence serves the function of integrating members into a group, reinforcing their sense of identity, and thereby hastening the process of group adaptation to the local environment.

Other factors that may provide motivation for joining a gang are the possibilities of economic and social advancement. In many sociocultural contexts the delinquent way of life has been romanticized to a certain degree, and joining a gang is one of the few channels of social mobility available for disadvantaged youth. According to one opinion, urban youth gangs have a stabilizing effect on communities characterized by a lack of economic and social opportunities.

OFFENDERS AND VICTIMS

Criminal activity is strongly associated with a victim’s behaviour. A victim’s reaction can sometimes provoke an offender; however, “appropriate” behaviour may prevent a criminal act or at least minimize its impact. According to scientific literature, the likelihood of becoming a victim is related to the characteristics or qualities of a person, a social role or a social situation that provoke or facilitate criminal behaviour; personal characteristics such as individual or family status, financial prosperity, and safety, as well as logistical characteristics such as the time and place in which a confrontation occurs, can also determine the extent of victimization.

People may become accidental victims, as assault is often preceded by heated discussion. According to the classification of psychological types there are three typical adolescent victims of violence: accidental victims; people disposed to become victims; and “inborn” victims.12 Studies have shown that in the majority of cases that result in bodily harm, the offender and his victim are acquainted with one another andnmay be spouses, relatives or friends; this is true for 80 per cent of murders and 70 per cent of sexual crimes.

SOME REGIONAL ASPECTS OF DELINQUENCY

While certain aspects of juvenile delinquency are universal, others vary from one region to another. As a rule, cultural contexts are important in understanding the causes of juvenile delinquency and developing culturally appropriate measures todeal with it.

In Asian countries, juvenile crime and delinquency are largely urban phenomena. Statistically, as is true elsewhere, young people constitute the most criminally active segment of the population. The most noticeable trends in the region are the rise in the number of violent acts committed by young people, the increase in drug-related offences, and the marked growth in female juvenile delinquency. The financial crisis that hit some countries in East and South-East Asia in the late 1990s created economic stagnation and contraction, leading to large-scale youth unemployment. For millions of young people, this meant a loss of identity and the opportunity for self-actualization. The principal offences committed by young people are theft, robbery, smuggling, prostitution, the abuse of narcotic substances, and drug trafficking.

Some countries are facing great difficulty because they are located near or within the “Golden Crescent” or the “Golden Triangle”, two major narcotics-producing areas of Asia. Traffickers actively involve adolescents and youth in serving this industry, and many of them become addicted to drugs because of their low prices and easy availability. Another major problem is human trafficking.

In the industrialized countries, increased prosperity and the availability of a growing range of consumer goods have led to increased opportunities for juvenile crime, including theft, vandalism and the destruction of property. With the social changes that have occurred over the past few decades, the extended family has been replaced by the nuclear family as the primary kinship group. The informal traditional control exercised by adults (including parents, relatives and teachers) over young people has gradually declined, and adequate substitutes have not been provided. Lack or insufficiency of parental supervision is one of the strongest predictors of delinquency. The contemporary Western family structure constitutes one of the most important factors associated with the increase in juvenile delinquency in the past 50 years.

Within developed countries there are groups of impoverished and needy people suffering from relative deprivation. In recent years some countries have reduced their social services, placing the weakest strata of the population in an even more vulnerable position. Poverty has increased, and the problems of homelessness and unemployment have reached alarming dimensions. In most EU countries the rise in juvenile crime has corresponded to observed increases in poverty and unemployment rates among vulnerable groups.

CAUSE: RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY

Criminologists are fairly divided when it comes to determining the causes of juvenile crime. Those who espouse the rational choice theory believe that the individual is responsible for himself, and blame can't be put on other environmental factors. Backers of this theory believe most juvenile delinquents and other criminals assess the possible crime, weight the costs and benefits, and make the decision they feel provides the best reward-to-risk ratio. Proponents of the theory believe that stealing the opportunities as well as raising the price for criminal activity are the best ways to stop juvenile crime.

CAUSE: SOCIAL STRUCTURE THEORY

Social structure theorists believe that the cause of juvenile (and other) crime is not within the person themselves but is due to external factors. These causes may be within an individual's social circumstances (for instance, a child who grows up with parents who smoke pot may be far more likely to view illegal drugs as a viable choice), or could be related to overarching social policies. These people believe crime is created by social structures such as poverty, a peer group who believes there is nothing wrong with crime, and a racial imbalance in the justice system.

EFFECTS OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY

Regardless of the causes, juvenile delinquency carries a high cost to the Political, Economic and social system. These costs can be measured in terms of money spent and lost, as well as moral costs to a society. Government is forced to pay more for increased policing, as well as the costs of the entire judicial system process (prisons, juvenile halls, court trials). Medical costs skyrocket due to violent crimes and drug abuse. Property theft and vandalism result in high costs in the public and private sector. Also, there's a societal cost whenever a citizen is removed from society and placed in a juvenile facility or jail, as this person is no longer a functional, contributing person.

Juvenile Delinquency can be checked at a very primary stage and measures can be taken both at home as well as in school to help bring children out of this characterization. As it is evident from the above discussion that it’s not just the will of an individual which makes him get into the world of wrong deeds, all other factors like schools, neighborhood, Family, Society, Situations are equally responsible for the degradation or fall of a child.

Hence instead of labeling them as one we must try and find ways, rectify the errors in their lives which led them to behave in this manner. Children are soft clay, we can mould them, we have the art, we have the knowledge, all that is needed is faith and patience which if we fail to practice it results in complete reform of a child to anti social elements and thereby criminals, which is wrong on our part. Criminals are not born they are made, and if we as a society can make them then we as a society also have the power to cure them.

Resource of References:

1. Social Problem in India (By Ram Ahuja)

2. World Youth Report, 2003

3. http://www.indiastudychannel.com/resources/99519-Juvenile-Delinquents-Causes-Juvenile.aspx

4. http://www.ehow.com/how-does_4922973_what-cause-effect-juvenile delinquency.htmlAdvocates for Abandoned Adolescents - Our Mission is to do better!

Criminal InJustice Kos: Sentencing Juveniles to Adult Time by Criminal InJustice Kos

Sentencing Juveniles to Adult Time
by The Editors, soothsayer99 and RadioGirl

"There is evidence, in fact, that there may be grounds for concern that the child receives the worst of both worlds: that he gets neither the protections accorded to adults nor the solicitous care and regenerative treatment postulated for children,"   Justice Abe Fortas in Kent v. United States. 1966

The legal status of juveniles in the United has always been a precarious one, a wild pendulum swing from punishment to rehabilitation and back. While we have never deemed those under 16, 17 or 18 responsible enough to vote, drink or smoke or gamble, consent to sexual relations, legally purchase weapons or rent cars, we have, as a society somehow mysteriously decided that certain of these youth can indeed be held legally responsible as adults for any commission of crime.
 As a result, the United States remains one of the few countries in the world to legally re-define youth as adults for the purpose of criminal prosecution. Approximately 250,000 juveniles - some sentenced to life without the possibility of parole at ages as young as 12- are locked away in a legal system designed for adults. In spite of their age and often minor crimes, they are often housed in adult facilities, at risk for sexual assault and suicide and denied education, rehabilitative services and indeed, denied a future.

BACKGROUND: "MALICE SUPPLIES THE AGE", PARENS PATRAE AND DUE PROCESS
From colonial times until the early 20th century, there was no separate legal system  for juveniles.  Youth over  the age of 14 were automatically deemed legal "adults" while those under 7 were  "infants" and exempt due to their ostensible failure to formulate criminal intent. Between the ages of 7 and 14, efforts were made to discern such intent and the doctrine of "malice supplies the age" operated.
As social scientists began to treat adolescence as a distinct development period and Progressive reforms gained political sway, states began to rethink the harsh treatment of juveniles and argued for a separate system  that would provide parental like guidance  with rehabilitative goals..

The child savers' advocacy resulted in the establishment of the first juvenile court in Cook County, Illinois, in 1899. The court was established under the British legal doctrine of parens patrae -- "the State as parent" -- which was interpreted to mean that it was the state's duty not only to protect the public interest in juvenile offender cases, but also to intervene and serve as the guardian of the interests of the children involved. As opposed to the adversarial adult criminal system, where the state's role was to prosecute the offender, the juvenile court had a more benevolent mission: it was designed to be flexible, informal and to tailor to a juvenile's individual needs, with the ultimate goal of rehabilitation. The process was subject to strict confidentiality in order to avoid any unnecessary stigmatization of minors. Because its goal of rehabilitation was not considered to be punitive, the court had no due process protections, and had jurisdiction over both criminal and status offenders(a category which applies only to minors and includes offenses such as vagrancy and truancy.) Judges played a paternal role, and were afforded tremendous discretion in order to achieve the goal of individualized rehabilitative justice. By 1925, 48 states had established a juvenile court system, which operated quietly until mid-century.

By the mid-20th century, it had however become clear that juvenile system was simply a miniature  adult system of punishment and imprisonment without due process protections. In a series of cases -- Kent, in re Gault and Winship, the Supreme Court granted due process protections to juveniles while acknowledging that , despite rehabilitative ideals, juvenile justice was indeed a legal system with had the power to detain and in essence deprive youth of life liberty and property. These case did offer jueviles additional legal protections including formal hearings when facing waiver to criminal court; protection against self-incrimination; the rights to notice of charges, counsel, and cross-examination of witnesses; and adherence to the "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" judicial standard. Still, they did not offer any protections for juveniles waived into the adult system who faced life imprisonment and even execution until this practice was finally banned in 2005.

A RETURN TO HARSH JUVENILE JUSTICE POLICIES AND TRANSFER OF JUVENILES TO THE ADULT CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM
Over the past 40 years, the juvenile justice system has shifted sharply from its’ original rehabilitative, therapeutic and reform goals. While the initial Supreme Court rulings of the 1960s sought to offer juveniles some legal protections n what was in fact a legal system, more recent changes have turned the juvenile justice system into  a “second-class criminal court that provides  youth with neither therapy or justice.” Since the 1980s, legislators, in a pattern that parallels their response to "super predator myths", adult crime and sentencing, have enacted a series of increasing tough policies with respect to juvenile offenders. These include a plethora of new policies that ease the transfer of juveniles into adult court via certification or related net –widening practices.
Juvenile justice policy has literally re-converged with the adult criminal justice system. State legislators began to facilitate the ease of transfer of juveniles directly into the adult criminal justice system.  This process - variously called transfer, certification, remand, or bind over - is entirely regulated by the states.  As Griffin (2008) observes,

“A total of 31 states made substantive changes to their laws governing the criminal prosecution and sentencing of juveniles during the five-year period from 1998 to 2002. In general, the changes tended to expand the reach of these laws. But legislative activity was less frequent and less dramatic during the 1998-2002 period (especially during the latter years of the period) than in the years 1992 through 1997, when nearly all states took significant steps to toughen up their laws in this area, and many rewrote them completely.”

All states allow adult criminal prosecution of juveniles under some circumstances. The most common mechanism for transferring juveniles to adult criminal court is the judicial waiver. Since the Kent decision of 1966, states have been required to formalize the process by which this transfer occurs. There are 46 states that authorize or require juvenile court judges to waive jurisdiction over individual cases involving minors, so as to allow prosecution in adult criminal courts. What has changed more recently is the ease of waiver, the lowering of the age at which juveniles maybe refereed to adult courts in many states, and the expansion of options that allow for simultaneous juvenile and adult court jurisdiction.

 Many states now have statutes that exclude certain serious, violent, and/or repeat offenders from the juvenile court's jurisdiction. In many jurisdictions, referral to adult court is now mandatory, giving the juvenile court no role except that of making the probable cause determination. In all,the laws of 38 states dictate adult criminal handling of some categories of juvenile offenders, either by way of statutory exclusion, mandatory waiver, or both. In a case covered by a statutory exclusion, the juvenile is tried from the beginning "as an adult"--that is, proceeded against (by information, indictment, or otherwise) in the criminal court that would have had jurisdiction over the same offense if it had actually been committed by an adult.
The past two decades has also seen several states lower the age at which a juvenile can be referred to adult court. It should be noted that 23 states have no lower age limit, meaning that youth as young as 8 sentenced as adults. The remaining states specify ages between 10 and 15.

One new development in the juvenile court systems isblended sentencing, where the jurisdiction of the juvenile court is extended past age 18 and both juvenile and stayed adult criminal court sentences are imposed. 26 states have some form of blended sentencing as an option; often, it is accompanied by an inclusion of juvenile convictions in adult criminal history scores. This has the effect of widening the net and increasing the adult criminalization of juveniles who do not meet the criteria for waiver, as well as their potential sentence length. In discussing Minnesota’s Extended Juvenile Jurisdiction (EJJ), Podkopacz and Feld (2001) write:

“Although the legislature intended EJJ to provide judges with a stronger juvenile treatment alternative to waiver, the law instead had a substantial “net-widening” effect; judges continued to waive the same numbers and type of youths that they had transferred previously and revoked the probation and executed the adult sentences of nearly one-third of EJJ youths, many of whom were younger and first-offenders. Most of those youths, judges previously had decided should not be waived and many of them had their probation revoked for technical violations rather than new offenses.”

One of the most extreme outcomes of transfer to the adult system is the sentencing of juveniles to life without parole. Currently over 2000 juveniles are serving such a sentence. Nearly 25% of these youth are in the states of Louisiana and Florida ( see interactive state map). Although the Supreme Court recently struck down juvenile life sentences without parole for non-homicidal offenses inGraham v Florida, the bulk of youth sentenced will not be impacted as felony murder is the common common conviction offense in these cases.

CONSEQUENCES OF SENTENCING YOUTH AS ADULTS
The distinction between the school system via the school to prison pipeline, the juvenile justice system and adult criminal justice is increasingly blurred. Youth of color are increasingly at risk for arrest for a multitude of serious offenses as well as at risk for adult prosecution. Critics of these policies changes charge that this is no mere coincidence. The  age of mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex calls for the continual replenishment of the ranks of the imprisoned, and it is most often youth of color that are most often selected to fill that onerous role.
Sentencing juveniles to adult time comes at a high price. The practice flies in the face of science, compassion and desired criminal justice outcomes. The impact is nothing but negative - of course for the youth involved but also for society at large. A recent report from the Campaign for Youth Justice (pdf) outlines the  down-side of this practice:

Teen Brains Are Not Fully Developed During adolescence, the brain undergoes dramatic changes to the structure and function of the brain impacting the way youth process and react to information. The region of the brain that is the last to develop is the one that controls many of the abilities that govern goal-oriented, “rational” decision-making, such as long-term planning, impulse control, insight, and judgment.
The juvenile justice system is based on this science and provides troubled adolescents with mentors, education, and the guidance to help most of them mature into responsible adults. In contrast, warehousing minors in the adult system ensures that they will not have guidance from responsible adults or have access to age-appropriate programs, services and punishment to help build positive change into their brains during this crucial developmental period.

Moving Juveniles Into The Adult System Costs States Millions With the current financial crisis, states across the country are exploring ways to decrease the costs of the justice system. When state policymakers have conversations about reforms to either the juvenile or adult criminal justice system, an issue that often gets forgotten is youth in the adult system. Some states see the juvenile and adult systems as interchangeable and seek to consolidate the two systems in an effort to save money. This is a very costly mistake for states as each high-risk youth diverted from a life of crime saves society nearly $5.7 million in costs over a lifetime.

The Juvenile Justice System Demands More Than the Adult Justice System The adult system is typically thought to be more punishment-oriented than the juvenile system, but the minor crimes that youth commit mean that the majority of youth are only given an adult probation sentence as well as a lifelong adult criminal record that makes it hard for them to get jobs in the future. In contrast, the juvenile justice system holds youth accountable for their crimes by placing more requirements on youth and their families. The juvenile justice system often requires that youth attend school, pay community and victim restitution, and receive the counseling, mentoring, and training they need to turn their lives around. The adult justice system completely fails those youth who would benefit from the services of the juvenile system by letting them “slip through the cracks.”

Most Youth in the Adult System Are Convicted of Minor Crimes The majority of youth held in adult prisons are not given extreme sentences such as life without parole, and 95% of youth will be released back to their communities before their 25th birthday. Unfortunately, by virtue of being prosecuted in the adult system these youth are less likely to get an education or skills training, and their adult conviction will make it harder for them to get jobs.

Youth Are Often Housed in Adult Jails and Prisons On any given night in America, 10,000 children are held in adult jails and prisons. State laws vary widely as to whether youth can be housed in adult facilities. Although federal law requires that youth in the juvenile justice system be removed from adult jails or be sight-and-sound separated from other adults, these protections do not apply to youth prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system. In fact, many youth who are held in adult jails have not even been convicted. Research shows that many never will. As many as one-half of these youth will be sent back to the juvenile justice system or will not be convicted. Yet, most of these youth will have spent at least one month in an adult jail, and one in five of these youth will have spent over six months in an adult jail.
While in adult jails or prisons, most youth are denied educational and rehabilitative services that are necessary for their stage in development. A survey of adult facilities found that 40% of jails provided no educational services at all, only 11% provided special education services, and a mere 7% provided vocational training. This lack of education increases the difficulty that youth will have once they return to their communities.
Youth are also in extreme danger when held in adult facilities. Staff in adult facilities face a dilemma: they can house youth in the general adult population where they are at substantial risk of physical and sexual abuse, or they can house youth in segregated settings in which isolation can cause or exacerbate mental health problems. Youth who are held in adult facilities are at the greatest risk of sexual victimization.   Keeping youth away from other adult inmates is no solution either. Isolation has devastating consequences for youth. In fact, youth housed in adult jails are 36 times more likely to commit suicide than are youth housed in juvenile detention facilities.

Prosecuting Youth in the Adult System Leads to More Crime, Not Less The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, youth who are transferred from the juvenile court system to the adult criminal system are approximately 34% more likely than youth retained in the juvenile court system to be rearrested for violent or other crime.

Youth Have Lifelong Barriers to Employment An adult conviction can limit a youth’s opportunities for the rest of his or her life. While most juvenile records are sealed, adult convictions become public record and, depending on the state and the crime, can limit a youth’s job prospects for a lifetime. Legal barriers for people with criminal records include:
• Most states allow employers to deny jobs to people arrested but never convicted of a crime;
• Most states allow employers to deny jobs to anyone with a criminal record, regardless of how old or minor the record or the individual’s work history and personal circumstances;
• Most states make criminal history information accessible to the general public through the Internet, making it extremely easy for employers and others to discriminate against people on the basis of old or minor convictions, for example to deny employment or housing; and
• All but two states restrict in some way the right to vote for people with criminal convictions.

Youth of Color Are Disproportionately Impacted by These Policies Trying youth as adults has negative consequences for all youth, but communities of color are particularly harmed by these policies. Youth of color are over-represented at all stages in the juvenile justice system, the disparities are most severe for youth tried as adults.
• While African-American youth represent only 17% of the overall youth population, they make up 30% of those arrested and an astounding 62% of those prosecuted in the adult criminal system. They are also nine times more likely than white youth to receive an adult prison sentence.
• Latino children are 43% more likely than white youth to be waived to the adult system and 40% more likely to be admitted to adult prison.
• Native youth are 1.5 times more likely than white youth to be waived to the adult criminal system and 1.84 times more likely to be committed to an adult prison.

LEARN MORE!  TAKE ACTION!  

Publications Both of these reports provide excellent background/context for the trends and policy impacts they document and detail.
State Trends: Legislative Changes from 2005 to 2010 Removing Youth from the Adult Criminal Justice System (2011) Campaign for Youth Justice, written by Arya Neelum.
From Time Out to Hard Time:  Young Children in the Adult Criminal Justice SystemA comprehensive look at how the United States treats pre-adolescent children, primarily 12 years of age and under, who are charged with serious crimes – and the severe outcomes for those children.  (2009) Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, University of Texas, lead author Michele Deitch.
State Campaigns
Thanks to the Campaign for Youth Justice for this information related to relevant, ongoing state campaigns.
Maryland
Massachusetts
North Carolina
Virginia
If your state isn’t listed above,here"> please go here  to see if there is a group actively working on reducing the prosecution of youth in adult court where you live.
National Campaigns
Thanks to the Campaign for Youth Justice for information on relevant national campaigns.
Go to this page on the CFYJ for more information on these campaigns:
Tell the U.S. Senate to Restore Juvenile Justice Funding
Urge the Appointment of a Permanent Administrator for the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention
 Reauthorize the Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Act
Support the Family Justice Act
Demand that A&E (cable channel)Tell the Truth About "Scared Straight"

Originally posted to Criminal InJustice Kos on Wed Apr 20, 2011 at 04:02 PM PDT.

Also republished by oo and Criminal InJustice Kos Community.

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