The Juvenile Offender Law
“…14 and 15 year-olds (at the time of their offenses) who are charged with any of the 17 designated felony offenses, and 13 year-olds charged with murder are excluded from juvenile court” (Kupchik, 2003).
Upon further investigation, I was only able to uncover 3 of the 17 offenses: Murder, robbery and assault. This sounds like it has something to do with common law, which consist of crimes that are inherently wrong. They carry the reputation of being the worst crime there possibly can be.
So what would be the benefit of transferring a juvenile to a criminal court? I do not think the reading answered this question. In criminal courts for juveniles there is a consensus that there should be easier sentencing, to make sure the juvenile gets another chance.
Prisons have a reputation for lacking adequate programs, so how would sending a juvenile to an adult facility be giving them another chance. Even if that particular state first required that the juvenile goes to a juvenile facility and transfers that person to an adult facility, there is a possibility of discrepancy arising in the type of counseling and attention he/she received. In the readings a point came up that programming in prisons is actually better than the stigma, but there is still an issue of availability. Residents in these facilities report better relation with juvenile facility staff than with adult facility staff. This goes back to the argument of do these kids need to be rehabilitated or simply locked up? According to the relations statement, it sounds like juvenile facilities may have rehabilitation practices imbedded at even the guard level. Granted, I have never worked in a juvenile facility or a prison, so all of my ideas are based on what I have read and the information I was exposed to during my undergrad in criminal justice – corrections.
“…14 and 15 year-olds (at the time of their offenses) who are charged with any of the 17 designated felony offenses, and 13 year-olds charged with murder are excluded from juvenile court” (Kupchik, 2003).
Upon further investigation, I was only able to uncover 3 of the 17 offenses: Murder, robbery and assault. This sounds like it has something to do with common law, which consist of crimes that are inherently wrong. They carry the reputation of being the worst crime there possibly can be.
So what would be the benefit of transferring a juvenile to a criminal court? I do not think the reading answered this question. In criminal courts for juveniles there is a consensus that there should be easier sentencing, to make sure the juvenile gets another chance.
Prisons have a reputation for lacking adequate programs, so how would sending a juvenile to an adult facility be giving them another chance. Even if that particular state first required that the juvenile goes to a juvenile facility and transfers that person to an adult facility, there is a possibility of discrepancy arising in the type of counseling and attention he/she received. In the readings a point came up that programming in prisons is actually better than the stigma, but there is still an issue of availability. Residents in these facilities report better relation with juvenile facility staff than with adult facility staff. This goes back to the argument of do these kids need to be rehabilitated or simply locked up? According to the relations statement, it sounds like juvenile facilities may have rehabilitation practices imbedded at even the guard level. Granted, I have never worked in a juvenile facility or a prison, so all of my ideas are based on what I have read and the information I was exposed to during my undergrad in criminal justice – corrections.
Race
This topic never fails to get me riled up when it comes to justice issues. I gathered the following information from the assigned readings:
Kupchik, 2003 – juveniles in criminal court
4% white (2% of the cases are convicted)
66% African American
30% Hispanic
Morreale, M.C., & English, A., 2004 – on March 15, 2004 juveniles on death row:
41% African American/Black (make up 6.8% of juvenile population)
21% Latino (make up 6.9% of juvenile population)
Kupchik, 2004 – Juveniles in adult facilities
No white juveniles were sent to adult facilities
These statistics prove that there are major issues with the criminal justice system. For a comparison, I looked up race rates in state prisons.
African American – 45.7%
White – 33%
Hispanic – 17.9%
Other – 3.4%
This information came from the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics: Survey of State Prison Inmates, 1993. Although this information might seem dated, I can guarantee that if this information is not nearly the same, the disparity is worse.
So, what is the problem here? Are arresting officers racist and/or the courts racist? Or does it stem to racism that is imbedded in our society, concerning things like education. Whatever the answer is, what are we going to do to change it? Spending four years in a criminal justice bachelors program did not prove that the system was changing. When race issues came up, there was not a class discussion about it. In many of my professors’ opinion, the disparity is what it is. This is the type of training future police and correction officers are receiving. As long as this is happening, in my opinion, change is not in the near future.
Language
Anyone that has witnessed a real court session would probably agree that the legal process is confusing. This is one of the reasons we need lawyers. So, if adults can barley figure out what is going on, how would a juvenile?
What about our Miranda rights?
You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning. If you can not afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights?
I am going to go ahead and assume that this is a statement we are all familiar with, be it our own experience or watching COPS; But what about a 14, 15, or 16 year old? Do juveniles know their rights? I think that extra steps should be taken in order to make sure juveniles understand their rights. Juvenile rights are especially during an interview/interrogation.
According to Owen-Kostelnik, J. et al., 2006, there are some major issues associated with the interrogation process. They presented a study that accused juveniles ages 12-16 of causing a computer to crash because they pressed the Alt key. Of the juveniles ages 12 and 13, 78% confessed. Of the 15 and 16 year olds, 72% confessed.
Clearly no real crime has been committed here, but it goes to show that adult intimidation can play a huge role in confessions.
The most shocking part of this study was that 2/3 or the 12 and 13 year olds and ½ of the 15 and 16 year olds just signed a confession with out asking any questions.
I am going to guess that the tactics used in this study are no where as tricky as what is used during real interrogations. According tot his article the widely accepted Reid method of interrogation does not deal with juveniles (even though they claim there is). So how could someone that is trained to get a confession from an adult, even know where to start with a juvenile?
I think that there should be special training required for juvenile interrogators. This is because wrongful convictions are a terrible thing. I think that one wrongfully convicted person is one to many. We can not rely on people who have no experience with juveniles to accurately determine if they committed the crime or not.
Death Penalty
Regardless if you are for or against the death penalty, the UN decided that executing anyone under the age of 18 is not something they support. Along with the United States, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Yemen are the only countries in recent years that executed juveniles. These laws have since changed. I find it interesting that the United States was grouped in a category with some of these countries. I think that the US considers its self to be a dominate country, considering we have invaded to “help” (westernize?) many of these places.
Adults and juveniles, in my opinion, have something terribly wrong with them if they resort to 1st degree murder. I am not an expert, but I think that children are impressionable enough that through intense therapy they can change.
A Prosecutor in the New York criminal court for juveniles said about the death penalty, “The most fundamental failure of society to provide young people with the support that they need to grow up healthy, responsible, and productive lives” (Morreale, M.C., & English, A., 2004). I totally agree with this statement. I think juveniles need support from the system. This support should be in the form of intense rehabilitation and life skills training to ensure that this juveniles can survive in the real world, when they get the chance.
