Two recent NY Times stories highlight the problem of kids committing crime, ending up behind bars, and their treatment thereafter. One is about a 12 year old boy stabbing a 9 year old boy, on a playground. The other is about the report on Riker's Island jail's culture of violence, particularly against children. (The link to the U.S. attorney's report about the Riker's climate can be found here.)
A few issues come to mind. First off, as my police officer students have reminded me more than once, corrections officers receive less training that police officers. Perhaps better training could prevent pervasive, problematic climates of violence like the one happening at Rikers. Not that police don't get in trouble, but how often do we hear about police "too frequently" punching adolescents in the head and face such that serious injuries result? (What the Hell is wrong with the Rikers' guards??)
In this country, our mindset on juvenile justice has shifted back and forth over time. Are juveniles really that different from adults? Do we need separate juvenile and adult court systems? Yes. No, wait... no. Wait... yes. That said, we still generally -- obviously not always - believe that juveniles should be handled with a bit more care than adults; that they're more malleable and likely to be rehabilitated. This is why diversionary programs or simply bringing an arrested juvenile home to face the wrath of his parents are sometimes viewed as preferable to formally processing a youth through the police and court systems, particularly for first-time offenders.
Years ago I served as a volunteer for a New Jersey county court, on a diversionary program called the Juvenile Conference Committee (JCCs). (I've also written about JCCs.) These exist around the country, but are less well-known than teen courts/youth courts/peer courts, which involve youth offenders being judged by other youth. The JCC I served on met once a month, hearing four or five cases of first-time juvenile offenders who had committed a non-violent offense. I'd heard that some JCC volunteers are lawyers, but it's not a requirement. One volunteer had seen his own daughter go through the JCC process when she was younger, and was so impressed by how she was handled, it made him want to serve on the JCC. And unlike teen courts, JCC volunteers are adults. We'd recommend a 'sentence', which they youth could accept or reject. If the sentence was rejected, then s/he had to go to court and formally enter the criminal process. If the sentence was accepted and later fulfilled, the original charges would be dropped. The harshest sentence we could recommend was 30 hours of community service, I believe.
From what I recall, we heard a number of cases pertaining to shoplifting, possessing marijuana, and bomb threats. One of these included a young man who threatened to make a bomb out of pencils to blow up his school, because he was upset that his father wouldn't give him gas money. We 'sentenced' him to make a budget to cover all his expenses, should he move out of his parents' house that day - gas, rent, food, entertainment, etc. Another young woman stole inexpensive merchandise from a local drug store because she was upset that her widow father had a new girlfriend. One young man who had been mercilessly picked on for months in the school cafeteria by a pint-size bully - with no intervening from lunch staff - finally had enough of that, and whacked his tormentor with a lunch tray. Finally standing up for oneself against a bully - good. Being arrested for simple (or aggravated) assault - bad.
Most of the kids we saw struck me as typical teens who did a stupid thing, often because they were upset in the moment of law-breaking and didn't consider the consequences. That's part of what makes youth different from adults - less long-range thinking. Most adults (hopefully) don't act on bad impulses because they quickly run through the pros and cons of doing so in their head. Most people have probably fantasized about running down the a-hole that cuts them off while driving. (Or maybe it's just me.) Road rage. As mad as I get while driving, at most it lasts 10 minutes. Intentionally committing vehicular homicide - not worth it.
Getting back to my JCC experience - only a few of the many young people we saw struck me as outright manipulative or sociopathic. One in particular stands out - a young man who got arrested for stealing some type of acid from the school's chemistry lab. When I asked him what it was for, he very calmly told me, "Just because." His calmness creeped me out. What does one need acid for? Bomb making? Torturing small animals? But cases like that were not the norm during my time on the JCC. Which is why, one evening when showing up to the courthouse for JCC duty, I was struck by what one of the court police said to me: "Oh, you're here to see the spawn of Satan." Really? Shoplifters? Pot smokers? Satan's children? Dude, where's your compassion?
That's my main point - when children enter the justice system, it's important to handle them with care. They shouldn't come out worse off than when they entered the system. A correctional officer in an English prison I visited last year said it best with regards to inmates: "It's not our job to punish them. That's what the court does. It's our job to care for them."
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