America's Juvenile Justice System - Essay Example

Table of Contents Table of Contents 1 Introduction 2 2 Historical Overview 3 3 Intent of the Juvenile Justice System 4 4 Social Control of Offending Juveniles 6 5 Development Models of the Juvenile Justice System 7 6 Rehabilitation Origins 9 7 Racial Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System 10 8 Conclusion 12 9 Bibliography 13 1 Introduction Americas juvenile justice system is responsible for keeping citizens safe and rehabilitating delinquent youth. Meeting these two responsibilities has been the goal of the system since it was first implemented. The dilemma that has faced policymakers and citizens has been deciding which of the two aims should receive the most emphasis, and thus, funding. Should the state build more juvenile penitentiaries and immediately protect its citizens, or should it teach current prisoners lie skills that will help them to live in such a way that they will be less likely to re-offend? In a separate, preventative effort, should the state use its resources to fund parenting, recreational, and mentoring programs that build up youth and enable them to make good decisions early on? In the end, the state must balance effectiveness with necessity. Preventative and rehabilitative measures have been proven time and time again to significantly lower the likelihood of a youth offending or reoffending. American prisons have become the worlds most populated. As of December 2004, 2,267,787 persons were incarcerated in the United States (Harrison & Beck, 2005). Of that number 102,338 were juveniles (Harrison & Beck). Juvenile crime rates have increased dramatically over the past 15 years, at rates estimated to be near 22% (Harrison & Beck). Approximately 2 million youth are arrested in the United States each year and around 100,000 are placed in juvenile detention and correctional facilities on a daily basis (Rawal , Romansky, Jenuwine, & Lyons, 2004). Juvenile delinquency is not new; but it has reached significant proportions due to the factors such as the increasing numbers of at risk juveniles, the disparities of human existence, and the connection of guns and drugs as they impact the adolescent population (Cohn, 2004). More and more correctional facilities are being erected, and "get tough" sentences are being implemented to gain control over the juvenile crime rate. But this does not seem to be deterring the juvenile from committing more crime. The development of effective programs and interventions to reduce juvenile recidivism is a national priority. 2 Historical Overview In order to understand the existing juvenile justice system and how it came to be, it is necessary to gain a brief understanding of the juvenile system as a whole and how it developed into what it is today. Historically, juvenile offenders were processed and punished the same way as adults. These offenders were sometimes viewed as being possessed by demons or having free will that led to seeking pleasure and avoidance of pain (Cohn, 2004). Incarceration was not heard of as a criminal sanction and juveniles would receive a form of corporal punishment as a sentence (Binder, Geis, & Bruce, 2001). The concept of youth as a separate stage of life did not develop until the latter part of the 19th century, and as a separate system of justice for juveniles until the 20th century. The juvenile system in the United States was developed during the 1800s due to many complex issues, but mainly to separate the children from the adult prisoners. The goal for the implementation of the juvenile justice system was to promote the idea that the juvenile offenders should not be tried in criminal court, but receive treatment and counseling so as to have the chance to be rehabilitated, Prior to the juvenile justice system, the choices the judges faced were either to sentence the children to the adult penitentiary or to release them with no sanction whatsoever. Judges and reformers saw the need for an intermediate step, whereby adolescents would be held accountable for their actions, but not excessively punished (Benard, 1992). In addition, seeing that many of these juveniles came from poor, immigrant families, many progressive reformers believed that a positive change in a childs environment would eliminate future offenses (Bernard). The concerns for public safety and better protective care for the underprivileged incited the conception of the first juvenile court in Chicago in 1899 (Bernard). The legal basis of the new juvenile system was for the court to act as the juveniles parents, parens patriae, which gave the court the power to have jurisdiction over all dependent, neglected, and delinquent youth, based on the reason that it was looking out for the "best interests" of the child (Urban, St. Cyr, Decker, 2003). According to parens patriae, the state played the role of the guardian when the primary caregiver was unable to do so. Thus, the motives of the court were to provide treatment and rehabilitation to a juvenile offender, while at the same time providing protection against any stigma if the juvenile received punishment for criminal acts he or she committed (Taylor, Frisch, & Caeti, 2002). Many historians viewed the incorporation of parens partriae as a way for the upper class to control the poor. This early court intervention was detested by the lower class, especially after the Civil War, however, it remained and became the legal basis for the development of our juvenile system (Binder et al., 2001). 3 Intent of the Juvenile Justice System Historically speaking, immigration and industrialization fuelled the massive migration to cities. In New York City the population grew from 33,000 in 1790, to over 166,000 over a period of only 35 years (Binder et al., 2001). During the period between 1860 and 1890, the urban population grew from 6 million to 22 million (Binder et al.). This led to the widespread overcrowding of the immigrants and the urban poor who clustered in the center of the cities, while the middle and upper classes concentrated on the outskirts of the cities (Binder et al.). The urban centers of these cities became characterized by poverty, disease, disorder, and crime). The large cities were not ready to deal with the population explosion and all of the resulting complications, and as a result, some of the earlier perceptions of juvenile delinquency derived from this time period. The incompatibility of urban conditions conflicted with the ideals and concept of childhood (Binder et al., 2001). Urbanization led to crime committed by young people and, most important, the breakdown of the traditional family (Swensson, 2004). Urbanization also became linked to rising crime due to a breakdown in social bonds within the family and traditional social structures that helped to deter crime (Swensson). Originally, immigrants and the urban poor were believed to cause the breakdown of the traditional family and were seen as the prime contributors to rising crime (Swensson). The “child movement” and the understanding of the development stages of adolescents also contributed to the belief that juvenile crime acquires a different institutional response separated from adult institutions which were inappropriate for young people (Binder et al., 2001). By also examining the social history of offenders, it was determined that offenders, both children and adults, were victims of their upbringing. Negligent or ineffective parents were to blame, failing to protect their family from corruption of drinking and other vices (Urban et al., 2003). Crime was also blamed on the environment; therefore, if a deviant was removed from the bad environment and placed in an institution that focused on discipline, the individual would be cured and could be returned to society (Pisciotta, 1994). This led to the development of houses of refuge, the cottage system, the reformatory prison, the "placing-out" system, and the creation of probation, created in hopes of combating juvenile delinquency (Binder et al.). The house of refuge was the earliest attempt to rehabilitate the delinquent youth and make them productive members of society (Swensson, 2004). 4 Social Control of Offending Juveniles During the early 19th century, important citizens in eastern cities began to notice the poor, especially the children of the poor. The parents were assumed to be unfit because their children wandered about the streets unsupervised and committing crimes in order to survive. Many believed that this was the major source of problems in social control and the beginning of larger problems in the future. Because of this, poor and immigrant children would soon be associated with crime and juvenile delinquency. During this time, a number of philanthropic associations developed in eastern cities to deal with these problems (Sheldon, 2004). One of the most notable was the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents (SRTD), founded in the 1820s (Pickett, 1969). The SRJD, composed primarily of wealthy businessmen and professional people, convinced the New York legislature to pass a bill in 1824 that established the New York House of Refuge, the first correctional institution for young offenders in the United States (Pickett). The bill created the first legal definition of juvenile delinquency and sanctioned the managers of the refuge to receive and take into the House of Refuge the children convicted of criminal offenses (Pickett). Following the lead of New York, other cities built houses of refuge rapidly and within a few years there were refuges in Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore (Pickett, 1969). It soon became clear, however, that the original plans of the founders were not being fulfilled because crime and delinquency still remained a problem (Hawes, 1971). Also, many of the children in these refuges disliked the managers of the refuges and inmates would stage various protests, riots, escape attempts, and other disturbances which were almost daily occurrences (Hawes). While at first limiting itself to housing first offenders, youthful offenders, and pre-delinquents, the refuges in time came to be the continues of more hardened offenders (most of whom were hardened by the experiences of confinement) and soon yielded to the problem of overcrowding (Hawes). This problem of these refuges would re-emerge year after year in the institutions to follow throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, to the present day. 5 Development Models of the Juvenile Justice System The juvenile justice system traditional model began with the Illinois Juvenile Court Act of 1899. The act initially separated the juvenile offenders from the adult criminal courts. The act also provided protection to juveniles deemed to be dependent, neglected, or delinquent (Taylor et al., 2002). The majority of the states followed the established procedures of the act, which were to find alternatives to rehabilitate the juvenile offender rather than enforce punishment in not only criminal acts, but also for status offenses such as runaways, smoking, and truancy from school. In giving the juvenile a rehabilitative alternative, the states power was not governed through due process, but through the discretion of the court regarding what was in the juveniles best interest (Feld, 1998). However, during the 1930s, 40s and 50s the court received much criticism due to a survey that was conducted in the 1930s that showed that the recidivism rate for juveniles was estimated around 88% (Binder et al., 2001). The concerns about the effectiveness of the juvenile court, joined with the concern about gangs in the 1950’s led to changes within the juvenile justice system. The treatment techniques available to juveniles often failed to reach the desired levels of effectiveness. Although the gods of rehabilitation and the basic philosophy of the juvenile justice system were not in question, professionals were concerned about the growing amount of juveniles institutionalized. Between the 1960s and the 1980s, also known as the period of the due process model (Taylor et al., 2002), the juvenile justice system was changed by the U.S. Supreme Court. The courts noticed that the juvenile justice system had failed to bring about an effective amount of rehabilitation of juvenile offenders (Taylor et al.). The public also changed its attitude towards juvenile crime and the juvenile who committed the offense. As the juvenile crime increased and the juveniles obtained more rights and protection, they were less and less viewed as helpless individuals who needed a separate justice system (Taylor et al.). Thus, the focus of juvenile sentencing had become the offense rather than the offender. Instead of concentrating on rehabilitating the juvenile offender, the court began to sentence the offender according to the current offense, the age of the offender and his/her prior record (Urban et al., 2003). Since the 1980s to present time, as the result of the due process model changes, the juvenile justice system has been described as the punitive model (Taylor et al., 2002). This model change was in direct response to the increase of juvenile crime, the recognition of victims rights and attitudes toward the habitual juvenile offender (Taylor et al.). Also, two Supreme Court decisions, known as Gault (1967) and McKeiver (1971) proved to be a turning point for the juvenile justice system. The case of Gault provided due process protection for juvenile offenders, such as the right to notice of the charges and counsel (Urban et al., 2003). The McKeiver court case failed to provide juveniles with the right to jury by trial (Urban et al). These legal decisions changed the focus from an informal rehabilitative approach to a formal legal procedure approach, which transformed the original intent of the court. Rather than concentrating on the needs of the child, the sentencing procedures became preoccupied with the offense (Feld, 1999). This shift in sentencing was the beginning of the punitive model approach within the juvenile justice system which still exist today. 6 Rehabilitation Origins The idea that correctional intervention should reform offenders goes back in the United States to the invention of the penitentiary in the first part of the 1800s (Rothman, 1971). The very word "penitentiary" suggests that the prison was not to be a place where offenders were only warehoused or suffered their just desserts, but rather that the experience of incarceration was to transform their very spirits and habits of living (Cullen & Gendreau, 2000). Some scholars see the American prison as a humanitarian innovation, a positive progression from the scaffold, the pillory, the whipping post, and other barbaric punishments (Cullen & Gendreau). Other scholars see it as emerging from a changing social perspective that encouraged the view that solving crime could be achieved by removing offenders from the general disorderly environment and placing them in an orderly environment created behind institutional walls (Cullen & Gendreau). Still others see prisons as part of a scheme by political and economic influences to create an institutional device capable of disciplining the poor and converting them into useful workers (Cullen & Gendreau). Regardless, it is clear that correctional intervention has a lengthy history in the United States as being warranted to serve the goal of reforming their charges (Cullen & Gendreau). Those supporting rehabilitation do so to help improve and also invest in the wayward. The link between reforming offenders and doing "good" reflects Christian ideals (Cullen & Gendreau, 2000). The religious overtones of the label "penitentiary" derived from the word penance which is an act of religious devotion performed to show sorrow for having committed a sin (Cullen & Gendreau). Though the connection of religion and rehabilitation has not been well researched, it is likely that religious belief has contributed to the continuing demand for rehabilitation as a goal of correction. Even today, experiments are under way with "faith based prisons" that seek to transform offenders through religious conversion and extensive programming, both before and after release, to enmesh them in a community of Christian love and support (Niebuhr, 1998). In the beginning of the 1900s, the rehabilitative ideal was a popular concept and helped direct the reformation of the correctional system such as the carrying out of the indeterminate sentence, parole and a separate juvenile system (Cullen & Gendreau, 2000). For the next seven decades, rehabilitation was the dominant correctional philosophy. But by the 1970s, rehabilitation was blamed by liberals for allowing the state to act coercively against offenders, and was blamed by conservatives for allowing the state to act too leniently toward offenders (Cullen & Gendreau). Also, a very influential essay titled “Nothing Works,” was written by Robert Martinson, who reported that few treatment programs reduced recidivism (Martinson, 1974). By the 1980s, society began to mistrust and question the main goal of the juvenile justice system and its ability to rehabilitate young offenders (Cullen & Gendreau). The rise in violent crimes during this era among juvenile offenders did not help the situation. As a result, most states enacted stiffer sanctions and laws for violent offenders, leading to the punitive and punishing approach that exists in the juvenile justice today. 7 Racial Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System During the past 25 years, there has been a large shift in the type of juveniles that have been detained in the juvenile system. The juvenile justice system has shifted from a detained population of 56% White to 68% minority (Snyder & Sickmund, 1999). The significant increase in the number of minority youth in detention facilities is thought to be caused by the "War on Drugs" and the harsher penalties for the use of crack cocaine which desperately affects minorities (Zatz, 2000). The Washington, DC based Sentencing Project found that "incarceration of drug offenders increased by more than 500% between 1983 and 1993" (Zatz, p. 525). By 1994, African-Americans and Latinos accounted for 90% of all drug convictions within state prisons. Each year, between 300,000 and 600,000 youth are incarcerated in pretrial juvenile detention facilities, according to a 1997 census by the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (Younge, 2003). A survey by the Department of Justice in the early 1990s estimated that a Black male child born in 1991 stood a 28% chance of going to prison someday. An updated survey found that a Black male child born in 2001 will have a 33% chance of going to prison someday (Younge). The racial disproportionate contact rate of minorities in the largest states which are California, Texas, New York and Florida, could reach 100% of the institutional minority populations within the next decade (Younge). According to Russell (1998), the increase of minorities in detention and the incarceration rates were also due to policy changes such as the three-strike penalties, the harsher laws for crack and powder cocaine, and the "War on Drugs." Many researchers cited the "War on Drugs" as one of the primary reasons for the drastic increase in prison population (Russell). Many sentencing structures have a built in class and racial bias. The penalty for possession of crack cocaine (a cheaper version of powdered cocaine) is several times harsher than the penalty for powder cocaine. As a consequence, Russell found that in 1995, 88% of the people serving sentences for possession of crack cocaine were Black (Russell). Recent studies has concluded that such punishment has deliberately targeted African-Americans, since the group is believed to use crack, while most of powdered cocaine is use by Whites and the middle class (Shelden, 2004). The "War on Gangs" was also a major contributor to the disproportionate confinement of minority juveniles. The crackdown on gangs acted the minority juveniles more than the White juveniles because minorities account for the majority of gang members (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2003). Police are more likely to characterize Black or Latino youth as gang members (Zatz, 2000) therefore targeting and arresting them at a higher rate than White gang members. One study also indicates that when White and Black youth were charged with the same offense, Black youth were 6 times more likely to be placed in detention than White gang members. (Hoytt et al., 2002). Disproportionate confinement of minority juveniles, therefore, may be attributed to many socioeconomic factors such as lack of education, high levels of unemployment, undetected mental illness, and use of drugs. It is not simply a result of larger percentages of crimes that minorities commit. 8 Conclusion In conclusion to the foregoing discussion, a number of conclusions can be reached. The first and most important of these is that the juvenile justice system was founded by the imperatives, not only of protecting society from youth criminals but of rehabilitating these youth. The second conclusion is that the system does not satisfy its original objective in that the focus has shifted from rehabilitation to incarceration. The third conclusion is that juvenile crime is on the rise and that this, in itself, underscores the failure of the current system. The fourth conclusion is that the system is increasingly evidencing a racial bias. This leads to an understanding of the fact that the system must be reformed. Reform should be guided by the necessity of rehabilitation and not incarceration. Added to that, the source of racial bias should be rooted out in order to project the impression of a justice system which is guided by the principles of fairness. 9 Bibliography Bernard, T. J. (1992). The cycle of juvenile justice. New York: Oxford University Press. Binder, A., Geis, G., & Bruce, D. (2001). Juvenile delinquency. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson. Cohn, A. W. (2004). Planning for the future of juvenile justice. Federal Probation, 68(3), 39-43. Cullen, F. T., & Gendteau, P. (2000). Assessing Correction rehabilitation: Policy, practice, and prospects. Policies, Processes, and Decision of the Criminal Justice System, 3, 110-175. Feld, B. C. (1999). Bad kids: Race and the transformation of the juvenile court. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Harrison, P., & Beck, A. (2005). Prison and Jail Inmates at Midyear 2004. Washington, DC: U.S. Hawes, J. (1971). Children in urban society. New York: Oxford University Press. Hoytt, E., Schiraldi, V., Smith, B., & Ziedenber, J. (2002). Reducing racial disparities. In Pathways to juvenile detention reform. Baltimore MD: Annie E. Casey Foundation. Martinson, R (1974). What works? Questions and answers about prison reform. The Public Interest, 35:22-54. Niebuhr, G. (1998). Using religion to reform criminals. New York Times, 18 January: Section 1. Parent, D. G., & Barnett, L. (2004). Improving offender success and public safety through system reform: The transition from prison to community initiative. Federal Probation, 68(2), 25-30. Pickett, R (1969). House of refugee. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Pisciotta, A. W. (1994). Benevolent repression: Social control and the American reformatory-prison movement. New York: New York University Press. Rawal, P., Romansky, J., Jenuwine, M., & Lyons, J. S. (2004). Racial differences in the mental health needs and services utilization of youth in the juvenile justice system. Journal of Behavior Health Service and Research. 31(3), 242-254. Rothman, D. J. (1971). Discovery of the asylum: Social order and disorder in the new republic. Boston: Little Brown. Russell, K. (1998). The color of crime: Racial hoaxes, White fear, Black protectionism, police harassment, and other macroagressions. New York, NY: New York University Press. Shelden, R (2004). From the house of refuge to youth corrections: same story, different day. Available: http://cjcj.org/press/index.php Snyder, H. N., & Sickmund, M. (1999). Juvenile offenders and victims, 1999. National report. National Center for juvenile justice. Swensson, K. (2004). The effectiveness of risk assessment instruments in juvenile detention facilities. Long Beach: California University Press. Taylor, R W., Frisch, E. J., & Caeti, T. J. (2002). Juvenile justice policy, programs and practices. 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