Texas Juvenile Justice, Research Paper Example

Severe juvenile delinquency in the USA really started to appear in and after the Great Depression of the 1930’s.  Partly due to the slum conditions and shanty town that were created and a sub culture of crime.  There is doubt that poverty and depravation are major contributing factors to the behaviour of young offenders.  Notable areas in the USA were the backwaters of Chicago and New York where gang cultures were formed.  Poor economic conditions and ethnicity problems have deepened the problem to other Cities in the USA. ” American society has determined a culture goal, i.e., to acquire wealth for all the citizens and has specified hard labour honesty, education for achieving that goal. But there is gap between theory and practice. Social recognition to people who have acquired wealth through ways not approved by the society and insufficient social opportunities to acquire wealth causes high rate of deviant subculture” (Karzon).

Some recent interesting statistics in the USA indicate that about 62% victims of non fatal violence occur at the hands of juvenile offendors.  95 % of sexual assaults were commited by youths under the age of 18.  Some 74% of reported juvenile offences said the purpotrator was a male.  61% of simple assaults were carried out by juveniles.  One area singled out as having the most continued troubelsome record was Los Angeles in California.  (Montaldo)

Types of Juvenile Offences

The following have been categorized as amongst the ten most typical examples of juvenile crime:

• Murder / Homicide
• Rape and Assault
• Theft  / Robbery
• Aggravated Assault
• Drink Driving
• Drug Addiction
• Vandalism

“2.3 million juveniles were arrested in 2002. This accounts for 17 percent of all arrests and 15 to 25 percent of all violent crimes. According to juvenile crime statistics, murder accounted for five percent of violent crimes committed by juveniles, 12 percent for rape, 14 percent for robbery, and 12 percent for aggravated assault.” (Smith)

The penalties for juvenile crime vary from State to State, with the death penalty being imposed at the severest end.  The Supreme Court generally does not advocate the death penalty for juveniles, neverthless this remains at the prerogative of the State laws.  At the moment the USA has executed 6 juveniles this decade with Oklahoma and Texas strong advocates of this.  ” A 1988 Supreme Court ruling (Thompson v. Oklahoma) is widely interpreted as prohibiting the execution of offenders who committed crimes when under the age of 16, but individual states can set higher minimum ages.”  (Mark)               A Republican law maker [ John Pitts ] in Texas proposed that convicted young offenders, for homicide charges, should be placed on death row from Age 11 until they reach maturity age for Execution.  A Republican Governor in California stated that Children who commit murder over the age of 14 should be subject to the death penalty.  This hardening of philosophy brought about where there has been repeat offences by young offenders.  A study carried out in Texas showed that many juveniles who had been placed on death row had been the subject of child abuse and a number of them were mentally retarded.

Punishments for Young Offenders

These vary from the nature of the crime ranging from community service, through imprisonment and ultimately the death penalty. In 2005 the USA was reported as having 2,250 juveniles serving life imprisonment.  This being highly criticised by Amnesty International who considered it a violation of human rights.  This ruling on life imprisonment was being exercised across 42 States.  It was stated only Tanzania, South Africa and Israel adopted such harsh practices.  An interesting case was that of Christopher Simmons who had been sentenced to death at age 17.  This occurred in the State of Missouri in 1993 and subsequent appeals lasted until 2002.  The US Supreme Court in Missouri stayed the Execution until the US Supreme Court has reached a final verdict on Atkins v Virginia ( a murder case based on someone who was mentally ill).  ” the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing the mentally ill violated the Eighth and 14th Amendment prohibitions on cruel and unusual punishment because a majority of Americans found it cruel and unusual, the Missouri Supreme Court decided to reconsider Simmons’ case.”  (Kennedy).  The Government decided that a dangerous precedent would be set if State Courts would be allowed to overturn rulings of the US Supreme Court simply based upon popular beliefs of the people that it was in their business interests.

The final summation here based on the Supreme Court ruling was as follows.. ” Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Court ruled that standards of decency have evolved so that executing minors is “cruel and unusual punishment” prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. The majority cited a consensus against the juvenile death penalty among state legislatures, and its own determination that the death penalty is a disproportionate punishment for minors. Finally the Court pointed to “overwhelming” international opinion against the juvenile death penalty. Chief Justice William Rhenquist and Justices Antonin Scalia, Sandra Day O’Connor, and Clarence Thomas all dissented.”  (Kennedy)

There now seems a general trend in the USA towards removing the death penalty for juveniles. The only exception to this being the State of Texas.  Recent statistics show :§  Sixteen states set 18 as the minimum age at the time of a commission of a crime for a person to be eligible for the death penalty.§  Five states have 17 years as the minimum age (FL, GA, NH, NC, TX).§  Seventeen set 16 as the minimum age (AL, AZ, AR, DE, ID, KY, LA, MS, MO, NV, OK, PA, SC, SD, UT, VA, WY).§  There have only been 22 juvenile executions carried out between 1973 to 2003. Of these, 18 (81%) were in Texas, Virginia, or Oklahoma. Texas alone is responsible for 13 executions.  Source: Death Penalty Information Centre 2002

Another interesting case occurred North of the Border in Canada in 1959.  Canada had abolished the death penalty for ordinary crime  in 1976.  Stephen Truscott was charged with the murder of a 12 year old girl.  At the time of the crime Truscott was 14 years of age.  He was subsequently tried and convicted and sentenced to hang at age 16.  The sentence never got carried out and he served 10 years imprisonment before being paroled.  Later evidence proved that beyond reasonable doubt he was innocent of the crime.  The courts were said to be reviewing the case. The Court acquitted Truscott of the murder in 2008 and a Court in Ontario ordered $6.5 million of compensation.

Programs to Deter Juvenile Delinquency

Grant Awards

The State of New Jersey awarded $2.8 million to local authorities for 14 programs to help reduce Gang crime in the State.  Burlington City Police Department was awarded $145,000 to help fight street crime and serious gang related incidents within its’ jurisdiction.  The main idea is to get the youths involved in after school programs as opposed to wandering the streets and getting involved in criminal activities ” “The key for us is to get youngsters engaged and keep them engaged,” he said.A new Jersey 3 program will be launched at the Mary Ethel Castello Middle School in Gloucester City through a $225,000 grant provided to Education and Information and Resource Center, a non-profit group that operates after-school programs in Gloucester City.”  (Mast)

Deterrent

Programs in Massachusetts like “Scared Straight ” take potential young offenders on tours of state prisons. Illustrate what life is like inside of Prison and get them to hold frank conversations with the inmates.  The objective being to raise awareness and scare the juveniles enough to present them from pursuing a life of crime.  Counter arguments claim that the approach can be psychologically damaging to the juveniles and causes more harm than good.  ” Programs like ‘Scared Straight’ involve organised visits to prison facilities by juvenile delinquents or children at risk for becoming delinquent. The programs are designed to deter participants from future offending by providing first-hand observations of prison life and interaction with adult inmates. Results of this review indicate that not only does it fail to deter crime, but it actually leads to more offending behaviour. Government officials permitting this program need to adopt rigorous evaluation to ensure that they are not causing more harm to the very citizens they pledge to protect. (Petrosino)     

Parental Training Programs

Teaching the parents how to recognise delinquent behaviour and instructing thyem in correctional measures. The concept uses a structured approach using varying family members to instruct youth . This program has had successes in middle class communities in detering children from drug related behaviour and joing gangs.  Regretably most of the more serious incidents tend to occur in the urban communities of large Cities and mainly relate to the poor, deprived and lower classes of society.

Community Based Programs

These tend to work best on educating young groups of people before they are exposed into the more serious criminal elements. ” Successful crime prevention programs may include teaching leadership and life skills, mentoring, drug and alcohol education, family counselling and gang prevention. After school programs which keep a young person occupied and provide an opportunity for recreation and learning may also help prevent juvenile crime”  (Omalley)

Controversies With Juvenile Justice

A lot of the Juveniles are repeat young offenders and have already passed through the Justice system on numerous occasions. An example of this being in Los Angeles CA.  Most of the young people are either living on the streets, come from families where they are experiencing child abuse or are into the system where they are being influenced by gangs and drug addiction.  A problem being that the judicial authorities do not have sufficient resources or time to address the youngsters at an early stage before they evolve into more serious offenders.  Most of the offenders come from the lower echelons of society and often this is the poorer Hispanic and black communities.  Most are deprived of a proper education and a large number of them have been psychologically damaged or suffer from some sort of mental illness.  This becomes compounded by a medical system that has insufficient resources, money or infrastructure to deal with a large intake of juvenile mentally ill patients.  Hence this paints a serious and bleak picture moving forward.

Imprisonment Statistics

• As of December 31, 2001, there were an estimated 5.6 million adults who had ever served time in State or Federal prison, including 4.3 million former prisoners and 1.3 million adults in prison.
• Nearly a third of former prisoners were still under correctional supervision, including 731,000 on parole, 437,000 on probation, and 166,000 in local jails.
• In 2001, an estimated 2.7% of adults in the U.S. had served time in prison, up from 1.8% in 1991 and 1.3% in 1974.
• The prevalence of imprisonment in 2001 was higher for
  — black males (16.6%) and Hispanic males (7.7%) than for white males (2.6%)
  — black females (1.7%) and Hispanic females (0.7%) than white females (0.3%)
• Nearly two-thirds of the 3.8 million increase in the number of adults ever incarcerated between 1974 and 2001 occurred as a result of an increase in first incarceration rates; one-third occurred as a result of an increase in the number of residents age 18 and older.
• If recent incarceration rates remain unchanged, an estimated 1 of every 15 persons (6.6%) will serve time in a prison during their lifetime.
• Lifetime chances of a person going to prison are higher for

— men (11.3%) than for women (1.8%)

— blacks (18.6%) and Hispanics (10%) than for whites (3.4%)

Based on current rates of first incarceration, an estimated 32% of black males will enter State or Federal prison during their lifetime, compared to 17% of Hispanic males and 5.9% of white males.

Source: US Bureau of Justice Statistics, August 8th. 2007

Works Cited

Karzon, Sheikh Hafizur Rahman. An inquiry into the causes . 10 8 2003. 17 11 2009 <http://www.thedailystar.net/law/200308/02/index.htm>.

Kennedy, Justice Anthony M. Oyez Supreme Court Media. 1 3 2005. 17 11 2009 <http://www.oyez.org/cases/2000-2009/2004/2004_03_633>.

Mark, John. A Crime against juvenile Criminals. 2009. 17 11 2009 <http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/646.htm>.

Mast, George. Grants awarded to deter juvenile crime. 22 5 2009. 17 11 2009 <http://www.njafter3.org/media/news/News-052209_Deter-Juvenille-Crime.php>.

Montaldo, Charles. Most Juvenile Crime Victims Are Other Juveniles. 2009. 17 11 2009 <http://crime.about.com/od/juvenile/a/juvenile_vics.htm>.

Omalley, Maryann. About Juvenile Crime. 2009. 17 11 2009.

Petrosino, Anthony. Scared Straight” and other juvenile awareness programs for preventing juvenile delinquency. 22 4 2002. 17 11 2009.

Smith, Lorem. Juvenile Crime Statistics . 2009. 17 11 2009 <http://www.onlinelawyersource.com/criminal_law/juvenile/statistics.html>. US Bureau of Justice Statistics, August 8th. 2007