This is my Extra Credit for Soc. 1154-91 in 2005.
This is a typical overview of our Juvenile Justice System (JJS) and the immediate need for society to take the initiative to share our values to our youth rather than locking them up. We must remember that all troubled youths are caused by the enviromental influences and the lack of guidance from our parents or society.
One such text book that I read for my JJS course offers the insight of our JJS Courts in America and its problems among society and juveniles needing attention. Enjoy.
1.) Confidentiality and Accountability of Juveniles in Secrecy.
In the Juvenile Justice textbook by Humes, E. (1997), "No Matter How Loud I Shout", Judge Dorn wants the legislators to lift the veil of secrecy so the public can see the successes that the Juvenile Justice System (J.J.S.) of his jurisdictional model had accomplished and its need to be rebuilt instead of demolishing it (p. 354-56).
Many Court Officers will argue over the confidentiality controversy that it should be preserved if the J.J.S. is going to be actively involved without causing stigma to the juvenile, instead of shelving him/her away to deal with later before it is too late for any salvageable chance of rehabilitation. A case on point is the twelve-year-old boy brought before Judge Dorn for his fourth violent outburst in the three previous months with an assault with a deadly weapon charge (p. 76). The probation department had failed to act to the prior instances, until first something else serious happens to endanger the public safety (p. 76). The secrecy of the J.J.S. had failed this juvenile and his problems.
Judge Dorn often reminds his Court that all children from all lifestyles are deserving of the attention of a functional and working J.J.S. for help when they arrive into his Court (p.365). However, the climate of public opinion is angry and fearful for public safety when they hear or read of judges’ opinions in the treatment of sending juveniles to camps and rehabilitation facilities; asking for the recall and impeachment of the judges (p. 323).
For example, Jason, co-defendant as an accessory to Ronald Duncan’s armed robbery and murder trial; he was given an immunity agreement by the prosecution for his testimony against Ronald. The local newspaper bolsters the agreement in the story that Jason will go free. The public and the victims are fearful and outraged at the prospect that justice had failed (p. 280).
The law of the J.J.S. in California will allow Ronald Duncan to leave the California Youth Authority (C.Y.A.) at age 25, unless he is eligible for his first aftercare hearing at age 23. When Ronald leaves the California jurisdiction, the public will not know of his past offenses or his rehabilitation efforts, nothing at all. He will walk with a clean slate as if nothing had happened. This will put the public safety and trust at risk of not knowing any of Ronald’s hidden, dangerous desires or compulsions he may have yet to resolve (p. 343-44). Another example of public outrage of the escalating juvenile violence in Humes is the armed robbery of Joseph Gutierrez.
Joseph Gutierrez- the victim of John Sloan’s armed robbery- walked into the courtroom late to hear the juvenile disposition of John’s case to the C.Y.A., instead of an adult corrections facility. Humes (1997) wrote the quote of Joseph Gutierrez disbelief in the Judge’s opinion,
“…That kid stuck a gun in someone’s face-my face —and he’s going to camp, he can even get out early if he’s a good boy. That’s not holding him responsible. That judge is guilty of exactly what he criticizes his parents for—being too lax. This is why everyone is so disillusioned with Juvenile court” (p.329-30).
The public does not cry out for a public reform of the J.J.S. or its rehabilitative efforts, instead they want to erode away the J.J.S in their ignorance of the need for the juvenile’s confidentiality and they do not care if they try to sentence a fourteen-year-old juvenile in an adult court (p. 311). The failure of the parents to take constructive efforts to involve themselves with their troubled youth and the interagency rivalries for possession of the juveniles have stalemated the J.J.S. for any agreements to work together as a successful unit of rehabilitation between the relationships of the juvenile, his/her parents, and society; straining further the J.J.S. to deal with only the more serious juvenile cases (p. 364).
The view of this type of leniency and strain of the Courts is well known to most inner-city juveniles that each offender has a 25% chance of staying out on the street (p. 53). This offers the juvenile numerous opportunities of reoffending against the public without thinking about the relation between the consequences and the offense before detention is ever imposed (p. 333). Carla James and George Trevino both knew from their education from their street friends that the Court is mandated to impose the least restrictive sentence possible for the lesser crimes and status offenses (p. 53). Some of these juveniles will outgrow this behavior, but some will continue to reoffend regardless of the Courts efforts, these juveniles are known by the J.J.S. as the sixteen percenters (p. 176).
The sixteen percenters committing low-grade misdemeanor offenses have failed to get the attention and services they require for rehabilitation at their introduction of the J.J.S. and slip away in time, undetected by the confidentiality agreements between the agencies of the courts. The Courts lackadaisical practice of overlooking the warning signals of the offenses and in its keeping of inaccurate or lost juvenile records have resulted with minimal chances for troubled youths to receive services, as it was in the case of George Trevino (p. 176).
George Trevino was one of the juveniles that had fallen through the cracks of the system without any intense supervision or continued support of rehabilitative programs to help keep him on track. The J.J.S. did not know of George’s prior offenses or failed probation supervision and home life, allowing George to stray further into delinquent behavior (p. 111). Now George is being tried for armed robbery and he claims the J.J.S. had failed him. In Humes (1997) it is written the quote of George Trevino,
“That’s how the system programs you. They let you go and they know that it encourages you, and then they can get you on something worse later on. It’s like, they set you up. Of course, I’m to blame too, for going along with it. I didn’t have to do those things, I know that …but the system didn’t have to make it so goddamn easy.” (p. 333).
George was succeeding in many tasks for self-improvement, like acquiring his High School Diploma, his poetry writing, his work as a mentor and tutor to the other juveniles before his appearance at the trial (p. 331). The interagency juvenile confidentiality agreements did not permit his own attorney from finding out his exemplary record to bring before the judge, his last chance for mitigating his offense for a final shot at rehabilitation was lost (p. 331).
Locking ourselves out of the secrecy of the J.J.S. is a detrimental and ignorant behavior for any successful benefits to come out of it. The best route to start with society is in the baby-steps of instituting educational and social programs of open awareness in the process of juvenile crime prevention, education, and involving all juveniles to participate as an equal standing member of society in fixing the problems from all levels of the government. Every person wants someone to care for them and that as a progressive society, if using this interaction and intervention to help the troubled and desperate, society will end up reversing the crises into a win-win situation. The juveniles crying out for help and attention may respond and terminate their delinquent behavior when peers and community are aware of the juvenile’s situation.
The J.J.S. must reverse itself from treating juveniles as hardened adults and spend more time rebuilding the focus on the root issues and causes of juvenile delinquent behavior. Money is funneled into outdated systems of justice where some of the people do try to make a difference, but the system must focus on preventive and support programs instead of the endless building of correctional facilities. There will never be enough prisons built in America, never enough laws made or enforced, and the growing population of young adults learned behaviors would supersede all efforts to control the juvenile without first having responsible parenting. Society must be involved with the youths as mentors long before the J.J.S. becomes involved, a point driven previously by Judge Dorn’s model of intervention.
The breadth of discretionary powers of the judge in the J.J.S. is the last chance effort for Parens Patriae for each case-by-case need basis for rehabilitation of the juvenile, but there is a chance for indiscretionary bias that can creep into the justice system and cause more harm than good. However, allowing a flat State statute will allow more juveniles to slip through the cracks of the J.J.S. without having the benefit of a tailored disposition to their case without the influence of the judge’s discretion. The confusion and argument stands to what do we do to change the course of our youth together as a whole, if society does not accept the change in attitudes needed.
2.) When is it Appropriate to Use Waiver into Adult Criminal Court?
The growing concern about how society treats its younger offenders has eluded the rights and responsibilities of the Courts decisions to deal with the expanding population of juvenile criminals by the use of waiver. In Kent v. United States, 383 U.S. 541 (1966), the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that all States must provide with some procedural Due Process protections during the waiver hearings for the “formalities” in the adjudication hearings of all States to choose whether the juvenile is tried in Juvenile Justice System (J.J.S.), or transfer into the adult criminal system.
In Humes, E. (1997), "No Matter How Loud I Shout", the California “fitness” law allows a waiver into criminal court for juveniles sixteen years of age and older, unless hard evidence shows that the crime was not grave nor sophisticated (p. 101). The prosecution must examine five categories of the fitness test: the juvenile’s past criminal record, the time left to rehabilitate him, the results of the past attempts at rehabilitation, his criminal sophistication, and the seriousness of the crime (p. 97). Sophistication of the crime and its seriousness is the only two needed, but failure of any one of these requirements can result in the judge’s order for waiver (p. 97). Many juveniles in California that are waived into adult criminal courts, except for murder cases, end up serving less time at the California Youth Authority (C.Y.A.) than the juveniles disposed of in the J.J.S. courts (p. 102).
Judge Dorn foresaw the Gerri Gault decision affecting the treatment of juveniles to be same as adults since 1964, where the J.J.S. and adult criminal courts are different by terminology only (p. 358). This discretionary power of waiver in the hands of the court in some states leaves the juvenile without much of any protections and rights of due process without a hearing or an appeal. As the New Jersey Supreme Court had noted,
“Waiver to the adult court is the single most serious act the juvenile court can perform ... because once waiver of jurisdiction occurs, the child loses all protective and rehabilitative possibilities available.” (Redding, 1999).
Some States have transfer laws that increased the “net-widening” of juveniles out of the J.J.S. by lowering the age requirement and expanding the lists of transferable offenses, or by eliminating some of the safeguards and protections the judges must consider before transferring the juvenile (Redding, 1999).
Many Court Officers know from experience that the acquittal of the juvenile cases in the J.J.S. may not be in the kid’s best interest against the hard-line waivers to lock away the more serious offenders for rehabilitation efforts (p. 77).
The L.A. District Attorney Gil Garcetti’s wants a two-tiered system of treating the worst offenders as adults and reserving the rehabilitative services for the salvageable youth without the system being treated as an application for social services (p. 175).
Peggy from the Prosecution Office believes that the current disciplinary measures of juveniles is not working and by pushing the J.J.S. back into the nineteenth-century model where juveniles are treated the same as adults (p.166). She also believes in however, that an adult crime deserves an adult sanction regardless of the age of the culprit and excusing their behavior because of their age is no longer an excuse from not protecting the public from the other “Ronald Duncans”, or “John Sloans” out there (p. 68). Waiver issues presented the question of deciding judicial waiver requirements by statute between juveniles within the cut-off line of their sixteenth birthday, like Ronald Duncan and John Sloan.
Ronald Duncan’s double homicide and robbery case allows him by California law to use adult defenses because of his youth status; he had narrowly escaped the waiver into adult criminal court because he is only nine days shy of his sixteenth birthday (p. 63-4). However, John Sloan’s charge of armed robbery will face the adult criminal system because of his being over the age of sixteen where he may be facing worse sanctions than the Juvenile Justice System (J.J.S.). Besides the fact that the whole family of Joseph Gutierrez had been disillusioned and traumatized for their safety in public, John’s crime did not involve homicide (p. 69). The punishment should fit the degree of violence of the crimes if committed by adults, but mitigating circumstances should also reflect on the personality and accountability of the juvenile charged. John had been the typical juvenile caught on the wrong path with one foolish mistake made that could alter his life.
John Sloan is a bright student, from a good middle-class family, but he had problems in school of racial bigotry, and he was easily susceptible to pressure by his peers, namely his new street friend Richard (p. 91). Judge Dorn knows that the two biggest predictors of juvenile delinquency are the one-parent home and a failed educational experience (p. 76).
The Court of Judge Dorn ruled that John had committed armed robbery against Joseph Gutierrez, which John had met one of the twenty-four serious crimes of the State of California legislation requirements to transfer John into adult court (p. 96). However, the law ties the hands of individual discretion of Judge Dorn in whether he can declare John as an “unfit” juvenile and keep him in the J.J.S.(p.96).
John’s behavior was reprehensible since he came from a good background and the crime committed was more serious than a prank (p. 101). If John were to show any remorse during the commission of the crime or had demonstrated any juvenile behavior, then the judge may indiscreetly break away from the statutes to offer a chance of rehabilitation (p. 101). However, Judge Dorn’s illegal decision to keep John in the J.J.S. for his amenably to treatment had saved John from adult sanctions; the double-jeopardy attachment from Dorn’s ruling was a very lucky break for him (p. 102). The best efforts of Judge Dorn and the J.J.S. to rehabilitate juveniles have enraged and disillusioned the public (p. 330).
The public fears have changed policies in jurisdictions throughout America, which society had adopted laws that limit or eliminate the rehabilitative effects of the J.J.S. (p. 358). This action will produce unfair results of waiver decisions based on chronological age and not on the needs of the offender (p. 359). Waiver will not decrease crime, nor will it solve any future problems of rehabilitative issues when the Department of Corrections releases the convicted Adult-youth back into a different world. Neither the juvenile, nor society will feel any safer when the waived juvenile has the stigma of a permanent criminal record.
The J.J.S. response to curb fears and find new avenues of rehabilitation that will keep within the discretion of the judge is to work with each juvenile on a case-by-case basis and to catch all of the individual details within the juvenile’s life. The new rehabilitative model in the J.J.S. that seems to work for both sides of the issue of waiver is the introduction of the Blended Sentencing disposition.
Blended sentencing is a combination sentence of either adult sanctions or juvenile probation, but not both. Juveniles benefit of receiving the blended sentencing reforms that may be the only required remedy to help curb the growing delinquency trends perceived by society instead of giving up on the juvenile. The juvenile offender’s rehabilitation would include restitution, community service, and crime victims’ panels so the juvenile will become part of society that they are rebelling against, understand the consequences of their behavior, and heal the generation gap.
The juvenile successfully completing the blended sentencing or E.J.J. sanctions leaves without the adult criminal record to haunt them throughout their life. The alternative sentencing reforms will give the young offenders a chance to rehabilitate themselves, which other juvenile offenders ten years ago did not have this option.
In Minnesota, much of the same situations exist as in California and any youth may face the waiver into the Adult Court System at the young age of fourteen-years-old. Consult with your attorney on any matters of juvenile deliquency within your local jurisdiction. Society must participate equally with our younger generation.
Work Cited
Redding, Richard E., “Examining Legal Issues: Juvenile Offenders in Criminal Court and Adult Prison.” Corrections Today Apr. 1999: Vol. 61 i2 pg. 92(9). InfoTracOneFile. InfoTrac. Inver Hills Community Coll. Lib. Inver Grove, MN. 15 Oct. 2004 http://infotrac.galegroup.com>.
3.) The most memorable characters in "No Matter How Loud I Shout." (Commentary)
The most memorable characters that reflect the true operations of the Juvenile Justice System (J.J.S.) can be defined into three separate categories: successful, unsuccessful, and unknown.
The J.J.S. has very few successes in California due to the large volume of cases coming into the Court system everyday. Downsized budgets, unavailable beds in the treatment facilities, and overworked caseworkers have lost track of their charges until another charge of delinquency was brought against them. Less than ten percent of the juveniles entering the J.J.S. have successfully completed the probation/aftercare since their Intake.
The common knowledge of the street shared between the juveniles is the fact that the Court is mandated to impose the least restrictive sentence possible for the misdemeanor crimes and status offenses. This is said to be true of Carla James, a female gang-banger who runs with her “homeboys” for the thrill and respect of the young men to see that a girl can be so rough and play the games on the street and with her probation officer.
The rarity of a female getting into trouble is not unheard of before in the J.J.S., but now it is becoming more of a commonplace occurrence and the Courts had seemed unaware of how to deal with them. It had seemed that Carla was given more chances by her probation officer to turn herself around than if she were instead a male. She had guidance counselors help her with continuing school and intensive, visitation contacts with her probation officer throughout her probation.
The probation officer kept working with Carla to break down her barriers of emotional and self-esteem issues and gave her the resources to accomplish this task, which proved successful later in Carla’s life.
However, juvenile rehabilitation in the J.J.S. is not easy for success if the system is unable or inept to provide the resources, or lost in the confusion of applying specific help needed by the troubled youth. Two such youths whom the odds are against them are John Sloan and George Trevino.
John Sloan is a bright student, from a good middle-class family, but he had problems dealing with racial bigotry in school, and he was easily susceptible to pressure by his peers to join a gang, namely his new street friend Richard. Both had committed the act of armed robbery together for the thrill, but Judge Dorn had seen the amenability treatment potential of John. Judge Dorn disposed of John into the California Youth Authority (C.Y.A.) for a chance of education and self-esteem adjustment.
John had accepted and participated successfully into his rehabilitation program through his introduction into the J.J.S.’s “shock therapy program” and he has not at the time of this book’s publishing been back into the system. The same could have been said true about George Trevino if the J.J.S. were to work properly for him, if it were not for fate stacked against him.
George Trevino suffered a troubled childhood and became a ward of the court of California. The supervising agency of the Court had failed him. Problems became compounded for George when it had forced him to fend for himself in his developing years. Until he was introduced to, the J.J.S. George was one of the unlucky juveniles that had continued to fall through the cracks of the system, without any intense supervision or continued support of resources and rehabilitative programs to help keep him on track.
The J.J.S. did not know of George’s prior offenses or failed probation supervision and home life, allowing George to stray further into delinquent behavior. George was succeeding in many tasks for self-improvement, like acquiring his High School Diploma, his poetry writing, his work as a mentor and tutor to the other juveniles before his appearance at the trial. The interagency juvenile confidentiality agreements did not permit his own attorney from finding out his exemplary record to bring before the judge, his last chance for mitigating his offense for a final shot at rehabilitation was lost. This is a common theme and the focus of where the J.J.S. goes wrong to save good individuals needing the resources and supervision to succeed, leaving the juvenile to fall into a downward, unrecoverable spiral into a lifetime of misery.
George, while at the C.Y.A., had shown himself to be resilient and driven to succeed by participating in his own rehabilitation efforts, but because of his environment, he had set himself back into gangs for his survival in the sub-culture of the detention hall and he was sent straight into adult corrections for the remainder of his sentence. This is a typical view of the everyday vicious cycle that males face in this system full of bias and ineptitude of tailoring the punishment to the person. One such person most deserving this kind of punishment given to George is Ronald Duncan. Ronald is the one juvenile in a class of the unknown sixteen percenters with a questionable future of recidivism, which it makes it more dangerous to society to have him released without a good profile of his background and a rehabilitative plan in place.
Ronald Duncan’s double homicide and robbery case allows him by California law to use adult defenses because of his youth and juvenile offense status, and he narrowly escaped the waiver into adult criminal court, because he is only nine days shy of his sixteenth birthday. The law of the J.J.S. in California will allow Ronald Duncan to leave the California Youth Authority (C.Y.A.) at age 25, unless he is eligible for his first aftercare hearing at age 23. When Ronald leaves the California jurisdiction, the public will not know of his past offenses or his rehabilitation efforts, nothing at all. He will walk with a clean slate as if nothing had happened. This will put the trust of public safety at risk of not knowing any of Ronald’s hidden, emotional and psychological background of dangerous desires or compulsions he may have yet to resolve.
Ronald Duncan still did not take any accountability for his actions or involve himself with any rehabilitative efforts provided by the C.Y.A. The J.J.S. will fail society by letting the offender walk out by statute at his twenty-third birthday at the earliest. Ronald is the textbook example of the person to keep inside the J.J.S., or adult corrections until he is proven non-threatening to public safety.
The main problem of the system of all of the characters involved is the gamble that the punishment fits the offender, and that the rehabilitation efforts and resources are given appropriately and equally with continued supervision to carry on the juvenile throughout and beyond the process of successful completion.
