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Chapter 1 Juvenile Justice: Myths and RealitiesMyths and Realities

It’s only me.” These were the tragic words spoken by Charles “Andy” Williams as the San Diego Sheriff’s Department SWAT team closed in on the frail high school sophomore who had just turned 15 years old. Williams had just shot a number of his classmates at Santana High School, killing two and wounding 13. This was another in a series of school shootings that shocked the nation; however, the young Mr. Williams did not fit the stereotype of the “superpredator” that has had an undue influence on juvenile justice policy for decades. There have been other very high-profile cases involving children and teens that have generated a vigorous international debate on needed changes in the system of justice as applied to young people.

In Birmingham, Alabama, an 8-year-old boy was charged with “viciously” attacking a toddler, Kelci Lewis, and murdering her (Binder, 2015). The law enforcement officials announced their intent to prosecute the boy as an adult. The accused perpetrator would be among the youngest criminal court victims in U.S. history. The 8-year-old became angry and violent, and beat the toddler because she would not stop crying. Kelci suffered severe head trauma and injuries to major internal organs. The victim’s mother, Katerra Lewis, left the two children alone so that she could attend a local nightclub. There were six other children under the age of 8 also left alone in the house. Within days, the mother was arrested and charged with manslaughter and released on a $15,000 bond after being in custody for less than 90 minutes. The 8-year-old was held by the Alabama Department of Human Services pending his adjudication.

A very disturbing video showed a Richland County, South Carolina, deputy sheriff grab a 16-year-old African American teen by her hair, flipping her out her chair and tossing her across the classroom. The officer wrapped his forearm around her neck and then handcuffed her. It is alleged that the teen refused to surrender her phone to the deputy. She received multiple injuries from the encounter. The classroom teacher and a vice principal said that they believed the police response was “appropriate.” The deputy was suspended and subsequently fired after the Richland County Sheriff reviewed the video. There is a civil suit against the school district and the sheriff’s department for the injuries that were sustained (Strehike, 2015).

One of the highest profile cases involving juvenile offenders was known as the New York Central Park jogger case (Burns, 2011; Gray, 2013). In 1989 a young female investment banker was raped, attacked, and left in a coma. The horrendous crime captured worldwide attention. Initially, 11 young people were arrested and five confessed to the crimes. These five juvenile males, four African American and one Latino, were convicted for a range of crimes including assault, robbery, rape, and attempted murder. There were two separate jury trials, and the defendants were sentenced to between 5 and 15 years. In today’s more punitive environment, the sentences would be even stiffer. Appeals were filed, but the original convictions were upheld. Then, shockingly, in 2002, another youth, Matias Ryes, confessed that he had actually committed the rape and his claim was verified by DNA evidence. Reyes claimed that he had engaged in the rape and assault by himself and was not part of the five juveniles who had already been imprisoned. At the time of his confession, Reyes was serving a life sentence for several rapes and murder. At the time of the assault, the media and many politicians used the case to frighten the public about “wilding,” allegedly involving gangs of young people who would viciously attack strangers for no apparent reason. The police violated all sorts of basic rules governing the handling of these juveniles. The names of the arrested youth were given to the media, and their names and photographs were published in local newspapers. The five youth were interviewed and videotaped, some without access to their parents or guardians. Within weeks, all the defendants retracted their confessions, claiming that they had been intimidated and coerced into their admissions. Police told the youth that their fingerprints were found at the crime scene, but as noted earlier, the DNA evidence collected at the crime scene did not match any of the Central Park youth.

The New York district attorney subsequently withdrew the charges against all of the Central Park Five but never declared that they were innocent. The youth had already served between 6 and 13 years in state prison. The convicted Central Park men filed a lawsuit against New York City for malicious prosecution and emotional distress. Mayor Michael Bloomberg refused to settle the case over the next 10 years, but the new mayor, Bill de Blasio, supported a settlement and the courts approved a claim for $41 million in damages in 2014. The Central Park men are continuing to litigate against New York State for additional damages. A noted documentary filmmaker made a dramatic film about the Central Park Five, but the New York Police Department and the Manhattan district attorney fought hard to discredit the Ken Burns project and to prevent its airing by PBS.

The Central Park Five case illustrates how misinformation and outright falsehoods have played a significant role in the evolving nature of the justice system’s response to alleged young offenders. Juvenile justice policies have historically been built on a foundation of myths. From the “dangerous classes” of the 19th century to the superpredators of the late 20th century, government responses to juvenile crime have been dominated by fear of the young, anxiety about immigrants or racial minorities, and hatred of the poor (Platt, 1968; Wolfgang, Thornberry, & Figlio, 1987). Politicians have too often exploited these mythologies to garner electoral support or to push through funding for their pet projects. The general public has bought into these myths, as evidenced by numerous opinion polls illustrating the perception that juvenile crime rates are raging out of control (Dorfman & Schiraldi, 2001). Even during periods in which juvenile arrests were falling, the National Victimization Survey in 1998 reported that 62% of Americans felt that juvenile crime was rising. A 1996 California poll showed that 60% of the public believed that youths are responsible for most violent crime, although youngsters under age 18 years account for just 13% of arrests for violent offenses. Similarly, the public perceives that school-based violence is far more common than the rates reflected in official statistics. Several observers feel that these misperceptions are, in part, created by distorted media coverage of juvenile crime (Dorfman & Schiraldi, 2001).

By far, the most destructive myth about juvenile crime was the creation of the superpredator myth (Elikann, 1999). The myth began with predictions of future increases in youth violence made by James Q. Wilson (1995) and John DiIulio (1995a). Wilson claimed that by 2010 there

would be 30,000 more juvenile “muggers, killers, and thieves.” DiIulio predicted that the new wave of youth criminals would be upon us by 2000. Within a year, DiIulio's (1996) estimate for the growth in violent juveniles had escalated to 270,000 by 2010 (compared to 1990). Other criminologists such as Alfred Blumstein (1996) and James Fox (1996) suggested that the rise in violent arrests of juveniles in the early 1990s would combine with a growing youth population to produce an extended crime epidemic. Fox warned that our nation faces a future juvenile violence that may make today's epidemic pale in comparison (Fox, 1996). He urged urgent action. Not to be outdone in rhetoric, DiIulio referred to a “Crime Bomb” and painted the future horror that “fatherless, Godless, and jobless” juvenile “superpredators” would be “flooding the nation's streets” (DiIulio, 1996, p. 25).

All of these dire predictions proved inaccurate. Juvenile crime rates began a steady decline beginning in 1994, reaching low levels not seen since the late 1970s. In part, the myth was based on a misinterpretation of the research of Wolfgang, Figlio, and Sellin (1972), which found that a small number of juveniles accounted for a large number of juvenile arrests. DiIulio and his panicky friends applied this number to the entire growth in the youth population to manufacture their bogus trends. But even worse, the academic purveyors of the superpredator myth used overheated rhetoric to scare the public.

Consider that the definition of a predator is an animal that eats other animals. Perhaps only the Tyrannosaurus rex might truly qualify as a superpredator. The symbolism of the vicious youth criminal who preys on his victims is truly frightening. This is reminiscent of the Nazi propaganda that referred to Jews as vermin that spread disease and plague. Further, the imagery of the child without a conscience was reinforced by media accounts of a generation of babies born addicted to crack cocaine and afflicted with severe neurological problems. Interestingly, a recent review of medical studies of “crack babies” found no substantial evidence that in utero exposure to cocaine negatively affected the child's development more than traditional risk factors such as parental alcohol and tobacco consumption. Herrnstein and Murray (1994) completed the grotesque portrait of the superpredator by claiming to demonstrate a linkage between low intelligence and crime. They suggested that persons of low IQ would respond only to blunt punishments rather than more subtle prevention or rehabilitation programs.

The media loved the dramatic story about the “barbarians at the gates,” and the politicians soon jumped on the bandwagon. A major piece of federal juvenile crime legislation enacted in 1997 was titled The Violent and Repeat Juvenile Offender Act of 1997 (S. 10).

At the state level, the superpredator myth played an important role in 47 states amending their laws on juvenile crime to get tougher on youthful criminals (Torbet et al., 1996). Legislators modified their state laws to permit younger children to be tried in adult criminal courts. More authority was given to prosecutors to file juvenile cases in adult courts. Judges were permitted to use “blended sentences” that subjected minors to a mixture of juvenile court and criminal court sanctions. Legislators also weakened protection of the confidentiality of minors tried in juvenile courts, allowing some juvenile court convictions to be counted later in adult proceedings to enhance penalties. State laws were amended to add punishment as an explicit objective of the juvenile court system and to give victims a more defined role in juvenile court hearings. Prior to these revisions, victims of juvenile crime had no formal participation in juvenile court proceedings. During the 1990s, rates of juvenile incarceration increased, and more minors were sentenced to adult prisons and jails. This social and legal policy shift and its consequences are discussed further later in this chapter.

The movement to treat ever younger offenders as adults was aided by other myths about juvenile justice. First, it was asserted that the juvenile court was too lenient and that it could not appropriately sanction serious and violent youthful offenders. Second, it was argued that traditional juvenile court sanctions were ineffective and that treatment did not work for serious and chronic juvenile offenders. Neither of these myths is supported by empirical evidence.

An analysis of juvenile court data in 10 states found that juvenile courts responded severely to minors charged with homicide, robbery, violent sex crimes, and aggravated assaults (Butts & Connors-Beatty, 1993). This study found that juvenile courts sustained petitions (the juvenile court equivalent of a conviction) in 53% of homicide cases, 57% of robbery cases, 44% of serious assaults, and 55% of violent sex crimes. By contrast, a study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics of adult felony cases in state courts found that the odds of an arrested adult being convicted for violent offenses ranged from a low of 13% for aggravated assaults to a high of 55% for homicide (Langan & Solari, 1993). Figure 1.1 compares the odds of conviction for a violent crime in criminal versus juvenile courts (Jones & Krisberg, 1994). Other data also suggest that the sentencing of juveniles is not more lenient in juvenile courts compared to criminal courts. Data from California reveal that minors convicted and sentenced for violent crimes actually serve longer periods of incarceration in the California Department of Juvenile Justice than do adults who are sent to the state prison system (Jones & Krisberg, 1994).

Figure 1.1 Odds of an Arrested Adult Being Convicted in Criminal Court vs. Odds of Conviction for Delinquency Referrals in 10 States

Juvenile Felony Defendants in Criminal Courts: Survey of 40 Counties, 1998 http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/ascii/jfdcc98.txt

* In criminal court juveniles (64%) were more likely than adults (24%) to be charged with a violent felony.

SOURCE: Jones and Krisberg (1994, p. 25).

Another study compares the sentences of 16- and 17-year-olds in New York and New Jersey. These two states have very different responses to youthful offenders. Whereas New York prosecutes most 16- and 17-year-olds in its criminal courts, New Jersey handles the vast majority of these youths in its juvenile courts. The researchers found that for youngsters who were accused of burglary and robbery, there were little differences in the severity of case dispositions in the juvenile courts of New Jersey compared to the criminal court proceedings in New York. Moreover, the study found that similar youths had lower rearrest rates if they were handled in the juvenile system rather than the adult court system (Fagan, 1991).

There is an impressive body of research that refutes the myth that nothing works with juvenile offenders. There are many studies showing the effectiveness of treatment responses for young offenders (Palmer, 1992). Gendreau and Ross (1987) have assembled an impressive array of studies showing the positive results of correctional interventions for juveniles. Others, such as Greenwood and Zimring (1985) and Altschuler and Armstrong (1984), isolated the critical components of successful programs. More recently, Lipsey and Wilson (1998) and the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD, 2000) have summarized the promising treatment responses for serious and violent juvenile offenders. More details about these successful interventions are reviewed in Chapter 8. For now, it is important to see how the myth that juvenile offenders cannot be rehabilitated misguides policy changes that restrict the jurisdiction of the juvenile court and that impose harsher penalties on children.

A related myth that dominates political discourse on youth crime is that longer mandatory penalties of incarceration would reduce juvenile crime. This recommendation rests on the notion that there is a small number of offenders who are responsible for the vast majority of violent crime. Thus, if we could lock away these “bad apples” for a long period of time, the immediate crime problem would be greatly reduced. This idea has some natural intuitive appeal, since incarcerated offenders cannot commit offenses in the community. However, incarceration does not guarantee cessation of delinquent behavior. Further, there are several studies that point to the “dangerous few”—the small number of chronic

offenders, in particular, gang members, who contribute to a disproportionate amount of violent crime (Loeber & Farrington, 2001).

There are several flaws in the argument that longer mandatory sentences would reduce violent youth crime. Presently, the vast majority of youngsters who are incarcerated in juvenile and adult correctional facilities have been convicted of nonviolent offenses (Jones & Krisberg, 1994). Broad-based policies mandating longer periods of confinement are most likely to increase the extent of incarceration for property offenders, drug offenders, and youths who are chronic minor offenders. Further, high-risk juvenile offenders do not remain high risk forever. Using incapacitation as a crime-control strategy assumes that criminal careers, once begun, will increase and include more violent behavior over time. Research studies on juvenile crime careers reveal a different picture. The prevalence of serious violent crime peaks between the ages of 16 and 17, and after age 20 the prevalence drops off sharply (Elliott, 1994). The likelihood that individuals will commit violent crimes during the ages of 21 to 27 is approximately the same as for children ages 12 and 13 (Elliott, 1994). Haapanen's (1988) long-term follow-up studies of youths released from the California Department of the Youth Authority show that longer sentences for youthful offenders would have little or no impact on overall societal rates of violent crime. In addition, the youth population is projected to increase substantially over the next 20 years. Thus, for every current juvenile offender that is taken out of circulation, there are increasing numbers entering their peak crime-committing years.

Juvenile justice professionals generally reject the notion that the incarceration system by itself can exert a major effect on reducing crime rates (NCCD, 1997). There is a growing body of knowledge that shows prevention and early intervention programs to be far more cost-effective than incapacitation in reducing rates of youth crime (Greenwood, Model, Rydell, & Chiesa, 1996). And there is some evidence that secure confinement of youngsters at early ages actually increases their subsequent offending behavior (Krisberg, 2016).

These are just some of the major myths that continue to confuse and confound the process of rational policy development for the juvenile justice system. There are others that claim to offer “miracle cures” for juvenile delinquency. Citizens are fed a regular diet of these miracle cures by the entertainment media and local news broadcasts, politicians, and entrepreneurs. Many communities have implemented programs such as Scared Straight that claimed that brief 1-day visits by youngsters to prison to be yelled at by inmates can cure emotional and family problems—despite compelling research that the program was not effective (Finckenaur, Gavin, Hovland, & Storvoll, 1999). Juvenile justice officials quickly jumped on the bandwagon to start up boot camps with scant evidence that these efforts could reduce recidivism (MacKenzie, 2000). Programs such as Tough Love and Drug Abuse Resistance Education have garnered media attention and significant funding without possessing solid empirical foundations. Perhaps the most destructive miracle cure to surface in recent years has been the mistaken belief that placing youths in adult prisons would advance public safety (Howell, 1998; Krisberg, 1997).

To achieve the ideal goal of juvenile justice, which is to protect vulnerable children and at the same time help build safer communities, these myths must be debunked. If the emperor indeed has no clothes, we need to acknowledge this fact and move to sounder social policies. The following chapters show how to assemble the evidence on which effective responses to youth crime can be built. We review the best research- based knowledge on what works and what does not. There is a path out of the morass of failed juvenile justice policies, but we must look critically at current policy claims, and we must apply high standards of scientific evidence to seek new answers.

Chapter 3 gives an important historical context to the ongoing quest for the juvenile justice ideal. The history of juvenile justice has not been a straightforward march to the more enlightened care of troubled youths. There have been race, class, and gender biases that have marked some of the contours of this history. Learning how we have arrived at the current system of laws, policies, and practices is a crucial step in conceiving alternatives to the status quo.

Figure 1.1 compares the odds of conviction for a violent crime in criminal vs. juvenile courts (Jones & Krisberg, 1994).

Case Study: Juvenile Justice: Myths and Realities

A 17-month-old girl was found dead in her crib from blunt force trauma and internal injuries. An 8-year-old boy was charged by the police as the murderer. The boy had been left to take care of the baby as the infant's mother went out dancing with her friend. There were four other very young children in the house ages 2, 4, 6, and 7. There were no adults in the house when the crime occurred. The 8-year-old admitted that he shook the infant and threw her against the crib to stop her from crying. He was taken into custody by the local child welfare agency pending the disposition of the manslaughter charge. The boy was charged with manslaughter, and his case will be heard in the family court. The infant's mother was arrested and charged with child endangerment, but the charges were soon dismissed.

Summary Sadly, too much of what passes for public policy on juvenile justice has been founded on misinformation and mythology. Throughout our history, fear of the young, concern about immigrants, gender bias, and racial and class antagonism have dominated the evolution of juvenile justice. The media and politicians exploit these prejudices and fears for their own purposes.

The most powerful myth in the mid-1990s was the alleged wave of young superpredators. Some suggested that America would face an unprecedented increase in juvenile violence at their hands. This myth fueled a moral panic that shaped many public policies designed to get tougher with juvenile offenders. There were a large number of new laws that made it easier to try children in criminal courts and that increased the number of young people in prisons and jails. Critics of the juvenile court argued that it was too lenient in its sentencing practices, although there was little evidence backing these claims. Calls for longer periods of incarceration were also part of this moral panic. The research did not support the assertion that more incarceration would lead to lower juvenile crime rates.

Review Questions 1. What was the superpredator myth? How did its proponents support their claims? Did the predicted juvenile crime wave occur, and if not,

what did affect juvenile crime trends in the late 1990s? 2. What unsubstantiated claims are used to support harsher sentencing for juveniles? 3. Does increased incarceration reduce rates of juvenile crime? How has this conclusion been reached?

Internet Resources The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is the leading government resource on information and has the latest research on juvenile crime and the juvenile Justice system.

http://www.ojjdp.gov

The National Council on Crime and Delinquency is the oldest and most respected nonprofit research and policy group in the criminal justice and juvenile justice systems. The council is an excellent resource of research and policy options.

http://www.nccdglobal.org

The Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice is the preeminent group on the current issues facing the juvenile justice system in California and many other states.

http://www.cjcj.org