By Mediator Matthew House, J.D.
When I read on February 1 that Joe Alvin Hix and Fred Gentle had escaped from juvenile detention, my first thought was that the justice system had not provided those boys the resources they needed. Two days later, now recaptured, these boys still do not have access to the rehabilitation that has been a juvenile court mandate since 1899. Surely, certain adults now owe an even heavier price for what has become a repeated failure to honor the juvenile court creed of treatment over punishment.
Where will Joe and Fred learn what they need to know? They didn’t learn it at home. They didn’t learn it on the run. Will they learn it at the detention center? I doubt it. Just the same, I challenge the Charlotte County juvenile authorities to show Joe and Fred why they looked or them and why they brought them back.
If the purpose is to punish them, how well did that work the first time? If the objective is to rehabilitate them, why wasn’t that happening before? If Charlotte County knows what is in its best interests, the good men and women who run the juvenile services will realize that treating rather than punishing Joe and Fred will not only honor the founding function of the juvenile court but will also promote the citizens’ safety and protect their finances.
I wonder how much it cost to search for those boys. I gather it ran into the thousands of dollars. What about the cost of juvenile detention in the first place, somewhere around an eye-popping $210,000 per year per youth. For that price, how much rehabilitation are those kids—and, by association, society—getting for that $575 daily cost when they’re locked in a cell for most of the day anyway?
There is a better way, and I have witnessed it. I volunteered at Latah County Youth Services for three years while I was a law student at the University of Idaho. At our daily study table, I saw grades spike and pride resurface as those teens realized the benefit of diligence. They were never shackled and, in groups of no more than four, were supervised by an attentive adult. That care for the individual kept those adolescents on the right track. I never had one of my kids reoffend and go to detention. We used rehabilitation and support because they work.
The false satisfaction of knowing juvenile offenders are behind bars gives the appearance of preserving public safety. To be sure, no one who is a danger to society should walk the streets. But the focus should not be on punishment but instead on the dual protection of the community and the offender who probably has a lot of hurts that no one would want as a bio.
Incarcerating kids for an arbitrary period is like staying home from work for the number of days it typically takes to recover from the flu. What happens in that span, not the time itself, determines whether the illness goes away. When juvenile judges lock up teens in facilities where rehabilitation is not the sole (not just primary, but sole) function, merely being in detention accomplishes nothing except further hardening those adolescents toward a society they have already decided has neglected their needs.
Charlotte County needs a gigantic wake-up call. If the authorities don’t tune in that they have failed even to try to support and treat Joe, Fred, and countless others like them proactively, this will not be the last time they must spring into reactive panic mode to chase down an inadequately rehabilitated teen.
Matthew M. House, J.D. is a divorce mediator and teen advocate in Portland, Oregon. He is a frequent divorce and family law expert guest on television and radio nationwide.
A jpeg file and other media materials are available upon request.
(503) 643-5284
matthew@mediatormatthew.com
www.mediatormatthew.com
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Miles Ahead, Light-Years Away
By Mediator Matthew House, J.D.
Connecticut’s experiment with opening some juvenile proceedings to public view is the second-best solution to fix a broken system, but that’s no more noteworthy than the second-most-common hair color in China. The gap between best and second-best is almost ridiculously vast, because the far better approach would involve extending to juveniles the same constitutional rights that adults have in criminal proceedings.
Not observing standard evidentiary rules and procedures is fine if the juvenile proceeding is noticeably different from adult court. When juvenile courts began around the turn of the last century, first in Chicago, then in Denver, eventually extending to every jurisdiction in the United States, they were more therapeutic and less punitive. Now, adolescents face judgment in courts that bear every characteristic of adult court except the name.
Perhaps Connecticut’s pilot program in Middletown will allow some who are observing juvenile courts for the first time to see that the system cannot have it both ways. If juveniles undergo a trial that anyone would assume was an adult proceeding except for the age of the defendant, they deserve the same legal protections that an adult would have in his or her arsenal to combat the charges and level the playing field. Without those rights, criminal courts give the most vulnerable defendants even fewer advantages than a fully-grown adult who could thoroughly appreciate the quality of his or her actions.
The alternative is to revert to the caretaking role of the juvenile court, a protective realm in which criminal codes and rules of evidence do not apply to the cardinal goal of rehabilitating the young boy or girl in need of support. The purpose of private juvenile proceedings makes sense if they resemble counseling, which itself is confidential. But it seems a Petri dish for corruption if, already stripped of adult rights, juveniles—in what is nothing short of a criminal trial—lose their last check and balance, the public watchdog.
As a divorce mediator and juvenile advocate, I have learned what works. Three years as a mentor for juvenile offenders at Latah County Youth Services while I was a law student at the University of Idaho reinforced to me that juvenile offenders who have stumbled off the proper path deserve help, not embarrassment.
Connecticut needs to expand its already commendable efforts. First, the state should extend to juveniles any provisions of the state and federal Constitutions that do not already apply to them, even though the United States Supreme Court has not yet done so nationally. After all, state protections can be greater than the federal ones; they just cannot be less.
Second, incarceration must be a last resort and used only to protect the community while the juvenile is being counseled and retrained to reenter society, not to punish the adolescent. Juvenile detention as a general policy costs too much—about $210,000 per year per youth—and has far greater recidivism rates than treatment and rehabilitation.
The private system would not need to step out into the sunshine if it were already working. The Middletown program reflects a flawed system that is even worse in most other states. Connecticut laudably chose to make a questionable process public instead of leaving it private. The far better option is to create a system so trustworthy and fair as not to require piercing the privacy that has veiled what used to be a child-centered, treatment-based institution.
The privacy that shrouds juvenile court for sound reasons should not be used to enable prosecutors and judges—driven by efficiency or ambition instead of justice—to trample juveniles’ rights because they face no scrutiny.
Connecticut’s experiment with opening some juvenile proceedings to public view is the second-best solution to fix a broken system, but that’s no more noteworthy than the second-most-common hair color in China. The gap between best and second-best is almost ridiculously vast, because the far better approach would involve extending to juveniles the same constitutional rights that adults have in criminal proceedings.
Not observing standard evidentiary rules and procedures is fine if the juvenile proceeding is noticeably different from adult court. When juvenile courts began around the turn of the last century, first in Chicago, then in Denver, eventually extending to every jurisdiction in the United States, they were more therapeutic and less punitive. Now, adolescents face judgment in courts that bear every characteristic of adult court except the name.
Perhaps Connecticut’s pilot program in Middletown will allow some who are observing juvenile courts for the first time to see that the system cannot have it both ways. If juveniles undergo a trial that anyone would assume was an adult proceeding except for the age of the defendant, they deserve the same legal protections that an adult would have in his or her arsenal to combat the charges and level the playing field. Without those rights, criminal courts give the most vulnerable defendants even fewer advantages than a fully-grown adult who could thoroughly appreciate the quality of his or her actions.
The alternative is to revert to the caretaking role of the juvenile court, a protective realm in which criminal codes and rules of evidence do not apply to the cardinal goal of rehabilitating the young boy or girl in need of support. The purpose of private juvenile proceedings makes sense if they resemble counseling, which itself is confidential. But it seems a Petri dish for corruption if, already stripped of adult rights, juveniles—in what is nothing short of a criminal trial—lose their last check and balance, the public watchdog.
As a divorce mediator and juvenile advocate, I have learned what works. Three years as a mentor for juvenile offenders at Latah County Youth Services while I was a law student at the University of Idaho reinforced to me that juvenile offenders who have stumbled off the proper path deserve help, not embarrassment.
Connecticut needs to expand its already commendable efforts. First, the state should extend to juveniles any provisions of the state and federal Constitutions that do not already apply to them, even though the United States Supreme Court has not yet done so nationally. After all, state protections can be greater than the federal ones; they just cannot be less.
Second, incarceration must be a last resort and used only to protect the community while the juvenile is being counseled and retrained to reenter society, not to punish the adolescent. Juvenile detention as a general policy costs too much—about $210,000 per year per youth—and has far greater recidivism rates than treatment and rehabilitation.
The private system would not need to step out into the sunshine if it were already working. The Middletown program reflects a flawed system that is even worse in most other states. Connecticut laudably chose to make a questionable process public instead of leaving it private. The far better option is to create a system so trustworthy and fair as not to require piercing the privacy that has veiled what used to be a child-centered, treatment-based institution.
The privacy that shrouds juvenile court for sound reasons should not be used to enable prosecutors and judges—driven by efficiency or ambition instead of justice—to trample juveniles’ rights because they face no scrutiny.
The Intensive “Don’t Care” Unit: Christopher Beverage and Nicolas Bismuke as poster children for juvenile justice reform
When Mary-Lou Lawnacki urged, “There is no one you can’t love once you know their story,” she might as well have been writing about Christopher Beverage and Nicolas Bismuke, who escaped from the overcrowded Jack Jones Juvenile Justice Center in Pine Bluff, Arkansas and were recaptured on January 31 and February 1. Christopher and Nicolas represent a decline in the commitment to children everywhere as they reflect the crumbling of once-noble goals.
In 1899, the nation’s first juvenile court recognized that, rather than punishment for adults’ failure to endow them with values, juveniles needed treatment and support. 111 years later, schools and courts have baselessly abandoned the approach that decades of planning deemed sound.
As Lawnacki observed, understanding people’s stories makes it harder to condemn them. When a scraggly-haired kid with ripped jeans stands with 30 other juveniles at what more resembles a cattle auction than a courtroom, the truth doesn’t meet the same eyes as the stereotypes.
As a divorce mediator and teen advocate, I’ve seen lots of kids who missed the holistic treatment that I hope these adolescents will get. The judge for one of the teens I met probably did not know that the kid’s father was high every night. Did the judge consider that the curfew he imposed would ensure doomed homework in the chaos of that so-called home?
What about forcing a kid to visit a college for the same offense that had earned him community service before? Now, college is punitive. Nice going, judge.
My office is often where teens first tell their stories. Probation officers and judges would love them, too, if they knew those stories. But not if those adolescents fear telling them because of the critical response to every other constructive step they’ve attempted. Let’s hope these boys will not think they are a mistake just because they made a mistake.
Judge Ben Lindsey of Denver, who revolutionized juvenile justice a century ago, counseled adolescents rather than punishing them. Another reformer, Judge Julian Mack, sought “what had best be done in children’s interests and in the interest of the state to save them from a downward career.” Why is that foresight generally so absent today?
Instead of a judge unprepared to direct a life at a crossroads, if my teens had appeared before Judge Lindsey, Judge Mack, or, let’s hope, the judge for this week’s detention escape, they would have told their stories. One kid’s dad got in fistfights with the teen’s friends and was too drugged-out later to remember. Another would have described a family with rampant addiction and a father who became enraged when others suggested the young man could succeed.
The ideals of Judge Mack and Judge Lindsey are languishing in the Intensive “Don’t Care” Unit. Appreciating the brokenness of the juvenile court requires not a law degree, but a dictionary. Justice means fairness. It is only fair to ensure vulnerable teens the care they need.
However misguided these teenagers may appear, they have a story. That story will determine how best to help them and, yes, how best to help society, rather than a one-size-fits-all response that deceives the public into thinking the problem has been solved.
Julian Mack and Ben Lindsey were not merely well-intentioned men who tried hard. If their legacy matters, today’s juvenile courts must pay homage to that child-centered philosophy. By rehabilitating teenagers like these young men, cultivating optimism, and showing them a purpose, those pioneering judges -- as the judge in the current case should -- honored parental compassion over knee-jerk vengeance.
Who, Mary-Lou Lawnacki might ask, can’t love those stories?
In 1899, the nation’s first juvenile court recognized that, rather than punishment for adults’ failure to endow them with values, juveniles needed treatment and support. 111 years later, schools and courts have baselessly abandoned the approach that decades of planning deemed sound.
As Lawnacki observed, understanding people’s stories makes it harder to condemn them. When a scraggly-haired kid with ripped jeans stands with 30 other juveniles at what more resembles a cattle auction than a courtroom, the truth doesn’t meet the same eyes as the stereotypes.
As a divorce mediator and teen advocate, I’ve seen lots of kids who missed the holistic treatment that I hope these adolescents will get. The judge for one of the teens I met probably did not know that the kid’s father was high every night. Did the judge consider that the curfew he imposed would ensure doomed homework in the chaos of that so-called home?
What about forcing a kid to visit a college for the same offense that had earned him community service before? Now, college is punitive. Nice going, judge.
My office is often where teens first tell their stories. Probation officers and judges would love them, too, if they knew those stories. But not if those adolescents fear telling them because of the critical response to every other constructive step they’ve attempted. Let’s hope these boys will not think they are a mistake just because they made a mistake.
Judge Ben Lindsey of Denver, who revolutionized juvenile justice a century ago, counseled adolescents rather than punishing them. Another reformer, Judge Julian Mack, sought “what had best be done in children’s interests and in the interest of the state to save them from a downward career.” Why is that foresight generally so absent today?
Instead of a judge unprepared to direct a life at a crossroads, if my teens had appeared before Judge Lindsey, Judge Mack, or, let’s hope, the judge for this week’s detention escape, they would have told their stories. One kid’s dad got in fistfights with the teen’s friends and was too drugged-out later to remember. Another would have described a family with rampant addiction and a father who became enraged when others suggested the young man could succeed.
The ideals of Judge Mack and Judge Lindsey are languishing in the Intensive “Don’t Care” Unit. Appreciating the brokenness of the juvenile court requires not a law degree, but a dictionary. Justice means fairness. It is only fair to ensure vulnerable teens the care they need.
However misguided these teenagers may appear, they have a story. That story will determine how best to help them and, yes, how best to help society, rather than a one-size-fits-all response that deceives the public into thinking the problem has been solved.
Julian Mack and Ben Lindsey were not merely well-intentioned men who tried hard. If their legacy matters, today’s juvenile courts must pay homage to that child-centered philosophy. By rehabilitating teenagers like these young men, cultivating optimism, and showing them a purpose, those pioneering judges -- as the judge in the current case should -- honored parental compassion over knee-jerk vengeance.
Who, Mary-Lou Lawnacki might ask, can’t love those stories?
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