Adult prisons are no place for kids

Students in post-game fight should be tried as juveniles

Three students from Roosevelt High School in Des Moines who allegedly assaulted a police officer after a basketball game last week deserve stiff punishment if convicted. The officer's nose was broken, requiring surgery. But punishment and rehabilitation would best be handled by the juvenile-court system. The assault occurred after a feud between two girls mushroomed into a mob of 150 students. Three girls and a boy were arrested and taken to Polk County Detention Center that night, where they were evaluated, stripped of their belongings, issued a jumpsuit and placed in cells. The boy wasn't involved in the assault, police say. Two of the girls will be tried in adult court. Iowa law requires they automatically be sent there. Sisters Shawnta Ward, 16, and Amber Ward, 17, were charged with willful injury, a forcible felony. Erica Barnes, the 15-year-old who punched the officer, also may be waived into adult court. That means the girls face up to 10 years in prison and permanent criminal records. Two options could prevent that: Their attorneys could try to obtain a reverse waiver to get their cases pushed back to juvenile court. Or, if they remain in adult court and are convicted, a judge could defer or suspend their sentences. But as of now, they're facing a conviction that could mean confinement in the state women's prison in Mitchellville.

Sending teens to a facility designed for and occupied by adult offenders may make a tough-on-crime public feel as though justice is served. But it isn't the best choice for kids or the public. In one study, 30 percent of youths handled through the adult system were rearrested during the year after their release compared to 19 percent of youths in the juvenile system. Another study found teens have as much difficulty understanding the adult-court legal process as adults ruled incompetent to stand trial. In almost every case, youths should be charged and tried as juveniles. That's the place for them. For more than 100 years, the juvenile-justice system has operated on the principle that kids aren't the same as adults. They are at a different stage in their cognitive development and should be treated as wards of the state. They should be held accountable, but also should receive classwork and counseling with the goal of helping them become productive, law-abiding adults. The juvenile system was built on the underlying philosophy that teenagers can be rehabilitated. Then Iowa law tied the hands of judges by mandating that kids charged with certain crimes be sent to the adult system. The Legislature should rescind automatic placement of juveniles in adult courts. Judges should decide which court should handle each juvenile's case.

Make no mistake: The Roosevelt students should be punished. Violence can't be condoned. Violence against police officers, even in the heat of a mob's frenzy, escalates the severity of the crime. But the juvenile system is better equipped to mete out a combination of punishment and rehabilitation that would give Shawnta, Amber and Erica, if convicted, the best chance at a crime-free future. That should be the goal with offenders of any age.

22 January 2005

http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050122/OPINION03/501220317/1035/OPINION

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