INTERNATIONAL CHILD AND YOUTH CARE NETWORK

21 FEBRUARY 2000
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“We have eight years”

At the height of the debate over trying juveniles as adults, here are excerpts of remarks made by Oakland County Family Court Judge Eugene Moore as he sentenced 13-year-old Nathaniel Abraham in January 2000 to juvenile detention until he turns 21 for the 1997 murder of Ronnie Greene Jr.

In deciding whether to impose tougher sentences on juveniles, we must ask what are the causes of juvenile crime? This question should be debated and analyzed by everyone interested in helping children and reducing crime.

It is a community problem with community solutions. No court system, in isolation, can solve this problem. Only when the community comes together and recognizes the problems and factors which contribute to crime will we be able to tackle the problem.

We have an increasing number of children born to very young single parents who simply aren't equipped emotionally or financially to rear children. We have a generation of youth who are being bombarded by images and messages of violence. Movies, TV, music and especially video games are teaching our children violence. Kids are exposed to violence without attaching any sort of ethical or moral value to it. The message of many popular video games is that conflicts are to be resolved with violence.

And to further confuse the sponge-like minds of our youth, there is certainly no message of permanence or gravity. There are no lessons about compassion, compromise, empathy. No exposure to the grief of the families that are affected. Violence is made neat and clean and detached. There must be better experiences and messages for our children.

We live in one of the wealthiest counties in the entire nation. We have some of the finest juvenile programs in the country. But we must do more. Individually, and collectively, many enjoy great wealth and prosperity. Why, then, can't we boast of having the best services for children in our country?

Somehow we have lost our sense of social responsibility. We can't afford to live in isolation, closing our eyes to plight of many of our youth. Children like Nathaniel can't reach out for help and be placed on a waiting list for six months. To a child, six months is a lifetime. Just as immediate consequences for one's actions are necessary, so is immediate intervention at signs of trouble.

If we want to be safe from the kind of crime that Nathaniel committed, we must be prepared with our efforts and wallets to help create and fund programs to stop this tragic waste. Children, and the potential each possesses, are our most precious resource. We must collectively guard, protect and nurture them.

We need better-trained parents. We need mentors. We need Big Brothers and Sisters. We need more recreational programs and youth groups. We need more counselors for children and families. We need more foster-care homes and more support for those generous families. We need better schools. Any effort that touches the life of one of our children in a positive way is a vital and indispensable piece to the puzzle in stopping juvenile delinquency and criminality.

It is only by intervening now and helping to develop mature, responsible, caring, empathic children, that we can assure a safer society.

(But) instead of increasing support for prevention programs, many said "get tough." As a result of the "get tough on kids" policy, we saw changes in our "waiver" status (which elevates children from juvenile court to adult court). The waiver age was reduced in Michigan from 15 to 14. In addition, prosecutors were given the discretion, without a hearing, to decide where to try the accused child in the criminal court or the juvenile court. Even more recently, the Legislature determined that, if the prosecutor chose a trial in the adult criminal court, the child, if convicted, would have to be sentenced as an adult. No discretion was given to the sentencing judge to decide to use the juvenile system.

The Legislature's response to juvenile crime is a very short-sighted solution. If we put more kids into a failed system, although we may house them where they cannot do any damage for a period of time, we should not be surprised when they emerge as more dangerous and hardened criminals. Instead of spending money building more prisons, we should be spending money preventing crime and rehabilitating youthful criminals.

Prevention and rehabilitation are the foundational elements of the juvenile system. If we prevent the criminal mind-set from taking hold of our youth then we, in turn, prevent adult criminals from coming into existence. If we rehabilitate those youths who have committed criminal acts, we are making ourselves safe both now and in the future.

Not satisfied that we were tough enough in the 1990s, the Legislature went one step further and enacted the basic statute in the case at hand. Under this statute, the prosecutor can elect to have the child tried in juvenile court as an adult and, if convicted, sentenced in one of the following three ways at the discretion of the judge: as a juvenile, with release at the latest at age 21; as an adult subject solely to adult penalties and punishment; or a blended sentence.

To many, this (last) is a reasonable statute. Don't ask the judge to look into a crystal ball today and predict five years down the road. Give the juvenile system a chance to rehabilitate. Don't predict today, at sentencing, whether the child will or will not be rehabilitated, but keep the options open. At 21, have a hearing and see if the person (now an adult) has changed for the better. If yes, release; if not, if still a danger, impose an adult sentence.

The stickler is that the Legislature set no minimum for the statute under which Nathaniel was charged. Thus, we try a child, 11 at the time of the crime, as an adult in the juvenile court (now called the Family Court). We subject him to these three alternatives, including a possible sentence today of up to life in prison.

Should Nathaniel be sentenced today as an adult? If we say "yes," even for this heinous crime, we have given up on the juvenile justice system. Can we be certain that, between now and the time he turns 21, we can't change his behavior? Must we say today that Nathaniel, at age 13, must be put into an adult prison system?

No. The testimony and reports are clear that the adult prison system is not designed for youth. It is only a last resort if the juvenile system has failed. Testimony and the psychological examination demonstrate that in the last two years, while awaiting trial, Nathaniel has made progress in the juvenile system. It is also clear that the adult system has very few treatment alternatives for a 13-year-old. In addition, at 13, Nathaniel may be subject to brutalization in prison that could destroy any hope of rehabilitation.

As I have indicated, the Legislature has responded to juvenile criminal activity not by helping to prevent and rehabilitate, but rather by treating juveniles more like adults. Is this a good option? Is our adult system successfully rehabilitating people? Do our jails release productive, reformed citizens? We all know the answers to these questions.

I think the law Nathaniel has been charged under is fundamentally flawed. It is not my place to make law. I must work with the law the Legislature has enacted. However, I urge the Legislature to reassess this law. I urge the Legislature to lean toward improving the resources and programs within the juvenile justice system rather than diverting more youth into an already failed adult system. I admonish the Juvenile Court to make sure our courts are not turning away parents who may come to us for help.

If Nathaniel is sentenced as a juvenile, he will be released at the very latest at age 21. We don't know what Nathaniel will be like eight years from now. Eight more years is a long time. With the progress he has made in the last two years plus the next eight years, the juvenile justice system should be able to rehabilitate Nathaniel.

Does Nathaniel fit the criteria that would make sense under the circumstances demanded by a blended sentence? True, he did commit a heinous crime, but he is not a repeat offender. He has not failed in our juvenile programs, but rather has not been given a chance to benefit from them. Nathaniel was also an 11-year-old boy who, by much of the testimony, lacked the maturity and understanding to differentiate between reality and fantasy. He is a boy who has been neglected by his home, our community and our justice system. He represents our collective failings. He is said to have functioned at a 6- to 8-year-old mental and emotional level at the time he committed this crime.

When they created this law, certainly the Legislature was not saying that any child, no matter what his age, is capable of forming adult criminal intent and should be held accountable as an adult. To take it to the absurd, an infant could be tried as an adult under the current law.

However, if we were to impose a delayed sentence, we take everyone off the hook. Sentencing Nathaniel as a juvenile gives us eight more years to rehabilitate him. We as a community know that he will be back among us at age 21. If we are committed to preventing future criminal behavior, we will use our collective efforts and financial resources to rehabilitate him and all the other at-risk youth in our community. If we commit ourselves to this, we can ensure our safety now and in the future. The safety net of a delayed sentence removes too much of the urgency.

The danger is that we won't take rehabilitation seriously if we know we can utilize prison in the future. Adult incarceration is a vital immediate solution to danger, but it does nothing to address future criminality.

We have eight years. Together we and Nathaniel can make the difference in his life and the lives of many other children in our community.

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Download your own copy of the remarkable 140-page book Second Chances: Giving kids a chance to make a better choice published by the Justice Policy Institute. 

Read what others have said:

The Introduction to the book:

They’re prosecutors, politicians, poets and probation officers; academics, attorneys, athletes and authors; students, stockbrokers and sales people; football players and firefighters. They’ve worked at the highest levels of government, as advisors to presidents and in the US Senate. They’ve prosecuted, defended and judged their fellow men and women. They’ve achieved unprecedented feats on the field of athletic competition. They’ve served their country honorably.

And when they were kids, every one of them was in trouble with the law.

But for the protections and rehabilitative focus of the Juvenile Court - a uniquely American invention that was the brainchild of a group of Chicago women activists in the 1800s - many of them would simply not be where they are today. And most of them would be the first to admit it.

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Afterword by Marian Wright Edelman, President and Founder of the Children’s Defense Fund

Children are not adults, and for 100 years the juvenile court system has reinforced that message. During that time it has taught us many lessons about children. It has taught us that children do not have the life experience or wisdom that adults are expected to possess. It has taught us that children are constantly learning, and in the process they sometimes make mistakes, because that is how they learn. It has taught us concepts such as forgiveness and perseverance, and that we should never give up on our children.

In this book, these points are eloquently illustrated in story after story about how successful people who made mistakes as teenagers were given a second chance. The juvenile court, by not criminalizing these children, by creating a separate system of justice where they were not treated as adults, by keeping juvenile records confidential and not equating them to adult criminal records, gave these young people a chance to become productive, contributing members of society.