August 10, 2007

Jailing Juveniles

Children should not be held in adult jails.

Washington Post, Editorial

MORE CHILDREN are going to jail -- too often even before they have been
convicted.

In the District, the average daily count of juveniles being held in adult
jail before trial has nearly tripled in the past year, according to a recent
report from the Campaign for Youth Justice. It's unclear whether this rise
is attributable to an increase in serious crimes by juveniles, a surge in
police patrols or tougher decisions by prosecutors who choose when to try
teenagers as adults. Whatever the cause, the increase in children held in
adult jails should be reversed as a matter of public safety and decency.

Studies have shown that children incarcerated in adult jails are more likely
to be arrested again and to commit graver new offenses. In the D.C. Jail,
which holds inmates awaiting trial or serving short sentences, juveniles are
kept apart from adults, but they benefit from little of the rehabilitative
programming and structure required at juvenile detention centers. Currently,
only those needing special education, for example, can go to class. Devon
Brown, director of the D.C. Department of Corrections, said the agency has
negotiated with the D.C. public school system to begin providing classes for
all juveniles at the D.C Jail starting on Oct. 1. These efforts are
laudable, but, as Mr. Brown agrees, an adult jail does not have the
resources, staffing or training to treat these youths.

Children are developmentally different from adults. Neurological research,
including a study presented before the 2005 Supreme Court decision striking
down capital punishment for juveniles, has shown that the parts of the brain
that manage moral reasoning and impulse control do not fully develop until a
person reaches his or her early to mid 20s. Experts agree that teenagers
who've gotten themselves into trouble need structure, counseling and
directed programming. Troubled youths should not be allowed -- as they
currently are at the D.C. Jail -- to spend most of their days sleeping.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons knows this. In the District, juveniles who are
tried as adults and convicted and sentenced to prison time of more than six
months are turned over to the Bureau of Prisons for incarceration. But even
though they were held in adult jails before trial, the agency is legally
barred from keeping them in adult prisons after conviction, according to
bureau spokeswoman Traci Billingsley. Instead, they must be transferred to
juvenile facilities, where they remain until age 18.

Surely this law exists because exposing troubled children to less structured
and more dangerous adult jails can only harden them and lead to more crime,
more arrests and more expensive imprisonment. Jailing juveniles in adult
facilities is a bad investment of public funds and an investment in worse
fortroubled American youths.

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Source : Washington Post, Editorial

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 02011.html