Critique from Taking Sides: Should Juvenile Courts Be Abolished?

Sean P Wise.............................................................LSCJ 3133-301

Should Juvenile Courts Be Abolished is an interesting debate about a complex issue.  Both positions have very solid reasons for believing in their argument.  In this paper we will look at the two authors and their varying viewpoints.

The first presenter is Barry C. Feld is the author of Readings in Juvenile Justice Administration.  He advocates for the dissolution of the juvenile justice system.  He states there are inherent flaws in the system because the juvenile justice system cannot act as both a social welfare and criminal social control.  The two are not on the same continuum, hence they end up acting as either one or the other.  

Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Feld advocates getting rid of the juvenile justice system and only deal in punishment with his sliding juvenile discount on punishment terms.  His approach is a social responsibility approach to the issue which will not cure the problem but only increase the propensity for crime.  The reason is that prisons become schools for crime (Schmalleger 19).  He uses the platitude “Do the Crime, do the time” (Hickey 98), however he fails to remember, “Go to jail to learn how to be a criminal.”  

Feld does bring up a good point about the possibility for abuse by the judicial system without having a checks and balances system in place.  One only needs to look at the Judge who sentenced juveniles to prison because he was getting kickbacks to do so.  However another adage comes to mind, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Can there be reforms?  Yes, but as Feld states, it will take financial investment by society to do so.  That should be our goal, not following an approach of ‘just lock em up’.

Unfortunately Feld writes this piece without backing up any of his claims with qualitative data.  His pronouncements about the efficacy of the juvenile justice system are not referenced to any research or data.  The only thing he uses as a reference point is a court case for Oklahoma.  Thus his opinion piece loses credibility.

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia

The second article by authors Vincent Schiraldi and Jason Ziedenberg.  They are both employed by the Justice Policy Institute which is a think tank that analyzes crime policy.  They reviewed the Florida waiver program, which allows juveniles to be tried as adults.  Florida is one of 15 states that allow the prosecutor to waiver the child into the adult criminal system.  The authors throw out some very disturbing facts. 40% of juveniles sent to adult prison were learning new ways to commit crimes (Hickey 103).  Youths transferred to adult court were 33% more likely to reoffend than those who were sent to juvenile court (Hickey 103).  Youths who had been tried in adult court committed serious crimes at double the rate of those sent to juvenile court (Hickey 103).   In regards to Feld’s argument about judges abuses in sentencing in the juvenile system: youths held in an adult facility for any period of time, regardless of whether they are guilty or not, are 5 times more likely to be raped, twice as likely to be beaten by staff, 50% more likely to be attacked with a weapon and 7.7% more likely to commit suicide than their counterparts in juvenile justice system (Hickey 104).  The mountain of factual evidence that Schiraldi and Ziendenberg provide completely outweighs any resting fear that Feld has about the fairness of the system.

In Norman, I worked for Crossroads Youth and Family Services as an attendant in the Juvenile Intervention Center (JIC). The JIC worked as a way station between Police officers and parents of the juvenile.  At our lock down facility we fingerprinted and entered their information into the Juvenile OnLine Tracking Service (JOLTS).  As a JIC attendant I administered psychological tests and set up counselling sessions with the parents and juveniles.  Thus Feld’s claim that the social aspect of the juvenile justice system cannot work hand in hand with the criminal aspect of the juvenile justice system to attempt to cure the propensity for criminal activity in young people is a fallacy.  Carol W Kohfeld and John Sprague determined in their research experiment that under certain demographic conditions, arrest can reduce the incidence of criminal behavior (Schmalleger 19).  I found the same result working in the center.  On average, the reports we ran from the JOLTS system found that approximately 70% of the juveniles that came through our facility were first time offenders and did not commit another crime.

Image Courtesy of Flickr

From these two views and from my own experience I take away the fact that, while there may be flaws with the juvenile justice system, ultimately it is there to change the lives of even one person.  I remember working at the JIC and intaking a young woman.  She had run away from her family in Boston.  The reason she had run away way because of her mother’s abusive boyfriend. She was trying to save herself from getting abused again.  This is not a person that needs to be placed in an adult facility, this is someone that needs help.  Thankfully, we were able to provide that because of the great relationship the Youth And Family Services organizations in Oklahoma have with law enforcement.

Bibliography

"Kids For Cash Scandal." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Web. 31 Jan. 2016.

Hickey, Thomas J. Taking Sides: Clashing Views in Crime and Criminology. 11th ed. McGraw Hill Education, 2013. Print.

Schmalleger, Frank. Criminology Today: An Integrative Introduction. 7th ed. Pearson, 2015. Print.

Cover Image courtesy of YouTube