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

Contrasting Social Responsibility and Social Problem Theory of Criminology

Sean P Wise.............written for LSCJ 3133-301..............1-31-16

          Crime and deviance are pervasive issues that affect all societies. Thus there is great variation in the perspective of how to cope with these issues. While criminologists have not managed to articulate a large collection of relatively formalized arguments in a general or integrated form (Schmalleger 14), two perspectives highlight the prevailing approaches to building a foundation of criminology. These two sources are the social responsibility perspective and the social problem perspective. In this paper we will review the two perspectives and compare and contrast them.

          The first perspective we will review is the social responsibility perspective of criminology, also known as Rational Choice Theory. In this perspective, criminologist view the act of committing crime a personal choice that is made by the perpetrator. This can be seen as the free will perspective. In this perspective, individuals are fundamentally responsible for their own behavior and they choose crime over other law abiding courses of action (Schmalleger 15). Richard Smith outlined how core values of society often influence both law and how society deals with issues. He found prevalent in many cultures’ core values honoring individual freedoms and self sufficiency in the face of economic and environmental disaster (3). Meaning that people exercise their free will even when there are catastrophic consequences. Thus the social responsibility perspective has had tremendous impact on our current institution of law.

          Proponents of the social responsibility perspective of criminology believe that social programs do little to solve problems with crime. They believe that crime prone individuals will continue to make choices that pit them against the justice system. Thus, they believe in order to curb crime you must have a highly personalized strategy to deal with the issue. These strategies include, but are not limited to, firm punishments, imprisonment, tailored rehabilitation, broader powers for law enforcement officials and increased security (Schmalleger 15). According to Schmalleger, specific bills such as the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act as well as the USA Patriot Act were derived specifically from this criminology perspective and were used to place more police on the beat as well as create stiffer penalties and institute the “3 strikes you’re out rule.” (16)

          Over the last 20 years the United States has seen how this “war on crime” has played out. Due to the rigid constructs of this response they have a booming prison population. According to The Sentencing Project, the overall population of prisons has grown over 700% for the period from 1980 to 2009 in the United States. The U.S. has increased its federal budget for prisons, pouring in 6 billion dollars to the federal prison system in 2010, an over 1,000% increase in spending since 1980. The U.S. has seen a militarization of the law enforcement agencies which in turn has resulted in an increase of police brutality. Bill Trine notates on prisonlegalnews.org that “the federal government, supported by the Supreme Court, has transformed the police of this nation into a military force, financed and trained to use excessive force.”

          The fascinating part of this goes to what Jared Diamond stated about those core values. “Easter Island chiefs . . . acted so as to accelerate deforestation rather than to prevent it: their status depended upon their putting up bigger statues and monuments than their rivals” (431). In other words, those in power did everything they could to maintain that power even if it meant ecocide. Here in the United States that has resulted in a prison system that is more akin to the Jim Crow era rather than responsible rehabilitation (Trine).


          The second perspective of criminology is a more encompassing perspective. It is known as the social problem perspective. This perspective sees crime in the context that it is committed. Proponents of this perspective believe that underlying social problems like poverty, discrimination, family violence and inadequate socialization practices results in the manifestation of crime (Schmalleger 15). This approach is more conscious of the sociology of crime; the “It takes a village” approach. This approach allows the understanding and rationale behind the issues of crime and thus can propose solutions to the issue.


          The solutions seen by proponents of the social problem perspective are often large initiatives that target certain aspects of society that foster crime. These issues are treated much like we would treat a public health problem, we diagnose the issue, i.e. poverty, and then treat it, i.e. work to build the area’s income by work placement assistance and business growth initiatives.


          The science of criminology has clearly shown that there are more factors than what the social responsibility perspective allows. Joan McCord performed a 30 year study on family dynamics with relation to crime. She found that those families with a self confident, non-punitive, and affectionate mother were more likely to raise male offspring that did not exhibit delinquency and thus were not associated with later crime (Schmalleger 18). Thus we see the family dynamic plays an integral role in overall crime rate. If you can ensure through parenting classes or other forms of home economics classes that the family unit is a strong and positive one, you can effectively decrease future crime rate.


          In thinking about the social problem perspective, it is also important to remember that society itself plays a part in the prevention of crime. Carol W Kohfeld and John Sprague performed an experiment to discover if being arrested ended up being a future deterrent for crime. They found in their experiment, under certain demographic conditions that yes, being arrested could curb the desire to perform illicit acts in the future (Schmalleger 18). Thus having an interaction with law enforcement officials can have the beneficial aspect of stopping the progress of a criminal’s activity in a “scared straight” situation.


          An interesting point that Schmalleger brings up is mental illness as an impetus for criminal activity. Many people have varying degrees of mental illness and few result in violent outbursts. However, some mental illnesses can increase aggressive behavior. If a psychologist or psychiatrist is proactive enough, they also may be able to curb the descent into criminal activity. Adam Lanza and James Holmes, both of which had been seeing mental health officials (Schmalleger 21), may have not committed the horrific mass shootings they perpetrated if they had been able to receive the appropriate care.


          In conclusion, the two prevailing perspectives of social responsibility and social problems both have positive and negative aspects. We have spent several decades now allowing those in power to continue to use the social responsibility perspective to decrease crime. It has worked, as the figure1-1 demonstrates (Schmalleger 3), but with consequences that are tearing families apart. Social responsibility only treats the symptom of crime, while social problem perspective focuses on curing the pandemic. In order to have a thorough understanding and response to crime, and possibly cure it, it is important to have a full arsenal to attack it with. This means pouring more funds into preventative measures and programs rather than continuing to build prisons.

Bibliography

Diamond, Jared M. Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Penguin, 2005. Print

Schmalleger, Frank. Criminology Today: An Integrative Introduction. Boston: Pearson Education Inc.. 7th Edition. 2015. Print

Smith, Richard. Capitalism and Collapse: Contradictions of Jared Diamond’s Market Meliorist Strategy to Save Humans. Capitalism Nature Socialism. Volume 16. #4. December 2005.

"State and Federal Prison Population Tops One Million." PsycEXTRA Dataset (n.d.): n. pag. The Sentencing Project. Web.

Trine, Bill. The Genesis of Increasing Incidents of Police Brutality: The War on Drugs. Prison Legal News. 3 June 2015. Web. 31 Jan. 2016.