Our
mission is to reduce the number of injuries and deaths due to
injuries,
through prevention, improved trauma care, and improved rehabilitation.
Trauma Foundation
SF General Hospital
Bldg 1 Rm 300
San Francisco, CA 94110
Phone:415/821-8209
Fax: 415/821-8202
email: tf@traumaf.org
Although
established on the belief that the state must assume the role of responsible
parent when the natural parents cannot, the reality has been quite
different. Children are routinely subject to inhumane conditions in large
impersonal custodial institutions.
-- Dan Macallair
of CJCJ on the Current State and Future of Juvenile Justice
The 31,000 member California Correctional Peace Officers Association (CCPOA) is the second-largest state employees union in California, and arguably the most influential lobby group in the state...the union spends $7 million each year supporting political causes.--A Closer Look: Prison Union's Influence on Budget in Question...The Daily Bruin, Richard Clough, 5/12/04
The
CCPOA has been able to get 'huge contracts' in a state budget with a
'limited amount of resources,' which can detract from the funds allocated to
other groups....that's a detriment to public education.
--Geoffrey Segal, Director of Reason Public Policy Institute as quoted in
The Daily Bruin article by Clough
May 21, 2004
Young
People--Incarceration and Death at Home in the U.S.
While United States citizens in Iraq are committing atrocities on
incarcerated Iraqi civilians, at home here in the United States, we have our own
incarceration problems.
Recently (particularly with the Bush administration, but with prior
administrations too), the United States has decided to renege on
international agreements and treaties when it deems those agreements to be
an obstruction to U.S. current policies and political objectives. This is
true in the arenas of environmental and trade issues, and in the United
States' treatment of
young people.
The United States is unlike most other countries with the death penalty which have abolished it for juvenile offenders. More than 72 countries with the death penalty do not execute juveniles. There are only 6 countries known to have executed juvenile offenders in the 1990s. Those countries are: the United States, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Nigeria. According to the United Nations (1998), the US policy on executing juvenile offenders violates international laws and treaties signed or ratified by the United States (Juvenile Crime, Adult Adjudication, and the Death Penalty: Draconian Policies Revisited). Clearly, most of the world agrees that putting young people on death row is wrong. At one time, so did the United States.
In addition to the execution of juveniles, some of the other U.S. youth incarceration issues include concerns over abuse and overcrowding in California's Youth Authority as well as the increasing practice of allowing more juveniles to be tried in adult criminal courts. From 1992 through 1997, forty-four states and the District of Columbia passed laws making it easier for juveniles to be tried as adults (OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book).
Juvenile
Incarceration and Race
The U.S. policy of trying young people and sometimes children as
adults has disproportionately affected African American and other youth of
color. At the same time, "more lenient policies have been reserved for
their white, middle-class counterparts" (Juvenile
Crime, Adult Adjudication, and the Death Penalty: Draconian Policies
Revisited). In 1995, African American
youths made up 12% of the population, but were arrested at rates double
those for Caucasian youths. In 1994, California passed a punitive
"Three Strikes and You're Out Law" which doubled the sentence for
any felony if the perpetrator had one previous serious or violent felony
conviction. For offenders with two previous serious or violent felony
convictions, the law mandated a 25-year-to-life sentence. Not surprisingly,
statistics reveal that in the 10 years since the law's inception, it has had
a disproportionate impact on communities of color. African Americans have
been incarcerated for third strikes at rates 12 times higher and
Latinos at an incarceration rate 45 percent higher than the third strike
incarceration rate for Caucasians. (Justice
Policy Institute (JPI) . Still Striking Out: Ten Years of California's Three
Strikes).
Because of a zero tolerance policy which ends up resulting in more and more young people being arrested and detained for minor offenses, abuses have occurred. In an article from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice's (CJCJ) Justice Policy Journal (Spring 2003) entitled, Juvenile Crime, Adult Adjudication, and the Death Penalty: Draconian Policies Revisited, the authors note that Amnesty International has reported that a 13-year old girl in Tuscaloosa, AL was detained for 5 weeks in a juvenile jail for possession of what was believed to be marijuana but turned out to be oregano. And, there are other horror stories as well. Once these young people enter the incarceration system, they experience abuse and an environment that, rather than deter future criminality, breeds it. Furthermore, incarceration does not prevent crime. The Justice Policy Institute found that those California counties that used Three Strikes least frequently actually had a decline in violent crime that was 22.5 percent greater than counties using Three Strikes the most frequently (Justice Policy Institute (JPI) . Still Striking Out: Ten Years of California's Three Strikes).
Young
People as Victims and Perpetrators of Crime
Statistics reveal that young
people are disproportionately victims and perpetrators of crime.
- In 1995 and 1996, juveniles were twice as likely as adults to be victims of serious violent crime and three times as likely to be victims of simple assault.
- Overall, juveniles were at greater risk of violent victimizations in 1995 and 1996 than even the most victimized age group of adults.
- Younger juveniles ages 12–14 were more likely than older juveniles to be victims of simple assault (73 per 1,000 vs. 56 per 1,000).
- The property crime victimization rate for juveniles
was greater than the adult property crime victimization rate.
(Adapted from Snyder, H. & Sickmund, M. Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report, p. 26. Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1999)
Analyses of the FBI National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) data for recent years indicate that juveniles commit crimes at different times than adults do.
- In general, the number of violent crimes
committed by adults increases hourly from 6 a.m. through the afternoon
and evening hours, peaks at 11 p.m., and then drops to a low point at 6
a.m. In contrast, violent crimes by juveniles peak in the afternoon
between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m., the hour at the end of the school day.
(OJJDP Statistical Briefing Book)
Clearly, if young people had places to go, programs to be involved in, and adults to supervise them, they would be safer from becoming either victims or perpetrators.
Young People and Our Future
America's future depends on much that we do abroad and at home. And it
depends on young people. It is clear that we must adopt a course of action
that values all human lives equally, regardless of nationality, race,
ethnicity, gender, or age. The prison populations in the United States have
quadrupled in the last 20 years and over half of that population consists of
people under the age of 35. We need to intervene so that young people are no
longer "the jail generation" (David Hoyle. The
Jail Generation). The United States needs to get off the road to
being a nation of imperialism and incarceration, and refigure what
compassion really means.
References & Resources
Office
of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Statistical
Briefing Book
Note: OJJDP will update its publication, Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 1999 National
Report in 2005.
The Jail Generation Alternet.org
Center for Juvenile and
Criminal Justice
(CJCJ) Juvenile Crime,
Adult Adjudication, and the Death Penalty: Draconian Policies Revisited
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