There has been a lot of talk recently about whether it is acceptable for our justice system to hand down life sentences for those who have committed crimes as youth.
A recent story (November) on National Public Radio discusses this issue specific to juveniles who have committed a crime that does not involve the death of another person. Already, as of 2005, juveniles cannot be sentenced to receive the death penalty for any crime, but life without parole by comparison has been a bit of an uncharted area. The NPR story presents the case stories of two men; Joe Sullivan who was accused of rape as a young teen and Terrance Graham who was 16 when he was arrested in a home invasion robbery.
Because both young men had previous violations, mostly misdemeanors, the judges similarly decided that these men were “beyond help” in one of the judges words and that they were destined to continue a life of crime. Both were sentenced to life behind bars with no possiblity of parole. The article goes on to discuss arguments by those who support and oppose legislation to ban these types of sentences for youth. Take a look here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120183593
A few days earlier, NPR ran another similar story which presented the cases of two other men who were headed down a troubled road as adolescents. Both were arrested multiple times, one for carjacking and the other who “helped burn down a federal building, shot a cow for fun and hit a police officer after a racially charged bar fight.” The twist to this story is that these men both later led extremely successful lives and demonstrated great civic responsibility after reaching adulthood, one becoming a United States Senator and the other an accomplished writer and poet. These two men discuss their initiative to put an end to juvenile life sentences: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114277949&ps=rs
Another recent article in the New York Times (December 1st) provides scientific evidence that young adults and adolescents may process information about risks differently than adults because a part of the brain which controls things like decision-making, planning, evaluating risks/rewards is still in the process of developing. The argument proposed based on this research is that adolescents still have the ability to “grow out” of criminal behaviors as their development completes. Continuing to send these youth away for life without parole, it is argued, ignores this potential for developmental change. Read the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01conv.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=conversation%20with%20lawrence%20steinberg&st=cse
Where do we draw the balance? Both sides agree that consequences are needed for youth who engage in criminal acts, but what crimes (if any) should result in a youth being locked up for life? Is it possible to determine which youths are “beyond help” as a judge put it? Should we ever consider a youth “beyond help”?
What do you think?
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As a mental health professional in the field of community mental health, I have yet to see a person who is “beyond help”. There are mental health areas which we are inexperienced in treating, such as antisocial personality disorders, an area very relevant to criminogenics. The limitations of treatment usually revolve around how many resources we are willing to dedicate to treatment. In the case of a youth who could be incarcerated for life, we are willing to commit millions of dollars to his or her incarceration over a period of decades. Were we willing to commit comparable resources to mental health treatment, education, monitoring, enforcement and other areas for these same people, I believe we would quickly establish effective and efficient forms of treatment.
On a separate level, I believe the fact we are seriously contemplating incarcerating children for life is a sign of a significant moral atrophy. It is a level of cruelty not found in the vast majority of societies.
The effort to predict “criminality” as an intrinsic trait the individual CHILD has is an idea that supports the drugging of inappropriate behavior, regardless of the cause. Who though this was a good idea?! Given the fact the drugs being used are not in real world practice, “safe and effective” for everyone, and carry serious, even lethal risk, and given outcomes in REAL LIFE, it is in my opinion nothing more than eugenics. At this point in time, in real life, I don’t think that the practice of indiscriminate drugging of children Without Informed Consent is acceptable. Parents in Washington have in fact been told they have no say in what drugs are prescribed to their child; and had no idea that what happened to their child was what happens to humans who are given the drugs that were used to “treat” them. And, even if they are allowed to participate in decisions about their own child’s “medical treatment” of a psychiatric diagnosis; they are frequently not given appropriate or adequate information to, in reality, give Informed Consent. In Real Life, that is a violation of a Parent or Guardian’s Constitutional Rights, not to mention the child’s right to be protected by their parent or guardian.
All due respect, I suggest this group investigate how mental health services and psychiatric practices have harmed and led to much of the fiscal, societal and human tragedy you are endeavoring to transform with this Mental Health Transformation.
I am writing because I think you need to clean up the behavior on campuses of UofW–and maybe come up with the data based in real word outcomes to show that children of any age, need an Adult other than the prescriber determining if it is a good idea to take any psychiatric drug to treat an undesirable behavior—. Particularly, if the child has been traumatized—and let’s be real, a significant percentage, if not the majority, who end up at CSTC and any other CLIP or other out of home placement, have experienced trauma!
It is a great thing that Washington State has determined to provide Trauma Informed Care—http://involuntarytransformation.blogspot.com/2011/01/can-trauma-be-cause-of-mental-illness.html
Charles Whitfield’s work is impressive. Here is a link to his Article in the International Journal of Risk and Safety in Medicine.