Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Inhumane for children charged as adults to be in adult prisons?
Children Can Never Be Safe in Adult Prisons
Published: April 8, 2012
After an unconscionable delay of nearly three years, the Justice Department needs to issue the final, mandatory rape-prevention policies for federal prisons and state correctional institutions that receive federal dollars. They must improve on the proposed rules issued last spring.
Those rules included more effective ways to investigate alleged attacks, report assaults, and improve medical and psychiatric help for the victims. But they notably failed to call for an end to the barbaric practice of placing children and youths in adult jails and prisons. Children will never be safe without that change.
Thirty-two members of Congress made exactly this point last week in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Jr., noting that ?such a prohibition would be consistent with Congressional intent? as embodied in the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003.
An estimated 10,000 youths under 18 can be found in adult jails or prisons on any given day, according to federal statistics. As the members pointed out, data from a 2005 study showed that youths made up only 1 percent of the inmates in jails and prisons, but 21 percent of the victims of sexual violence.
Numerous studies show that placing children in adult prisons leads to more suicide, victimization and recidivism, which is costly in both human and economic terms.
Based on this evidence, California has broken with the past and, with the rare exception, no longer houses children under 18 in adult prisons. It is time for all states, with guidance from the Justice Department, to follow this sensible and humane example.
Re: Inhumane for children charged as adults to be in adult prisons?
I actually am not on board with charging minors as adults anyway, but I thought the whole point was to treat them like an adult given the severity of the crime. If we aren't going to house them in regular prisons, I am not sure why we would continue to charge them as adults?
I believe this. Putting them in jail with adults sounds like a sure way to make them a lifelong criminal.
I think the point is to give them harsher sentences. If someone is charged as an adult at 15, then they would get the longer sentence and serve it from 18 - when it's done in an adult facility.
As for the story...I guess it's a good thing to not house them in adult prison if it's just causing more problems for them and society. But I can't get that worked up over it.
But why not? There is a case kind of locally to us where a 13-year-old killed and raped his mother. They can't try him as an adult because he is under 14. But it is terrifying to think that as soon as he is 18, he'll be out on the streets.
I am against housing minors with adult populations, but I don't know what the solution is to violent crimes committed by minors.
I understand your concern here but why are these kids being put in adult prisons? Also WHAT ON EARTH happened at home that the kid raped and killed his Mom? That's an SVU episode.
Oh, I don't think at 13 he should be in an adult prison. No way, no how. But at 18 or 21?
He also threatened to rape another 13-year-old on the bus. Intensive therapy is obviously a must, but to send him back at 18 with no family and no prospects?
I guess in general it is hard for me to be in favor of anything that expands the role of prisons in our society. Creating a completely separate prison system that houses kids that have been charged as adults for heinous crimes with the thought that they would be safer seems like another money grab. If we feel that they were that dangerous to society, why are we then stepping back and trying to view them as an indefensible child. To me it seems contradictory.
Did you get any type of back-story with this? I am thinking something awful must happen to a kid that young to behave in such a way. Not excusing his behavior at all.
Because it is recognizing that they are first people, then offenders. Just because they have committed terrible crimes doesn't mean that they should become victims.
Not about the kid, unfortunately. I heard it kind of third hand, and then looked up the news reports.
I can't believe that the answer for this child, and for his community, is to lock him away.
Clearly, there's something very very wrong with him. And not anything that a lifetime on jail will fix.
Someone who's pro kids-charged-as-adults please explain this to me:
If this same child had a sexual relationship with, say, a teacher, the teacher would be tossed into jail for having sex with a minor, even if they both say ot was consentual. Why? Because a 13 year old doesn't have the capacity to legally consent to sex.
...but they have the legal capacity to form the requisite intent for murder?
Honestly, I don't get it. If a kid is a kid, special and protected under the law, unable to contract or consent to stuff... how are we ok with treating them as adults for serious crimes?
I am the 99%.
I don't think a lifetime in jail has an ultimate goal of helping this kid, I think it's more about protecting society from him.
About the sexual relationship question, I guess maybe the difference is the adult is being charged in that case because it's the adult who violated a law, the kid did not in that case.
But the adult's violation is based 100% on the fact that the kid is a kid and therefore lacking adult capacities for understanding and thinking through consequences.
...and yet, that same kid is expected to be able to understand and think through consequences in this other context???
I am the 99%.
Exactly. If you charge them as adults, stick them in prison with adults. I don't think it makes any sense to charge them as adults if they're ultimately not going to be imprisoned as an adult. But I don't want them charged as adults anyway, so take that for what it's worth.
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DI understand that, but intensive therapy (this is a reference from your earlier post) is not going to be given in a juvenile or adult prison facility. We have no mechanism for rehabilitation in the prison system that is effective. When we as society make the decision that a child should be sentenced as an adult, do we really care about what led to the crime committed? If we did, why not include psychiatric evaluation as part of the sentencing. That is humane. Creating new prisons to hold this in-between population of extra violent kids to not be rehabbed and only be prepped to go to adult prison and still be the youngest and likely the smallest inmate, won't change their likely status as a victim.
In terms of shielding people from being victims in prisons why stop at children? Sex offenders are more likely to be victims of violence in prison. People that are smaller framed are more likely to be victims of violence in prison. That is part of the culture that we as society are aware of an do nothing about it.
One can argue that in the case of statutory rape someone else - an adult - was involved. This adult could have stopped it and didn't. This adult could have said something to sway the child into thinking this is what they wanted (and probably did).
No one is assiting a child to murder them. If they are assisting a child with murdering someone else, then they should be charged as an accomplice, or perhaps even the main offender.
Basically, in the murder scenario, there really isn't anyone else to blame and say, "You should have known better and not allowed this."
Although to be honest, I think statutory rape laws are a bit arbitrary and I'm not really in favor of them being enforced for people that are 16 and 17 so long as the other person was not over 5 years older or in some position of authority over the child.
I agree with you.
But what is the answer? Better programs for people who are more likely to commit crimes is probably part of it.
From what I have gathered, prosecuters are trying to get this kid "youthful offender" status. They sentence him as a minor, and revisit everything when he is 18. Maybe that part of a solution?
I think this makes a lot of sense. I mean, why does it have to be so black and white? Becoming an adult with adult-like thinking and coping tools is an evolution over time. We should prosecute these kids who offend during this time frame as such. It's not like a kid who is pretty immature for his/her age magically wakes up on their 18th birthday and thinks with the maturity of an adult.
I hate to be cynical, but when have we ever been able to take a complicated problem and come up with a well-reasoned solution that is also inexpensive to carry out? Most of the black and white solutions we have are because anything more nuanced requires more money or time than taxpayers are willing to contribute, especially for people who are viewed negatively by society.
I think that's just how society works. We have to make rules that generally work. Some people are really mature at 15 and some aren't at 20. But we still have to pick some age at which everyone is treated as an adult. We can't tailor laws to each individual person. Just like a water fountain can't be at a perfect height for every person. We pick numbers that make (or at one point made) sense for most people. I agree that people are lazy, but I also think that nuance can't really be made on the levels of society-wide laws because that leads to all kinds of other problems. Who interprets and implements that nuance? That could lead to abuse of authority. Etc.
I don't disagree, which is why I think it is somewhat hypocritical to try to put forth some sort of legislation that children are defenseless enough that they can't be sent to a prison with other adults without addressing whether it makes sense to sentence children as adults in the first place.
Well in Huber's example it seems that the justice system has something in place to address the in betweens. I was commenting on that specific example and how it's a logical way to address some of the problems we encounter with juvenile offenders. Reevaulating sentencing, treatment and other things once an offender reaches age 18 (particularly a violent crime offense) wouldn't put an extreme burden on things in my opinion.
I understand the hypocrisy thing, and don't disagree. However, I'd have a hard time being all "ooh, the poor child" if a 15 year old commits mass murder that he pre-meditated for months. I'd be perfectly happy to sentence him as an adult, but not move him to adult prisons until he reaches 18. I guess I'm just inconsistent on this point.
Namount of therapy will fix this kind of crazy. Put them beind bars and throw away the key. And I dont care where teh bars are located.
Now children with minor offenses like theft, drug use etc, should not be housed with adult populations under any circumstances
At 18 they will still be the youngest there. I am not sure that gives them much more of an upper hand to defend themselves against the violence in adult prison. I get where you are going with this, but I think it is something that makes us feel better but doesn't really change the outcome.
By 18, they will at least be fully "grown."
I don't know. I don't think there is a right answer. I think we can be empathetic about kids in adult prisons, but still admit that the kid shouldn't be a part of society because they are a danger to others.
I agree. Throw a 13 or 15 year old in adult prison and you might as well brutalize and sodomize them before they even enter the front doors.
Actually, the goal of the juvenile system is to rehabilitate, so there are a vast array of services available to minors being housed in juvenile detention facilities that are not available to adult prisons: therapy (specific to their crimes), schooling, drug counseling, mental health counseling, transitional living, etc.
This is why I think juveniles should still be housed with other juveniles, even if they are charged with adult offenses. Assuming they are eligible for parole at some point, isn't it in everyone's best interests to make sure that they have some sort of skills when they get released?
My understanding is that the effectiveness of the programs in juvenile facilities varies pretty significantly. I haven't read anything on this in awhile, but I wasn't under the impression that the rehabilitation results were great across the board.
As for the last paragraph, I think it sounds good in theory but once that person has graduated from the juvenile to the adult facility to finish their adult sentence, what is the likelihood that the rehabilitation programs in the juvenile facility will stick? If rehabilitation is probable and the ultimate goal, why even impose an adult sentence?