Miranda Rights for Kids

“He knew that the fact that I ran made me guilty of something. So why would Miranda rights mean anything to him?” (48) In the short thirty minutes it took R. Dwayne Betts to commit six felonies his mind had gone into a whirlwind. He was confused about what had happened, he had acted on impulse and did not think about consequences. So by the time he was cuffed, processed, and question he was very confused. He did not understand his Miranda rights. He did not understand that was he said to the police was going to be repeated by a judge to prove guilt. After all he is just a kid. The frontal lobe of the brain controls decision making and impulse control. That part of the male brain is not fully developed until the age of twenty-five. Twenty-five. Dwayne Betts was sixteen, while he should have been held responsible for his actions it must be recognized that he cannot be held responsible to the level of an adult. It is simple, he does not have an adult brain therefore does not make adult decisions therefore cannot be given adult consequences. Mr. Betts goes on to write “after being processed, the police learned I was sixteen; my age, an afterthought” (50). Mr. Betts upon arrest was not even treated as a kid, yes while he was guilty, his age became an afterthought. He crime became what defined him.
This really bothered me. I have a big problem with the way juveniles are treated from both the justice system and many police. I feel as if juveniles are looked at as being guilty until proven innocent, I also believe that they are not looked at as being juveniles, but that is what they are. They are still kids. This really bothers me because the experience juveniles have while their brains are still developing are so vital for future decisions. If a person is put into jail while their frontal lobe is still not fully developed, it will continue to develop around making decisions based off of other criminals. This is unfair and most importantly it is not completely their fault, yes it is their fault for committing the crime but they are still kids.

Adjusting to a New Life

As Mr. Betts begins his sentence at Fairfax County Jail he had many new adjustments to make. The first of which would be sleeping without a mattress. When Mr. Betts first got to the jail it was a “slab of concrete that was my bed” (14). He went eight days without a mattress, shower, or a change of clothes. He had to adjust to live with nothing. His belongings and self was defined in one trash bag and his prison number. I found this rather disturbing. Mr. Betts wrote “90673. That number became more important than my name” (25). Although I understand jails must keep track of their inmates it felt so dehumanizing when I read that especially because he was just a kid. He wrote “After a felony those dreams vanished. It made me wonder, and stare at the wall thinking about what a second chance meant to the guilty. When I read this it really bothered me because he is right, what does a second chance mean to the guilty? Once an inmate is released from prison their punishment is not over, it follows them around for the rest of their lives. They must suffer forever. This suffering comes from the lack of being able to get a job, find housing, find peace, have a good education, and most of all be accepted back into society. This is why so many offenders reoffend. Is there really even a second chance for the guilty? They get their freedoms back when they are let out, but will they ever again be truly free? Mr. Betts was only sixteen years old when he first committed his crime, and then for the rest of his life he will be at a disadvantage. There are so many benefits that have been lost by transferring Mr. Betts to an adult prison. He is really just a kid, now this is not to say that his crimes should just go away. He is guilty, but his brain is not fully developed yet he is still growing and

Four Kids Four Crimes: Frontline Juvenile Justice

The first boy's name is Manny. He grew up on the streets of San Jose, joined gang life, and believe that the only way to protect and prove himself was through physical violence. He was only fourteen years old when he was sentenced to juvenile court for rape. At age seventeen Manny and two other of his gang members attacked a family in his neighborhood, and was arrested on four counts of attempted murder. Manny was found guilty in adult court and sentenced to nine years in an adult prison. Manny says "It might as well be a done deal. Two strikes. . . . I am only 18 years old. I plan to live until I am 50, I'm not perfect. I don't know, I don't think I'm going to make it, you know? I don't think I'm going to stay out for good" (PBS Frontline).
The second boy's name is Shawn. He grew up in an affluent neighborhood in California. Shawn's father was awaken in the middle of the night by Shawn stabbing him repetitively with a knife. He was sixteen years old at the time. Shawn agreed to plea guilty which allowed to stay in the juvenile system, thus having a much lesser punishment. Shawn was allowed to stay in the juvenile system despite his criminal background. He was charged with strong armed burglary and his drinking and marijuana use lead him to be kicked out of two different schools. "Judge Edwards ruled that Shawn remain in the Santa Clara County's Juvenile Hall until he turns 19. In addition, Shawn would be allowed to leave the facility during the day to attend community college classes, private counseling sessions, and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. Eventually he was even allowed to go home for meals with his family."
The third boy's name is Marquese. At seventeen years old he had been in and out of the juvenile justice system quite frequently. Marquese's last charge was auto theft and residential burglary. Prosecutors pushed to have Marquese tried as an adult due to his criminal past, but Marquese's lawyer disagreed. She believed that due to Marquese's childhood circumstances that the juvenile justice system would be the best option to rehabilitate Marquese. The judge in Marquese's case agreed with his lawyer. He believed although the nature of Marquese's crimes were violent his terrible childhood allowed him to have another try at rehabilitation in a Juvenile facility.
The last boy's name is Jose. At fifteen years old Jose was charged with murder. He was involved in a street fight that ended in a death of a young boy. Jose fled the scene. According to Frontline "After fleeing the scene of the assault, José and his friend had found the second victim struggling to walk with a broken ankle, and they helped the victim to get home and clean up. It was also discovered that while José had participated in the beating, he appeared to have played a lesser role in the attack." He was sentenced to 208 days in Juvenile Hall.
Four different juveniles with four different crimes. I believe all the punishments that these young offenders received were appropriate with the exception of Shawn. I believed with Shawn's past criminal experience he should have been tried as an adult. The nature of his crime was heinous. I do not believe that Shawn's life should be ruined for his actions, but I think it sends a message with an affluent, white, teenage boy tries to kill his father and still gets to go home for dinner, while Manny will sit in adult prison for nine years. While there crimes are not the same, they are similar. It is tough to say what should be done with teenagers who commit adult crimes, but what is obvious is the inconsistency between cases.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/juvenile/bench/adulttime.html

A Question of Freedom: Initial Thoughts

The book A Question of Freedom is written by a man named R. Dwayne Betts. I chose to read this book for my second semester Issues in Modern America class. Mr. Betts was only sixteen years old when it only took thirty minutes to change his life forever. Mr. Betts writes "thirty minutes changed my life. It took less thank thirty minutes for me to find the sleeping man in his car, it took less than thirty minutes for me to get to jail" (7). At age sixteen Mr. Betts was with a friend at a mall in Springfield, Virgina when they found a man sleeping in his car. At that time he pulled out a pistol and tried to take the mans car. He committed six felonies in thirty minutes. At age sixteen Mr. Betts was thrown in jail to await his sentence. Upon his time waiting in jail he met a boy named Chi. Chi was only fifteen years old at the time and was being charged as an adult for attempted murder. He told Mr. Betts that he was not guilty. Chi had gotten in a fight at school. A fight at school leads to an attempted murder charge. Mr. Betts writes "Judges learned to read our complexions, crimes, and communities as reasons why we needed the bars of a jail. And anyone telling me that isn't true should take a look at the shades of brown I watched walk in and out of the system. Couldn't tell me then this wasn't true, when I'd seen one white child locked up in three months. Chi told me he wasn't guilty, and I told him it probably didn't matter" (16-17).
The introduction to Mr. Betts story was not surprising to me, but it was still disturbing. In particular Chi's story. A school fight, which happens at my own school, leading to an attempted murder charge? If Chi was charged with assault as a juvenile that I would understand, he could still get an education, take courses on anger management, and pay his debt to society. I believe when young offenders are charged with exaggerated crimes and are put into an adult prison it is going to really hurt them in the future, except Mr. Betts is different. The judge gave him a nine year sentence. This lead Mr. Betts to get out of prison around the age of twenty-five. The human male brain does not fully develop until the age of twenty-five, so that is nine years of Mr. Betts' young life that was developed in prison. Now I believe that Mr. Betts is different because when he came out of jail, we went on to do something different unlike the majority of inmates released each year, which end up back in the prison system. Mr. Betts went on to write this book, A Question of Freedom. In this book he reflects on his time in prison and his crime that he committed. That thirty minutes it took to change his life forever.

Juvenile Offenders Tried in an Adult World

In America we take our amendments in our Constitution very seriously, especially the first ten. The first ten amendments provide us with essential rights and freedoms as well as protects us from being taken advantage of by the justice system of government. If you are being taken to trail for a crime, you have the right to a trail by jury. The jury consists of twelve members with diverse religions, ethnicity's, and gender. The jury are a selection of the defendants peers. Peers. In order to serve jury duty, you must be at least eighteen years old, you must legally be an adult. This means that juveniles who are tried as adults, yet are not adults have a jury of adults, not their peers. I came across an interesting article titled "A Jury of Their Peers". In this article it talks about a method of punishment called peer court. Peer court is a new branch of court. It is a court made for juveniles who commit small offences. In peer court the members of the jury, judge, and lawyers are all peers. They are all under the age of nineteen. According the article "sentences are generally creative forms of community service, never jail time, and the records show that 99% of those sentenced complete their tasks. Doing so keeps their criminal records clean, which helps their college and job applications". I believe the most important part of this system is that it is a jury of their peers.
Although this system would not be reasonable for any serious juvenile offenders, how about Anthony Laster. In my previous blog I told the story about Anthony Laster and his school yard dispute made him face fourteen days in jail and the possibility of up to seven years in an adult prison. Peer court seems like it would have been the better option for Anthony. In peer court his own peers would have been able to think in the same way that Anthony might have at the time of the "crime". I believe providing real peers for juvenile offenders would make the justice system more fair to juveniles. A thirty-four year old man cannot think the same way that a young offender would, but a seventeen year old teenager would have a more realistic insight. Now, this does not mean that a sixteen year old who commits car jacking with a deadly weapon should go home and with some fines and community service, but is it fair to take away a person's life and replace it with the misery of jail for one mistake?


http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=3&hid=107&sid=01408fa0-ac33-4f7a-8f1e-fe5b61b90dc3%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=tth&AN=17575039

Juvenile Justice Research

Anthony Laster was only fifteen years old when he was charged as an adult for crimes that he did not understand. He was facing "strong armed robbery and extortion" and sat in jail for four weeks because his family could not afford his bail. His crime? He stole two dollars from another kid from his school. Anthony cannot communicate more than the level of a five year old. Although Anthony's charges were dropped that does not remove the trauma that he faced. There is a fine line between giving consequences to juveniles who commit crime and ruining their entire life. Let's say that the charges against Anthony had not been dropped, then what? According to Florida Department for Corrections the average jail time for a robbery conviction in the year 1997 is 6.9 years. That is almost seven years of hard time that Anthony Laster would have served. He would have come out roughly around twenty two years old, all for stealing two dollars. Let us consider Anthony Laster to be lucky. Laster is an excellent example of the justice system being too hard on juveniles.
Now let's look at the case of Ronnie Vera. Washington Monthly posts "He and a friend were caught stealing a bike in a neighborhood by a prominent community activist in Tuscon. Ronnie turned to run. His friend pulled out a gun and shot and killed the community activist. One year later, a jury convicted both Ronnie and his friend of murder." Ronnie was only sixteen years old at the time. He is now serving a twenty-five to life sentence in an adult prison. Ronnie was charged with first degree murder and burglary in the first degree. Ronnie is in no doubt guilty of theft, but murder? No. This is yet another example of the justice system being too tough on juveniles.
Cracking down on juvenile crime does not work as a deterrent. It does not work because adult prisons are too harsh. The adult prison system does not correct inmates. Juveniles who go into adult prisons at a young age and come out in their midlife will struggle with finding a job, not violating their parole, and adjusting to life in the real world. Howard Husock, the vice president for policy research for The Manhattan Institute for Policy Research said "About 700,000 inmates are released from state and federal prison each year. Of those released, about two-thirds re-offend within three years." While I do not believes that the crimes that juveniles commit should be taken lightly, a mistake a person made as a kid should not ruin their whole future. The two-thirds of the inmates who are released then return, return with a reason, but for those who are juveniles at the time of their incarceration were not taught any better. The human male brain is not fully developed until the age of twenty-five, so a young man who is incarcerated let's say at the age of seventeen will still be developing mentally for eight years in prison. Eight years. What they have learned and developed in those eight years sets them up to be re-incarcerated.


http://library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/document.php?id=cqresrre2001042700&type=hitlist&num=0
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/1999/9906.twohey.littleton.htm
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/35263313/ns/business-careers/

Race in America

In the article "Behind the Scenes: Black and shopping in America" from CNN.com Leah Wells, a shopper at GAP who was followed with her two friends and accused of shop lifting, said "No matter your education, your status or profession, some still only see the color of your skin". She could not have been more right. It does not matter how educated a person is or how important society might view them, what defines black people is the color of their skin. Americans everywhere need to learn to look at personalities first, rather than the appearance of someone different than you. I believe that the segregation comes from all ends. In another article on CNN.com it talks about Sunday churches still having segregation. It talks about a small church in California that more white people have started to join. The pasture talks about how the black people of his church have had some serious concerns about this. I believe this starts with a white issue. Although many people may claim to not be racist, is this how it truly is? I believe that black prejudice is greater than many people think. I believe many people are naive to how big prejudices are. In this article it said that only about 5 percent of America's churches are integrated. 5 percent. Integration should come naturally, but in places where integration is forced such as schools it is not truly integration. Church is a place of option and a place to be comfortable, so reading that only five percent of churches are integrated truly shows how comfortable people are. I believe that every town in America needs to be integrated, clearly it already can be by law, but by choice. People must become more comfortable so America can finally become one nation united.