Avery D. Niles Report

Placing a juvenile in a detention center early in the court process increases the risk that youths will be found to be delinquent and damage their prospects for future success. A majority of the youths that are placed in these facilities pose little or no threat to the public and essentially do not need to be there. This portion of the juvenile court process is detrimental to the future and mental aspects of a youth’s life. We desperately need to change the way that we handle the juvenile court system because we are only reinforcing the delinquent behavior that these youths have been exposed to. We need to focus on the rehabilitation and prevention efforts for these youths not the punishment aspect and until then (insert a better ending).

He discusses the unfair treatment these children who are locked up receive as well as the employees who so desperately fight to keep their job rather than help the children. Gatesville, a institution in Texas is described as having “job interviews that last ten minutes [as well as the] techniques to screen out potentially abusive applicants, such as screening, not being done” (Wooden, p.15). Another issue addressed in these sections is the fact that most, if not all children when sent to an institution, do not get a psychological evaluation. These children can come in, learn to obey the teachers and guards and be released without any psychological treatment to deal with the issue that sent them to the facility in the first place. Wooden also addresses the issue of the employees who work there need the facility more than most of the children do. This causes a problem which leaves more employees than children. Although there are many issues with these facilities themselves, how these children got into these facilities is Wooden’s next

“What I Learned as a Kid in Jail” is a speech given at a TEDTalk convention to a group of young men and women delivered by Ismael Nazario, a prison reform advocate where he does work for The Fortune Society, a non profit organization. Nazario was arrested when he was just under eighteen for robbery and sent directly to Rikers Island where he spent 300 days in solitary confinement, before ever being convicted of the crime. Nazario’s goal in delivering his speech to a group of younger men and women is to make them aware of the way correctional officers treat younger inmates and how inmates should be spending their time doing productive activities and understanding they do not have to go back to the life they were living. Nazario accomplished this goal by sharing personal stories from his past experiences.

In the film Prison State, the focus was on the juveniles in the state of Kentucky, specifically individuals living in the Beecher Terrace neighborhood. Beecher Terrace is a low-income area that the majority of detainees lived in. Because individuals grew up in poverty they were predisposed to other risk factors that increased their likelihood of becoming a juvenile delinquent and an adult offender later on in life. Two major issues in the state of Kentucky were the over-crowdedness in the prisons and the high cost to incarcerate individuals. The cost to incarcerate a child was $87,000 a year for non-violent offenses. Most juveniles ended up arrested and in juvenile detention centers because of habitual truancy and disregard for parental authority. This film went on to discuss ways to reduce incarceration cost and address the reason why the youth from Beecher Terrace seemed destined to go prison.

In Outgrowing Juvenile Justice, Michael Jonas (2001) raises several important issues concerning juvenile justice policies and practices. In discussing Jamal Vick, a range of youth crime issues surfaces, including:

the same time, and more emphatically, be made to feel that he is the object of its care and solicitude, the ordinary trappings of the court room are out of place in such hearings the judge on a bench looking down upon the boy standing at the bar can never evoke a proper sympathetic spirit. the vision to attend to public safety and promote positive youth development ramsey county will operate a fair and equitable juvenile justice system the purpose of the juvenile justice system the purpose of the juvenile justice now a days is to attend to public safety and foster positive youth outcomes that are fair and equitable the ore purpose of the juvenile justice system are to promote public safety and reduce juvenile delinquency by developing individual responsibility and accountability juveniles who violates the law need to be held accountable however non essential incarceration has been shown to do further damage to juveniles at great expenses to taxpayers and public safety in one section of his commentaries blackstone identified people who were incapable of committing a crime two things were required to hold someone accountable for a crime

Children in adult prison are in severe danger. They suffer higher rates of physical and sexual abuse and suicide. Compared to those held in juvenile detention centers, youth held in adult jails are 7.7 times more likely to commit suicide. Five times more likely to be sexually assaulted. Twice as likely to be beaten by staff. 50% are more likely to be attacked with a weapon. In the public’s eye, the teens that suffer through this are just getting what they deserve. But in reality the restricted youth are at great risk of sexual assault. More than 1 in 10 youth in state juvenile facilities and large non-state facilities reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another youth or facility staff in the past 12 months or since admission, if less than 12 months. We agree that adult court is for the most serious and radical offenders. While it is true that juvenile offenders are waivered to adult courts because they are a menace to the community and the reasoning of their crime, did it occur to you that youths held in adult prison are at greater risk of sexual victimization? The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission found that “more than any other group of incarcerated persons, youth incarcerated with adults are probably at the highest risk for sexual abuse.” Some of you may say that this isn’t such a horrible thing compared to their sins. But this crucial and inhuman act may be more deadly than you think.

Studies suggest that there is a divide between the government and public response to juvenile incarceration. Bullis & Yovas (2005) state that support is given to correctional facilities to house juvenile offenders as a form of punishment (as cited in Shannon, 2013, p. 17). Individuals who support this perspective are often more likely to support the construction of more prisons and stern penalties on crime based upon the presumptions that youthful offenders are aware of the consequences of their actions (Drakeford, 2002 as cited in Shannon, 2013, p. 17). On the other hand, opponents of this perspective believe that incarceration creates an opportunity to rehabilitate the offenders (Huffine, 2006 as cited in Shannon, 2013, p. 18). This perspective supports the purpose of juvenile detention centers as “preparatory in nature – that is, offering services focused on the development of skills needed to return successfully to mainstream

By reading this book, I learned a lot about teenagers’ critical situations at juvenile hall. This book gave me a greater insight and deeper understanding of what their lives are like and the challenges they face in this place. I also learned that the legal system is not doing a great deal to help these young kids mend their lives. They are not being offered counseling or therapy which could help facilitate a great deal of things for them such as, getting a better orientation of a path for them to follow, dealing with the excessive amount of stress they face in a healthy way

Congress would also like to strengthen the Disproportionate Minority Contact (DMC) core protection by requiring States to take concrete steps to reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system and provide safe and humane conditions of confinement for youth in State or local custody by prohibiting use of JJDPA funds for dangerous practices and encouraging States to adopt best practices and standards to eliminate dangerous practices and unnecessary isolation. Not to mention, provide a research‐based continuum of mental health and substance abuse services to meet unmet needs of court‐involved youth and their families, including diversion and re‐entry services and assist States in compliance with the JJDPA by establishing incentive grants to encourage States to adopt evidence‐based and/or promising practices that improve outcomes for youth and their communities. For States that are deemed to be out of compliance with any of the core protections, Congress should require any JJDPA funds withheld for non‐compliance to be set aside and made available to those States as improvement grants to help them with those particular protections.

Many juveniles who entered the juvenile justice system are victims themselves of parental mistreatment such as neglect, physical, and emotional abuse. Once children into the juvenile system and is labeled a juvenile similar to adults being labeled a felon. These young offenders are stigmatized as criminal with little distinction between adults and juvenile offenders entering the prison system for the first time. Bernstein (2014) paints a vivid picture of how incarcerated juveniles expose to a new set of challenges such as posttraumatic stress syndrome, curtailed education, gang affiliation, and a gladiator mentality. These challenges that can develop in juvenile facility has

“Keep trying.” An inspirational advice made by one of the former inmates of Highlands County Jail, Carrie Ashby when she witnessed how her life has changed with the education she received even behind bars. The stigma of neglect and discrimination are just too much for the inmates whom we are trying to help improve their lives, and having low to no education at all makes the situation worse than it is. Instead of letting the time pass through watching televisions or over thinking, it is a brilliant move to spend funds in educating inmates.

The United States leads the world in the incarceration of young people, there are over 100,000 youth placed in jail each year. Locking up youth has shown very little positive impact on reducing crime. Incarcerating youth have posed greater problems such as expenses, limited education, lack of employment, and effect on juveniles’ mental and physical well-being.

In my opinion, all stay involved should bear responsibility for the conditions at WGYCF. The staff at WGYCF deliberately allowing crime to happen right under their nose and did nothing about it. “WGYCF staff engaged in a pattern or practice of using excess force against youth” Bohm, R. & Haley, K. (2014). The staff failed to supervise, failed to report allegations of staff sexual abuse, failed to protect the youth from ongoing harmful attacks from other youth inmates. Therefore, all staff involved should bear responsibility for the conditions at WGYCF especially Mississippi State Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps.

There is a moderate portion of juvenile law violations that are minor; however some young offenders are extremely dangerous and violent. (Caldwell, 2002) Studies have shown that most delinquent behavior stems from some sort of underlining issue or issues in a youth’s present or past history. State and county authorities must deal with these offenders while also responding to their personal social problems. This could range from child abuse and neglect, family issues and drug abuse, exposure to pornography and exposure to aggressive role models.