This story was produced in partnership with the Center for Public Integrity
Lionel Townsend will turn 14 in September and a few months after that he will be able to return to school, ending a year of exile. Lionel admits he got into fights multiple times at Magnolia Middle School. When he was charged with vandalizing a school bus security camera, he was booted from school. He fought again in a community day program. The county Youth Court eventually put him on probation and an order to stay at home with an ankle monitor.
Youths are involved in murders, either as victims or perpetrators, at about the same rate as they have been for the last few years, according to newly gathered statistics. Both figures are far down from an early 1990s peak. In 1994, juveniles were involved in committing more than 2,300 murders. The year before that, nearly 3,000 minors were murder victims.
In 2010, the statistics had fallen to 788 and 948 respectively, according to data recently published by the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, which complies figures voluntarily reported by many jurisdictions nationwide, including the largest urban areas in the country. For the past decade, neither number has gone above 1,100.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments today that may lead to a chance at parole for more than 400 inmates convicted of murder as minors. The Court is deciding if a June 2012 U.S. Supreme Court decision is retroactive, and if so, what sentence should be given to two convicts in today’s cases. The federal court, in Miller v. Alabama, said that minors convicted of murder have a right to present mitigating factors — such as the immaturity of youth — to sentencing judges. That invalidates one-size-fits-all mandatory life without parole sentences listed in federal and 28 states’ statutes. “It’s about retroactivity and also resentencing,” said Marsha Levick, deputy director of the Juvenile Law Center in Pennsylvania, who is arguing for retroactivity before the court.
The juvenile justice system in Shelby County, Tenn. is entering its fourth year of federal inspection, now with a thick report about alleged problems. A full remediation plan for the court could be drafted in the next three months. The Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County denies due process to youth, according to an April, 2012 report by the federal Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. The investigation finds probable cause to believe that some youth are not adequately notified of the charges against them, are not advised of their Miranda rights, do not enjoy timely probable cause hearings and are sent to adult court on only cursory inquiries. The look at 66,000 court records also, the DOJ argues, shows that black children are treated less leniently than white peers.
A pair of new scholarly articles say nominally neutral rules in the juvenile justice system can actually fail girls, especially, emphasizes one author, young women of color. Discrimination is sort of hidden, said Professor Francine Sherman, director of the Juvenile Rights Advocacy Project at Boston College Law School and author of the paper “Justice for Girls: Are We Making Progress?”
“If there were laws on the books that said we’re going to do one thing for girls and another thing for boys, that would be challengeable” in court, she said. Instead, the discrimination is in practice, where “we do one thing for girls and one thing for boys.”
For example, in some states minors are still subject to criminal prostitution charges, a charge that disproportionately falls on females, and can make them less likely to run away from their exploiters. Both Sherman and a colleague point out that girls are more likely than boys to be locked up for the status violation of running away. “Most of the girls are running away from abuse,” said Jyoti Nanda, author of “Blind Discretion: Girls of Color and Delinquency in the Juvenile Justice System” and core faculty member in both the David J. Epstein Public Interest Law Program and the Critical Race Studies Program at the University of California Los Angeles School of Law.
A conservative think tank in Texas and the ACLU may seem to have little in common. But they and other conservative, liberal and nonpartisan groups are working — successfully — on juvenile justice law changes that are putting minors firmly in juvenile court, out of incarceration with adults and in community-based rehabilitation. “There’s a great opportunity for collaboration across the aisle on this issue,” said Marc Levin, senior policy advisor at Right on Crime. The Right on Crime initiative started in 2010 inside Austin’s Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF), a conservative think tank. Right on Crime evaluates adult and juvenile corrections reforms through a lens of effectiveness and cost savings and promotes its findings in other states. For the last few years, as state revenues shrink and budgets must be slashed, the Texans’ money-saving ideas are catching more ears.
The NAACP launched an online petition this week, inviting people to lend their names to a campaign to end the use of pepper spray on students in Birmingham, Al. public schools. “As long as we continue to treat students like criminals, they will grow up to become criminals,” said NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous, in a written statement. The NAACP argues that Mace and pepper spray may be legitimate parts of an adult or crowd policing strategy, but are not acceptable for use on school children. Birmingham’s public school population is overwhelmingly African-American.
On the desk of California Gov. Jerry Brown is a key that could unlock the prison gates for inmates sentenced as youth to life without parole. The key comes in the form of legislation, Senate Bill 9, a long-fought proposal to allow such inmates to petition for resentencing after serving 15 years. Inmates are not eligible if the crime involved torture or the killing of officials such as law enforcement officers. To get a chance at parole or a reduced sentence, the offender must convince a judge of their remorse and their progress toward rehabilitation. Advocates say the proposal is a win for children, but opponents say it’s a loss for crime victims.
“The Fair Sentencing for Youth Act [SB 9] ensures youth are held accountable for their crimes in a way that reflects the distinct characteristics of youth, with a focus on rehabilitation and reintegration into society,” said Jody Kent-Lavy, Director and National Coordinator of the national Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth, in a written statement.
One hundred years ago yesterday, Virginia’s governor was “besieged” with pleas for clemency for 17-year-old Virginia Christian, scheduled to die that day in the state’s electric chair for murder. A century later, the California Supreme Court scheduled an opinion on a latter-day juvenile defendant facing what some say is a similar sentence. The century makes a difference in treatment of underage criminals. Christian, a black young woman, was headed to the electric chair in 1912 for “the murder of Mrs. Ida Virginia Belote, a frail white woman aged 72 years,” after a dispute over laundry the girl had not returned. According to a century-old story in the New York Times, the murder weapons were a poker, a cuspidor and a towel.
Meridian, Miss., is running a “school-to-prison pipeline,” using the city police as a “taxi service,” the federal Department of Justice charges. Department officials say the city is arresting children for school discipline infractions then denying them due process. “Based on the serious and longstanding nature of the violations, as well as … refusal to cooperate with our investigation and provide reasonable access to information,” the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. DOJ thinks a federal lawsuit is necessary to “vindicate” the rights of children in the city of Meridian and Lauderdale County. The DOJ made the announcement in an Aug. 10 open letter to Mississippi officials outlining the findings of an eight-month federal investigation.
