Burning Down the House : The End of Juvenile Prison (9781595589668) (54 page)

  
54
  
In 2008, only 12 percent of violent crime
: Neelum Arya,
State Trends: Legislative Victories from 2005 to 2010 Removing Youth from the Adult Criminal Justice System
(Washington, DC: Campaign for Youth Justice), p. 14.

  
54
  
According to Lisa Thurau
: Lisa Thurau, “When Asking, ‘Why Me?' Means Disorderly Conduct,” Viewpoints: Youth Today, September 1, 2009, strategies
foryouth.org/sfysite/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Viewpoints-YOUTH-TODAY-05-31-12.pdf
.

  
59
  
Young people of color face a different reality
: Miroslava Chavez-Garcia,
States of Delinquency: Race and Science in the Making of California's Juvenile Justice System
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), p. 1.

  
59
  
Racism does not merely inform or infuse our juvenile justice system
: Even as the number of young people behind bars has dropped in recent years, the racialization of youth incarceration has not improved. In fact, there are early indicators that reform may actually worsen the racial injustice that permeates the juvenile system, as white youth benefit most from expanded discretion and community alternatives. Recent research indicates that probation officers and other system staff—even those who are racial or ethnic minorities themselves—are subconsciously prone to attribute more negative characteristics to youths of color than to nonwhite youths, and to recommend more punitive treatment.

  
59
  
In almost every state
: Spike Bradford, “Two New Reports Show Juvenile Confinement Reform in Five States,” Reclaiming Futures, March 13, 2003,
www.reclaimingfutures.org/blog/two-new-reports-show-juvenile-confinement-reform-five-states
.

  
59
  
Black youths are five times more likely than their white peers to be incarcerated
: James Bell and Laura John Ridolfi, “Adoration of the Question: Reflections on the Failure to Reduce Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Juvenile Justice System,” W. Haywood Burns Institute, December 2008, p. 2,
www.burnsinstitute.org/downloads/BI%20Adoration%20of%20the%20Question_2.pdf
.

  
60
  
African American youth are 4.5 times more likely
: “And Justice for Some: Differential Treatment of Youth of Color in the Justice System,” National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 2007, describes in painstaking detail why, in far greater proportion than whites, youths of color enter the criminal justice system. See also Bell and Ridolfi, “Adoration of the Question”; and ACLU of Northern California and W. Haywood Burns Institute, “Balancing the Scales of Justice: An Exploration into How Lack of Education, Employment, and Housing Opportunities Contribute to Disparities in the Criminal Justice System,” n.d.,
www.burnsinstitute.org/article.php?id=248
.

  
60
  
nine times as likely to be incarcerated for crimes against persons
: Mark Soler, Dana Shoenberg, and Marc Schindler, “Juvenile Justice: Lessons for a New Era,”
Georgetown Journal on Poverty Law & Policy
16, symposium issue (2009).

  
60
  
Nearly half (48 percent) of all juveniles incarcerated on drug charges are black
: “Racial Inequality in Youth Sentencing,” Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth,
fairsentencingofyouth.org/the-issue/advocacy-resource-bank/racial-inequality-in-youth-sentencing/
.

  
60
  
According to research from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency
: “And Justice for Some: Differential Treatment of Youth of Color in the Justice System,” National Council on Crime and Delinquency, January 2007, p. 2.

  
61
  
“multi-million dollar cottage industry”
: Bell and Ridolfi, “Adoration of the Question,” p. 15.

  
61
  
metal detectors and onsite police officers in their schools
: According to research by the W. Haywood Burns Institute and the American Civil Liberties Union, young people who attend schools patrolled by police are more likely to be suspended, expelled,
and
arrested at a young age. See W. Haywood Burns Institute and American Civil Liberties Union, “Balancing the Scales.”

  
61
  
“youth control complex”
: Victor Rios,
Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys
(New York: New York University Press, 2011).

  
63
  
Childhood trauma such as Curtis experienced is so widespread
: Andrea J. Sedlak and Karla S. McPherson, “Survey of Youth in Residential Placement: Youth's Needs and Services,”
Juvenile Justice Bulletin
, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, April 2010,
www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/grants/227660.pdf
.

  
64
  
“Children exposed to violence”
: Robert L. Listenbee Jr., Joe Torre, Gregory Boyle, Sharon W. Cooper, Sarah Deer, Deanne Tilton Durfee, Thea James, et al.,
Report of the Attorney General's National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence
, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, December 12, 2012, pp. 171–72,
www.justice.gov/defendingchildhood/cev-rpt-full.pdf
.

  
68
  
“too often have become places of poor treatment and abuse”
: U.S. Attorney General's National Task Force on Children Exposed to Violence, University of Maryland Hearing transcript, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, pp. 45–46,
www.ojjdp.gov/defendingchildhood/baltimore-hearing-transcript1-3.pdf
.

4. The Rise of the Super-Predator and the Decline of the Rehabilitative Ideal

  
72
  
“more savage than salvageable”
: DiIulio quoted in the
Wall Street Journal
, 1997, cited in Christopher G. Robbins,
Expelling Hope: The Assault on Youth and the Militarization of Schooling
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008), p. 33.

  
72
  
Body Count
: William J. Bennett, John J. DiIulio, and John P. Walters,
Body Count: Moral Poverty . . . and How to Win America's War Against Crime and Drugs
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996).

  
73
  
“Juvenile justice policies”
: A. Platt,
The Child Savers: The Invention of Delinquency
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968); and M.E. Wolfgang,
T.P. Thornberry, and R.M. Figlio,
From Boy to Man, from Delinquency to Crime
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987), cited in Barry Krisberg,
Juvenile Justice: Redeeming Our Children
(Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2005).

  
73
  
super-predator “phenomenon”
: Fox Butterfield,
All God's Children
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002).

  
73
  
kindergartners hauled off in handcuffs
: “Georgia Girl, 6, Gets Handcuffed, Arrested After Throwing Tantrum in Kindergarten Class,” Smoking Gun, April 7, 2012,
www.thesmokinggun.com/buster/little-girl-battery-arrest-312678
; “Baltimore Police Handcuff, Arrest 4 Children Under Age 10 at Their School,” CBS Baltimore, March 20, 2012,
baltimore.cbslocal.com/2012/03/30/baltimore-police-handcuff-arrest-4-children-under-age-10-at-their-school/
; Laura Hibbard, “Four Maryland Children, Ages 8 and 9, Arrested and Handcuffed for Fighting at School,”
Huffington Post
, April 2, 2012,
www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/02/four-maryland-children-arrested-and-handcuffed_n_1397622.html
.

  
73
  
“demography is destiny”
: Robin Templeton, “Superscapegoating: Teen ‘Super-Predators' Hype Set Stage for Draconian Legislation,”
Extra!
, January–February 1998.

  
73
  
San Francisco Examiner
tried to outdo Joseph Pulitzer's hyperbolic
New York World
: David Nasaw,
The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000).

  
74
  
“Teenage Time Bomb”
: David J. Krajicek, “ ‘Super-Predators': The Making of a Myth,”
Youth Today
, April 1999, p. 1.

  
74
  
“America is being threatened”
: Templeton, “Superscapegoating.”

  
74
  
more than half of all local news stories about youth focused on violence
: Ibid.

  
74
  
“The political demonization of young black males”
: Barry C. Feld,
Bad Kids: Race and the Transformation of the Juvenile Court
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).

  
75
  
creating mechanisms to transfer many more youths to the adult system
: See, e.g., National Center for Juvenile Justice, “Different from Adults: An Updated Analysis of Juvenile Transfer and Blended Sentencing Laws with Recommendations for Reform,” November 2008; MacArthur Foundation Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice, “Issue Brief 5: The Changing Borders of Juvenile Justice: Transfer of Adolescents to Adult Court.” For more on the subject, see the Campaign for Youth Justice website,
www.campaignforyouthjustice.org
.

  
75
  
A number of states went so far as to revise their juvenile codes
: Krisberg,
Juvenile Justice
, p. 3.

  
75
  
Other states made similar changes
: Feld,
Bad Kids
, p. 251.

  
75
  
The result was that the number of cases heard each year in juvenile court rose 44 percent
: Krisberg,
Juvenile Justice
, p. 3.

  
75
  
“At the state level”
: Ibid.

  
76
  
“Since 1980”
: John J. Dilulio, “The Coming of the Super-Predators,”
Weekly Standard
, November 27, 1995, p. 23,
cooley.libarts.wsu.edu/schwartj/criminology/dilulio.pdf
.

  
76
  
“On the horizon”
: Ibid.

  
77
  
“No one in academia”
: Ibid.

  
78
  
violent crime arrests peaked in 1994
: Isaac Wolf, “Investigation Reveals Widely Uneven Treatment and Oversight of Adolescents Nationwide in Adult Jails,” Wolf Scripps Howard News Service, November 18, 2011,
www.tcpalm.com/news/2011/nov/18/investigation-reveals-widely-uneven-treatment-of/
.

  
78
  
Between 1995 and 2004
: The Annie E. Casey Foundation, “A Road Map for Juvenile Justice Reform,” 2012, p. 11,
www.aecf.org/~/media/PublicationFiles/AEC180essay_booklet_MECH.pdf
.

  
78
  
more than twice as many young people were adjudicated on charges of disorderly conduct
: Ibid.

  
79
  
“Super-predator thinking”
: E-mail correspondence with Bart Lubow, July 31, 2013.

  
80
  
Just desert advocates
: James C. Howell, “Superpredators and Other Myths About Juvenile Justice,” in
Preventing and Reducing Juvenile Delinquency: A Comprehensive Framework
, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2009), p. 12,
www.sagepub.com/upm-data/27206_1.pdf
.

  
80
  
“judicial decisions”
: Feld,
Bad Kids
, p. 3.

5. The Fist and the Boot: Physical Abuse in Juvenile Prisons

  
82
  
But formal investigations into conditions at the CYA
: Kathryn Seligman, “Petitions for Modification: Asking the Juvenile Court to Modify a Placement or Commitment Order After the Dispositional Hearing,” First District Appellate Project, San Francisco, CA, January 2003, p. 30,
www.fdap.org/downloads/news/CYA_Packet_3-04.pdf
.

  
83
  
About half has experienced some kind of group punishment
: Andrea J. Sedlak and Karla S. McPherson, “Conditions of Confinement: Findings from the National Survey of Youth in Residential Placement,”
Juvenile Justice Bulletin
, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, May 2010,
www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/227729.pdf
.

  
83
  
Fear of abuse was equally pervasive
: Ibid.

  
83
  
“Workers forced one boy”
: Nicholas Confessore
, “
4 Youth Prisons in New York Used Excessive Force,”
New York Times
, August 24, 2009.