softheart
01-01-2005, 11:13 AM
:angry:
December 29, 2004-January 4, 2005
Open Mic
Kids in Prison
By Hank Mattimore, North Bay Bohemian
The last time I saw "Paul" (not his real name) was in
a dinky cell at
Juvenile Hall in Sonoma County. It was hard to believe
this 15-year-old
baby-faced kid and his buddy had broken into an older
woman's home, tied
her up and demanded that she tell them where she was
hiding her money.
When the frightened woman would not respond, one of
the boys (it was never
clear which one) beat the victim with her own cane.
They left the house
with a small amount of cash and some credit cards.
Fortunately, the woman
was able to untie herself, received treatment for her
bruises and
eventually testified at the pretrial hearing.
Paul and his 17-year-old buddy, a registered gang
member, were arrested
the next day trying to use the woman's credit cards.
Paul was never more
than a gang wannabe. Both boys were charged with
aggravated assault and
robbery. The district attorney, intent on making an
example of them,
insisted they be tried as adults. On the advice of
their public defender,
who feared they could receive life imprisonment if the
case went to trial,
both boys pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 20
years in a
maximum-security adult prison.
I looked at the kid sitting across from me in his
prison sweats and tried
to picture him in 20 years. He doesn't even shave yet,
I thought to
myself. He will have his first shave in prison. The
things he will never
experience, anywhere, hit home: the senior prom,
graduating with his class
from high school, the satisfaction that comes with
earning a paycheck,
moving into his own apartment for the first time. What
a waste of a young
life.
"Paul, what was going on in your head when you broke
into that old lady's
house?" I ask.
"I don't know. We weren't trying to hurt her. We just
needed to buy stuff
to eat."
"Are you sorry for what you did?"
"Yeah, it was wrong. We shouldn't have hurt her. It
just sort of
happened." I looked at him again, trying to figure out
this boy. I had
been a volunteer mentor for Paul for the last two
years. I thought I knew
him. I guess I didn't know him at all. "Paul, do you
have any idea what 20
years looks like?"
"Oh, it won't be so bad. I figure to be out when I'm
35. You know my
girlfriend, Carrie? She said she'd wait for me."
My God, I thought, this is scary. He has no idea of
what's in store for
him. He'll be in prison for more years than he has
been alive, but it
hasn't dawned on him. I asked him if he was a little
bit scared about
being locked up in an adult prison with hardened adult
felons. I tried to
put it as delicately as I could.
"Young guys like you can be preyed upon by the older
guys. I guess you
know that."
"Nah," he answered with adolescent bravado. "I can
take care of myself." I
looked at the peach fuzz on his cheeks and his slight
build. I didn't want
to tell him that kids in adult correctional facilities
are raped five
times more frequently than they are at juvenile
institutions, or that the
suicide rate for juveniles in adult prisons is eight
times the rate for
kids in juvenile facilities. I just pray that he will
survive his
sentence.
The 15-year-old who is so sure he can take care of
himself does not yet
realize that he will no longer be in juvie. He has
graduated prematurely
from the juvenile justice system. Its protections are
no longer there for
him. In the last 10 years in our country, we have seen
a dramatic change
in the way we deal with juvenile criminals--45 states
have passed laws
making it easier to try defendants younger than 18 in
adult courts.
Spurred by a few high-profile cases of heinous crimes
committed by
children, politicians have responded by casting aside
the hard-won wisdom
that has governed our juvenile justice system for
decades: that kids
should be treated differently than adults.
Paul and kids like him are boys being made to play a
man's game. Is that
fair? Of course he should be held accountable for what
he did, but a kid
should not be treated as an adult. Neuroscientists
confirm what we already
knew from life experience: the juvenile brain is not
fully developed until
at least 18 years of age. This is particularly true of
the part of the
brain that controls impulse and aggression.
If this is true of normal teenagers, how much truer is
it of kids who have
themselves been abused or neglected as children?
Doesn't it make sense to
recognize that these kids have diminished culpability
because of their
often tragic life experiences? When a child is born
prematurely, we're
smart enough to take that into consideration as she
grows up. It takes her
longer to catch up with her peers who came to term
normally. Very often,
the perpetrators of juvenile crime have been victims
of abuse that have
medically disrupted their cognitive and emotional
development.
Physicians for Human Rights, an advocacy group of
medical professionals,
is highly critical of our return to a tougher policy
toward juvenile
offenders. Harsh punishment, from incarceration to the
death penalty, has
eclipsed concern for rehabilitation, accountability
and the health and
growth of the whole child. Awareness of young people
as "works in
progress" whose ongoing development, mental health and
physical well-being
are crucial to their own and society's future has been
overtaken by the
political expedience of retribution.
To me, Paul is a poster child for a system in crisis.
The product of an
abusive home, he was taken away from his addicted
mother at age six. His
father was a nameless truck driver who had had a
one-night stand with
Paul's teenaged mother. Paul's sole male role model
was his mother's
boyfriend, who sexually abused him.
Paul went from group home to group home through the
years, like some kind
of child yo-yo. Despairing of finding a group home
that he wouldn't run
away from, the court eventually released Paul to the
custody of his mom.
Once again, she was unable to handle her son and told
him to find another
place to live. He did, on the streets. Living under a
bridge and crashing
at friends' houses, it was just a matter of time
before he fell in with a
gang. They gave him a false sense of family. His
girlfriend, an
18-year-old, became the mother he never really had; he
had even taken to
calling her "Mom."
I pondered the what-ifs in this kid's life: What if
more resources had
been put into helping his mother put her drug habit
behind her and
becoming a better parent? What if the system had
offered professional
mental health counseling to both mother and son? What
if Paul had been
enrolled early on in Head Start or a similar program?
Why do we as a society think that it's a better
investment to spend
$40,000 a year to lock up a kid in prison for 20 years
instead of putting
a fraction of that $800,000 into early intervention
programs? And if we
have to resort to incarcerating kids, for God's sake,
let's be humane
enough to put them in juvenile correctional
facilities, not adult prisons.
All of this was academic now. I rose to leave the boy
who had entered my
life for such a short time but who would haunt my
memory. I gave Paul a
hug and told him that I loved him and promised to
visit him in prison. He
said, "Could you bring me some money when you come?
They tell me you need
money in prison to buy cigarettes and candy and
stuff."
He still didn't get it. I didn't expect that he would.
After all, Paul is still just a kid.
---
Source : North Bay Bohemian (A longtime advocate for
children's rights,
Hank Mattimore is chair of the Sonoma County Juvenile
Justice Commission.
December 29, 2004-January 4, 2005
Open Mic
Kids in Prison
By Hank Mattimore, North Bay Bohemian
The last time I saw "Paul" (not his real name) was in
a dinky cell at
Juvenile Hall in Sonoma County. It was hard to believe
this 15-year-old
baby-faced kid and his buddy had broken into an older
woman's home, tied
her up and demanded that she tell them where she was
hiding her money.
When the frightened woman would not respond, one of
the boys (it was never
clear which one) beat the victim with her own cane.
They left the house
with a small amount of cash and some credit cards.
Fortunately, the woman
was able to untie herself, received treatment for her
bruises and
eventually testified at the pretrial hearing.
Paul and his 17-year-old buddy, a registered gang
member, were arrested
the next day trying to use the woman's credit cards.
Paul was never more
than a gang wannabe. Both boys were charged with
aggravated assault and
robbery. The district attorney, intent on making an
example of them,
insisted they be tried as adults. On the advice of
their public defender,
who feared they could receive life imprisonment if the
case went to trial,
both boys pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 20
years in a
maximum-security adult prison.
I looked at the kid sitting across from me in his
prison sweats and tried
to picture him in 20 years. He doesn't even shave yet,
I thought to
myself. He will have his first shave in prison. The
things he will never
experience, anywhere, hit home: the senior prom,
graduating with his class
from high school, the satisfaction that comes with
earning a paycheck,
moving into his own apartment for the first time. What
a waste of a young
life.
"Paul, what was going on in your head when you broke
into that old lady's
house?" I ask.
"I don't know. We weren't trying to hurt her. We just
needed to buy stuff
to eat."
"Are you sorry for what you did?"
"Yeah, it was wrong. We shouldn't have hurt her. It
just sort of
happened." I looked at him again, trying to figure out
this boy. I had
been a volunteer mentor for Paul for the last two
years. I thought I knew
him. I guess I didn't know him at all. "Paul, do you
have any idea what 20
years looks like?"
"Oh, it won't be so bad. I figure to be out when I'm
35. You know my
girlfriend, Carrie? She said she'd wait for me."
My God, I thought, this is scary. He has no idea of
what's in store for
him. He'll be in prison for more years than he has
been alive, but it
hasn't dawned on him. I asked him if he was a little
bit scared about
being locked up in an adult prison with hardened adult
felons. I tried to
put it as delicately as I could.
"Young guys like you can be preyed upon by the older
guys. I guess you
know that."
"Nah," he answered with adolescent bravado. "I can
take care of myself." I
looked at the peach fuzz on his cheeks and his slight
build. I didn't want
to tell him that kids in adult correctional facilities
are raped five
times more frequently than they are at juvenile
institutions, or that the
suicide rate for juveniles in adult prisons is eight
times the rate for
kids in juvenile facilities. I just pray that he will
survive his
sentence.
The 15-year-old who is so sure he can take care of
himself does not yet
realize that he will no longer be in juvie. He has
graduated prematurely
from the juvenile justice system. Its protections are
no longer there for
him. In the last 10 years in our country, we have seen
a dramatic change
in the way we deal with juvenile criminals--45 states
have passed laws
making it easier to try defendants younger than 18 in
adult courts.
Spurred by a few high-profile cases of heinous crimes
committed by
children, politicians have responded by casting aside
the hard-won wisdom
that has governed our juvenile justice system for
decades: that kids
should be treated differently than adults.
Paul and kids like him are boys being made to play a
man's game. Is that
fair? Of course he should be held accountable for what
he did, but a kid
should not be treated as an adult. Neuroscientists
confirm what we already
knew from life experience: the juvenile brain is not
fully developed until
at least 18 years of age. This is particularly true of
the part of the
brain that controls impulse and aggression.
If this is true of normal teenagers, how much truer is
it of kids who have
themselves been abused or neglected as children?
Doesn't it make sense to
recognize that these kids have diminished culpability
because of their
often tragic life experiences? When a child is born
prematurely, we're
smart enough to take that into consideration as she
grows up. It takes her
longer to catch up with her peers who came to term
normally. Very often,
the perpetrators of juvenile crime have been victims
of abuse that have
medically disrupted their cognitive and emotional
development.
Physicians for Human Rights, an advocacy group of
medical professionals,
is highly critical of our return to a tougher policy
toward juvenile
offenders. Harsh punishment, from incarceration to the
death penalty, has
eclipsed concern for rehabilitation, accountability
and the health and
growth of the whole child. Awareness of young people
as "works in
progress" whose ongoing development, mental health and
physical well-being
are crucial to their own and society's future has been
overtaken by the
political expedience of retribution.
To me, Paul is a poster child for a system in crisis.
The product of an
abusive home, he was taken away from his addicted
mother at age six. His
father was a nameless truck driver who had had a
one-night stand with
Paul's teenaged mother. Paul's sole male role model
was his mother's
boyfriend, who sexually abused him.
Paul went from group home to group home through the
years, like some kind
of child yo-yo. Despairing of finding a group home
that he wouldn't run
away from, the court eventually released Paul to the
custody of his mom.
Once again, she was unable to handle her son and told
him to find another
place to live. He did, on the streets. Living under a
bridge and crashing
at friends' houses, it was just a matter of time
before he fell in with a
gang. They gave him a false sense of family. His
girlfriend, an
18-year-old, became the mother he never really had; he
had even taken to
calling her "Mom."
I pondered the what-ifs in this kid's life: What if
more resources had
been put into helping his mother put her drug habit
behind her and
becoming a better parent? What if the system had
offered professional
mental health counseling to both mother and son? What
if Paul had been
enrolled early on in Head Start or a similar program?
Why do we as a society think that it's a better
investment to spend
$40,000 a year to lock up a kid in prison for 20 years
instead of putting
a fraction of that $800,000 into early intervention
programs? And if we
have to resort to incarcerating kids, for God's sake,
let's be humane
enough to put them in juvenile correctional
facilities, not adult prisons.
All of this was academic now. I rose to leave the boy
who had entered my
life for such a short time but who would haunt my
memory. I gave Paul a
hug and told him that I loved him and promised to
visit him in prison. He
said, "Could you bring me some money when you come?
They tell me you need
money in prison to buy cigarettes and candy and
stuff."
He still didn't get it. I didn't expect that he would.
After all, Paul is still just a kid.
---
Source : North Bay Bohemian (A longtime advocate for
children's rights,
Hank Mattimore is chair of the Sonoma County Juvenile
Justice Commission.