Juvenile crime is not naturally born in the boy, but is largely due either to the spirit of adventure that is in him..., or to his lack of discipline, according to the nature of the individual.
Robert Baden-Powell
I think it's important for us as a society to remember that the youth within juvenile justice systems are, most of the time, youths who simply haven't had the right mentors and supporters around them - because of circumstances beyond their control.
Q'orianka Kilcher
My father kept me busy from dawn to dusk when I was a kid. When I wasn't pitching hay, hauling corn or running a tractor, I was heaving a baseball into his mitt behind the barn... If all the parents in the country followed his rule, juvenile delinquency would be cut in half in a year's time.
Bob Feller
Let's figure out ways of keeping our children out of the juvenile justice system and in the classroom so that they'll thrive. Because if you're in the juvenile justice system, the chances of your going into the adult penal system are greatly increased.
Valerie Jarrett
Giving a 10-year mandatory minimum for a second offense fist fight is not going to reduce the chance that someone will be stabbed 16 times when you are not funding any of the programs that are desperately needed to actually reduce juvenile crime.
Bobby Scott

Sources

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Restorative Justice for Juveniles

(Restorative Justice Council) (Ainsworth)

The above images are cited courtesy of Restorative Justice Council and Michael Ainsworth from The Atlantic.

13.7*

Average eligible age in the United States

For juvenile offenders to be transferred to adult prisons

(Interstate Commission for Juveniles)

90%*

of juvenile offenders are willing to go back to school

yet only 30% do

(Interstate Commission for Juveniles)

92%*

of juvenile offenders reported

having experienced traumatic events while in detention

(Interstate Commission for Juveniles)

Hear from these silent voices...

Explore the experiences of incarceration of juvenile offenders

Carlos

Joy Through Adversity - Hear from Carlos

"Carlos is 18 years old. He was arrested for stealing some bicycles and already had five months in the detention center. His mother is an important economic support for this family. She sells burritos from her home so that she can care for one of her children who has a disability. But despite having an income, she did not have enough resources to visit her son in one of the worst moments of his life. She was accompanied by her daughter, Carlos's sister. Despite their difficulties, the family did not stop laughing and hugging. Carlos was already released, after a 6-month sentence that caused him to regret his actions since he could not help his loved ones financially from prison..." (Juvenile Justice Advocates Organization)

Julio

Eleven Months Waiting - Hear from Julio

"Julio is 17 and has been in detention for 11 months waiting for a trial. The police picked up Julio and Rene together one day. The police took Julio to an abandoned housing development and put a plastic bag over his head. They tortured him. He thought he was going to die. Then he was sent to detention. Julio is adamant that he was not in the fight. Today was the first time Julio had hugged his mother since his harrowing arrest. “My son is innocent,” she stated. She is still nervous. Julio’s trial is in two weeks and the lawyer told them that “we’re going for all or nothing.” Her voice bordered on panic..." (Juvenile Justice Advocates Organization)

Rene

One Happy Day - Hear from Rene

"Rene hadn’t seen his sister or mother in the two month since he was arrested. He turned 18 while in detention. He was the first boy in detention whose family we contacted for the Family Reunification Project. When we arrived at the detention center the sister and mother waited anxiously for Rene to be brought from his cell. Finally, he walked down the chain link fence walkway. They hugged and held each other while his sister began to cry." (Juvenile Justice Advocates Organization)

Luis

Abandoned and in prison - Hear from Luis

"Luis is 19-year-old. He has been in prison for one year and eight months. It’s been five months since Luis received a visitor. For the Family Reunification Project, we tried to contact his family. Nobody answered the phone. When we drove to the address listed, nobody was there. He didn’t seem very surprised. Luis will get out of detention in a year. Without family support, considering the trauma he has experienced, a successful re-entry to society is difficult to imagine." (Juvenile Justice Advocates Organization)

The above photos are cited courtesy of the Juvenile Justice Advocates Organization.

And many more similar experiences...

"The reason why I did this, you know, it's for my family. Because we ain't have food in the refrigerator. And we ain't have nothing else." - Glow, Squire Park, Seattle

"I was able to put a roof over their heads and put meals on their plates. I just took the wrong steps to do it." - Shadow, Squire Park, Seattle

"My childhood revolved around disappointment. Disappointed that my mother was dead, and that anytime I asked my father for anything the answer was, 'I don't have it'—not even a subway card." - Why I stole - Anonymous

The only thing I remember my father saying [during the call after arrest] was, “I hope you learned your lesson.”

(RadioActive Youth Media)

What damages juvenile detention inflicts on juveniles...

"I had issues with understanding how a credit card worked..."

"I didn't like the wait times at restaurants..." (as they never learned to wait, being incarcerated)

"I had issues driving … I couldn't stay in my lane when I first got out."

(RadioActive Youth Media)

How can we help?

Restorative Justice is the proposed solution for incarceration, which will reduce or even eliminate many issues that incarceration engenders.

What is Restorative Justice?

Restorative Justice is the practice in which instead of traditional criminal justice systems such as incarceration, the person who committed the crime is encouraged to work closely with the victim in an attempt to repair the damage they have caused, instead of the traditional methods of punishment such as incarceration.

Why Restorative Justice?

As Judy Tsui from Northwestern Univerity School of Law established, while the United States is using exhaustive punitive measures with incarceration, its outcome demonstrates that incarceration is not effective in achieving its intended results. The issues associated with incarceration include high rates of recidivism, high cost, failure to account for differences between juveniles and adults, as well as their ineffectiveness in assisting victims of crimes to restore to their original state of living. (Tsui). In addition, a study conducted by UNC-Chapel Hill Professor Luz Robinson et al. demonstrated the negative effects of traditional practices in a school setting, where school security staff notes that the difference between restorative justice and traditional practices is inclusion and exclusion, where restorative justice fosters the former while isolation and other traditional punitive practices alike forces the latter (Robinson et al.). Furthermore, security staff underscored the observed potential that students are more likely to commit misbehavior in the future upon return from isolation. On the other hand, through restorative justice practices, school security staff were usually able to acquire detailed information about the incident that occurred, including the students’ offending motive as well as factors that caused the students to commit the misconduct, while through traditional punitive practices such would be difficult or impossible (Robinson et al.).

Restorative Justice outcomes

Relative to incarceration, restorative justice...

  • results in better rehabilitation outcomes

  • more effectively reduces recidivism

  • are more inclusive towards person who committed the crimes

  • emphasizes the victim in addition to people who committed the crimes

(Robinson et al.)

What form can Restorative Justice take?

  • Peer accountability boards

  • Restorative circles

  • Restitution

  • Counseling community service

(Robinson et al.)

Why does it especially apply to juvenile offenders?

Placing the issue of incarceration in the contemporary American context, it is increasingly prevalent as more and more students are transferred into adult prisons. According to the Interstate Commission for Juveniles, although most states have the minimum age of criminal responsibility set to 18, Maryland, North Dakota, and Kansas (and some other states with specific rules about the severity of the crime) aside, many states have the minimum age for a juvenile case to transfer to adult prison, which as previously established is already flawed, at around 14 years of age. (Interstate Commission for Juveniles) This demonstrates the extent to which the current criminal justice system is ineffective. As previously mentioned, incarceration does not provide sufficient treatment and rehabilitation towards people who committed crimes, and this effect would be especially amplified for juvenile offenders, which is problematic as they experience the same experience as adults who receive insufficient treatment with a much less developed cognitive ability.

Restorative Justice Compared to Incarceration

Prisons are known to punish people who committed a crime for their actions, but an important aspect it is lacking in the process is to recover the damage the criminals have caused. It appears that the majority of victims involved in a crime report that their losses do not recover from the prison sentences the people who committed the crimes were serving, which is intuitively true: in the traditional criminal justice system, people who committed crimes are severely punished -- which engenders more problems amongst both parties -- and minimal efforts are made to return the victims to their original state of living. In this context, the criminal justice system merely serves as an act of “vengeance” toward people who committed crimes, but there is little doubt that it does not fundamentally address the losses the victims experienced. Restorative justice, on the other hand, aims to involve both the victim and the criminal in the process closely together, which not only assists with recovery of victims but also with rehabilitation of people who committed the crime. With its many benefits, restorative justice was the proposed alternative or substitute to the current prison system to address many problems that it failed to address.

But what about "accountability?"

Many, from a political standpoint, associate restorative justice with a “soft-on-crime” agenda, which leads critics to refrain from supporting the implementation of restorative justice practices, claiming that by eliminating the punishment, there is less accountability associated with committing crimes (Waltman-Spreha)

However, by changing the perspective from classifying it based on “soft” or “hard” on crime, and instead trying to recognize the difference between effective accountability and punishment, not only does restorative justice not remove accountability from people who committed the crime, but it allows them to take greater accountability for the damage they caused as restorative justice provides them with a method to recover the damage.

Where do we Start?

Despite the concerns about its lack of “accountability” by the traditional definition, implementing Restorative Justice on especially juvenile offenders would lead to minimal consequences on the lack of “accountability,” and instead, it significantly reduces recidivism as it allows juvenile offenders to understand the action they have committed, as well as the emotional and physical consequences they have caused by placing them in another perspective to thoroughly analyze the incident. For adults, considering political and logistical challenges, restorative justice does not have to replace the traditional practices, but can serve as an effective complement to assist with achieving the goals of these practices. In terms of punishment, the negative effects of incarceration on especially juvenile offenders are still not negligible, and therefore while restorative justice may not fully replace the traditional practices, the traditional practices of incarceration among juvenile offenders should still be reduced.

See the potential of Restorative Justice...

The above photos are cited courtesy of the Juvenile Justice Advocates Organization.

Juvenile Restorative Justice can assist them, and so many more...

Action, starts with me and you

Advocate for restorative justice for juveniles

Link to Works Cited Page