Notificaciones sobre tratamiento de datos efectuado por el Operador del Sistema

Most US states have separate justice codes and justice systems for juvenile offenders. Traditionally the main goal of these systems has been rehabilitation rather than punishment; courts have frequently sentenced delinquents to probation or counseling rather than jail. During the 1980s and early 1990s, the US experienced an unprecedented wave of juvenile crime, and although juvenile crime had dropped by the mid-1990s, a series of high-profile school shootings and murders by children as young as six kept the issue in the news. In response nearly every state passed laws making it easier for minors to be tried and incarcerated as adults.

PROS

The primary purpose of a justice system is the preven- tion of crime and the protection of the innocent. It is to achieve these purposes that children should not be entitled to lenient punishment. The purposes of pun- ishment are proportional retribution, deterrence, and prevention of crime. Rehabilitation should at best be a secondary aim.

The “just desserts” theory of punishment argues that the retribution society takes against an offender should be proportional to the harm he has caused the victim. For example, a person who kills is more culpable than a person who robs or hurts. Because the harm children cause is the same as that caused by adults committing a similar offense, children should not receive special treat- ment. The assumption that children are not as morally culpable as adults is false.

Treating children more leniently than adults undermines the deterrent value of punishment. A 1996 survey in

CONS

Child crime is different from adult crime. In most legal systems the offenders are not deemed to be fully func- tioning as moral agents. Thus, the best way to handle them is through rehabilitation rather than punishment.

Subjective culpability should play as important a part in punishment as the harm principle. That is why murder is punished more severely than negligent manslaughter, even though both cause the same harm. Children are not capable of making the same moral judgments as adults. It is the inability of children to form moral judgments that makes them less culpable and therefore worthy of lighter punishment.

The deterrence theory assumes that all crime is com- mitted as a result of rational evaluation. If, indeed, Sample Motions:

This House believes that children should be free. This House believes that education is the best economics. This House would end child labor.

This House would put sanctions on states using child labor.

Web Links:

• Child Labour Coalition. <http://www.stopchildlabor.org/> Information on child labor around the world and campaigns to end it. • International Labour Organization. <http://www.ilo.org/> Information on the International Programme on the Elimination of

Child Labour.

Further Reading:

Haass, Richard, ed. Economic Sanctions and American Diplomacy. Council on Foreign Relations, 1998.

Hobbs, Sandy, Michael Layalette, and James McKechnie. Child Labour: A World History Companion. ABC-CLIO Europe, 2000. Mizen, Phil, ed. Hidden Hands: International Perspectives on Children’s Work and Labour. Routledge, 2001.

Schlemmer, Bernard, ed. The Exploited Child. Zed Books, 2000.

Virginia, for example, showed that 41% of youths have at various times either been in a gang or associated with gang activities. Of these, 69% said they joined because friends were involved and 60% joined for “excitement.” This clearly shows that young adults do not take crime seriously because they think the justice system will treat them leniently.

The best way to prevent crime in the short run is to lock up the offenders. This stops them from immediately harming society. In the long term, these children will be reluctant to return to crime because of their memory of harsh punishment.

Rehabilitation (counseling and psychiatric treatment) is too lenient. It will make children believe that they are spending short periods of time at camp. In the US, more than half the boys who were ordered to undergo coun- seling rather than sentenced to detention committed crimes while in therapy. Rehabilitation programs should take place in a detention facility. Young offenders should be separated from hardened adult criminals, but they should not be given lighter sentences than adults who committed the same crimes.

8- or 10-year-old children are capable of making ratio- nal calculations, then the prospect of spending several years in reform school should be no less a deterrent then spending the time in jail. It is still a curtailment of their liberty, and if they were rational, they would not want their liberty curtailed. The real problem is that most crimes are committed by people who do not make rational decisions.

This is an argument that would justify imprisoning people for life because that is the surest way to prevent them from harming anyone. Because this is plainly ridic- ulous, it must be accepted that locking a person up is at best a short-term remedy. The long-term answer lies in rehabilitation.

The only long-term solution to juvenile crime is reform of the child. Children’s characters are less formed and thus they are more amenable to reform. The rate of recidivism for child offenders in counseling in the US is significantly lower than that of adult offenders. Some children who have had counseling do return to crime, but a significant proportion does not. Putting children in prison with hardened adult offenders is likely to increase recidivism because they will be influenced by and learn from the adults.

PROS CONS

Sample Motions:

This House would lower the age of criminal responsibility. This House would punish children as if they were adults. This House believes that sparing the rod spoils the child.

Web Links:

• Cornell Law Information Service: An Overview of Juvenile Justice. <http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/juvenile.html> Quick sum- mary of the theory and current status of juvenile justice with links to specific statutes and court decisions.

• Juvenile Crime/Punishment Statistics. <http://crime.about.com/newsissues/crime/library/blfiles/bljuvstats.htm> Offers links to sta- tistics on juvenile crimes and arrests, juveniles in the court system, juveniles in adult jails, and juveniles and the death penalty. • National Criminal Justice Reference Service—Juvenile Justice. <http://virlib.ncjrs.org/JuvenileJustice.asp> Provides links to resources

on a wide variety of juvenile justice topics, including alternatives to incarceration.

Further Reading:

Fagan, Jeffrey, and Franklin E. Zimring, eds. The Changing Borders of Juvenile Justice: Transfer of Adolescents to the Criminal Court. Chicago University Press, 1998.

Jensen, Gary, and Dean G. Rojek. Delinquency and Youth Crime. Waveland Press, 1998.

Lawrence, Richard, and Christopher Lawrence. School Crime and Juvenile Justice. Oxford University Press, 1997. Morrison, Blake. As If: A Crime, a Trial, a Question of Childhood. Picador, 1997.

Vito, Gennaro, et al. The Juvenile Justice System: Concepts and Issues. Waveland Press, 1998.

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