Rehabilitation v.

Punitive Punishment:

A New Look At the American Juvenile Criminal Justice System

Mya Avant

CAS 138

Professor Henderson

April 14, 2017

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 Historically there have been four main goals of punishment in the

American Criminal Justice system: retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and

rehabilitation (Peak). America developed a more punitive system that only

meets the first three of these four goals. Whether it be the colonial, penitentiary,

reformatory, progressive, medical, community, or crime control model, America

used punitive punishment such as death, or lengthy imprisonment as a way of

meeting the crime punishment goals (Peak). While, a lot of research suggests

that mental health rehabilitation would be more effective in reducing crime,

America has continuously went along with its punitive nature. Perhaps if more

Americans listened to reports like the one written in 2014, [by] the National

Academies of Sciences [which] found that long prison sentences are

ineffective as a crime control measure, this would not be the case (Alliance for

Safety and Justice) (Travis). Maybe then, it would be easier to accept that, the

current crime control model is not working, and new legislation needs to be put in

place. America could use, The Comprehensive Youth Justice Amendment Act, a

piece of legislation that uses rehabilitative measures to reduce recidivism rates in

the Juvenile Criminal Justice system, on a nationwide level.

In the paper, Getting Tough on Crime, Judith Greene writes about the

American Criminal Justice System, how it has developed and it is politicization

from the 1970s through 1990s. She writes, As a punitive crime-control strategy,

the foundation of truth in sentencing was primarily built within the victims' rights

movement (Greene). Victims, wanted revenge or in more technical terms

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retribution, and these feeling were not unprecedented. Going as far back as the

Code of Hammurabi, there has been a tradition of meeting violence with more

violence (Peak). In fact, this ideology of getting equal with ones aggressor is so

strongly rooted that it is what formed much of our criminal justice system, and

informed our perceptions of offenders.

We can see that it still has some impact on todays society, by

reflecting on what we see and hear in popular media. On TV, we are

repeatedly getting messages about, celebrated cases (especially gruesome

and heinous) (Peak). These cases often end in the death or life imprisonment

of the offender, and we justify this because of the nature of the crime

committed. However, the majority of the cases in the criminal justice system

are misdemeanor offenses (Peak). The misrepresentation of crime is what

often leads to the perception that, we need law and order (Trump). This is

why it is not surprising to hear that some portion of the American Public, still

believes punitive punishment is an effective measure of crime control. There

is however, overwhelming evidence that there is growing support of methods

of rehabilitation within the crime victims community. In the 2016, Crime

Survivors Speak: the first ever national survey of victims views on safety and

justice, there [was] majority or plurality support across demographic groups,

including age, gender, race and ethnicity, and political party affiliation, for

rehabilitation (Alliance for Safety and Justice).

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 Crime Survivors Speak, reports that, [b]y a margin of 7 to 1, victims prefer

increased investments in crime prevention and programs for at-risk youth over

more investments in prisons and jails. Furthermore, 83% of victims prefer more

investment in mental health treatment to more investment in prisons and jails

(Alliance for Safety and Justice). These statistics are significant in the case of the

Juvenile Criminal Justice System because data shows that adolescents brains

are underdeveloped. The milestone Supreme Court case, Roper v. Simmons

(2005), used neuroscientific evidence to conclude that capital punishment of

minors is unconstitutional because the human brain, mainly the prefrontal cortex,

does not finish developing until our early-to-mid 20s (Science and Law). It has

also been seen that juvenile delinquents most often were once victims

themselves. And being particularly vulnerable after victimization [t]hey [would

be] the most at-risk for later becoming involved in criminal activity if their needs

go unmet. All of this suggest that, especially in the case of adolescents, mental

health rehabilitation would be more beneficial than incarceration. So, while,

between 1975 and 1995 the number of adolescents incarcerated increased by

about 140,000 due to a widely held belief that incarceration was best for reform,

it is now becoming clear that perhaps new and more effective policy must be

established within the American Juvenile Criminal Justice System (Casey

Foundation).

The Comprehensive Youth Justice Amendment Bill was created by

Councilmembers McDuffie, Grosso, Nadeau, Bonds, May, Silverman, and

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Chairman Mendelson, and was passed by Congress on Apr 5, 2016; it will

become an Act on, Apr 12, 2017 (Council of the District of Columbia). Appendix

A outlines specifically what the Act states. Councilmembers intended it to be a

proposal, specifically addressed to the District of Columbia. However, if the Act

became Federal legislation it would have great potential to be effective in

reforming the Juvenile Criminal Justice System. It has the possibility to bring

more justice to the Criminal Justice System, by taking into consideration what

would be best for all parties involved: the state, convicted persons, and victim(s).

This act ensures that the convicted persons are to some extent protected, being

as though it puts limitations on how they can be confined while incarcerated. It

still allows the state to seek justice for the crime that has been committed, and

gives them information that would allow them to reduce the overall rates of crime

being committed. And It takes into consideration the opinion of the victim, by

creating a program that allows the offender and victim to understand one

another's circumstances, while also giving the offender the ability to reform.

The Comprehensive Youth Justice Amendment Act is the first piece of

legislation that to some extent achieves all four of the punishment goals:

retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation (Peak). It achieves

retribution, deterrence, and incapacitation by, continuing to incarcerate offenders

for their offenses, even if for a lesser period. Additionally, The Comprehensive

Youth Justice Amendment Act allows an opportunity for rehabilitation by looking

at the mental health needs of the offender(s), recognizing the negative impact

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that punitive punishment can have on juveniles, and forcing offenders to reflect

on the effects of their actions. Furthermore, this policy introduces a goal of

punishment that has been somewhat newly established, restitution. It

establishes a victim-offender mediation program, for those victims seeking

restitution versus retribution, and allows victims to gain closure. This is

something that has yet to be achieved by any other criminal justice legislation.

That is not to say that The Comprehensive Youth Justice Amendment Act

is flawless; it could benefit from a little more emphasis on rehabilitation. While the

act certainly does seem like it is trying to move in the direction of giving more

attention to rehabilitation there is not enough specifics within the proposal to gain

a full understanding of just how effective it could be in reforming offenders into

model citizens. A possible addition to the Act could be that some of the funding

for prisons and jails go to mental health care and medical treatment. Most

offenders have been victims themselves, and likely became criminal due to lack

of treatment they received after their own victimization (Alliance for Safety and

Justice). Labeling Theory suggest, reaffirming their humanity by, giving them a

chance to be in the right mental state to be able to reform instead of classifying

them as dangerous predators and locking them up for long periods of time

could prove more effective in terms of recidivism rates (Greene). In fact, The

common criticisms, [in the 1970s], which had been cast against [punitive

mandatory sentencing] by social science researchers and practitioners alike

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focused on the lack evidence of deterrent effect or of cost-effectiveness... (Tonry

1996).

William Nagle, then serving as director of the American Foundation's

Institute of Corrections, predicted that, If we build more prisons, we don't turn off

the tap -- we just build bigger buckets to catch the drippings (Gettinger, p. 20)

(Greene). Now in, 2017 we can see that he was right; instead reducing crime

rates through deterrence, the prison population exponentially grew. The U.S.

prison population grew nearly 700% [since the 1970s]. More than 2.2 million

people are now incarcerated (Kearney). While not all of these people are

adolescents, the proportion of adolescents incarcerated is significant and has a

negative financial impact on taxpayers. A Vera Institute of Justice, report found

that among the 40 states that responded to a survey, the total fiscal year 2010

taxpayer cost of prisons was $38.8 billion, $5.4 billion more than in state

corrections budgets for that year. When all costs are considered, the annual

average taxpayer cost in these states was $31,166 per inmate (Vera Institute of

Justice). To give some perspective of just how much money that is, Victims of

Crime Act or VOCA funding gave $2.3 billion in 2015 to victim services

(Alliance For Safety and Justice). That is roughly 1/17 the amount of money it

take to incarcerate offenders. This suggest that if the Criminal Justice System

took a more rehabilitative approach to justice, perhaps similar to how victims use

funding to be rehabilitated, then taxpayers could be paying significantly less

money to keep the system running.

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 Overall, The Comprehensive Youth Justice Amendment Act is a good idea

in almost every aspect the only difficulty, might be implementing it on a federal

level. The most difficult of thing being that, it is hard to say the federal

government will be able to enforce this legislation. There are a number of jail and

prison facilities and to say the government would be able to watch all of them to

make sure the legislation is being enforced is difficult. However, this issue is

common with most legislation and could be worked out. First, because this would

only be legislation for adolescents and the act calls for separate facilities, the

government would only have to pay attention to a portion of incarceration

facilities. In addition, a portion of the money that is saved from changing over to

rehabilitative methods could go to the government so that they could create the

resource they need to ensure that this legislation is enforced. Not to mention

after legislation has been enforce and recidivism rates start to decrease it is like

that correction will want to follow the legislation mandate without out being

monitored by government officials. Eventually, the government would not need it

funding and taxpayers would be able to save even more while also ensuring

significantly reducing their chances of becoming a crime victim.

In closing, the argument to expand The Comprehensive Youth Justice

Amendment Act into federal legislation, not only has various beneficial aspect, it

is also feasible. It has been shown that rehabilitation can significantly reduce

recidivism rates, something mass incarceration and lengthy sentences has failed

to do. The Act could also give offenders a fair chance to change their behaviors;

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while also dealing with the issue of overcrowding in prison. Additionally,

financially it could save taxpayers a significant amount of money. And overtime,

it would prove easier to enforce because those within corrections system will

want to see it enforced. Moreover, in the book The Victims, [Frank Carrington]

called for a new victim consciousness which would reorient the criminal justice

system toward the rights of crime victims (Carrington 1975). While at that time

victims did want more punitive punishment, Carrington had a valuable concept.

That is, that what the victims want should be taken into consideration. And, being

as though data show victims now want a more rehabilitative Criminal Justice

System the best move would be to use the concepts analyzed within this paper

as a platform; replacing punitive punishment with rehabilitative measures, using

The Comprehensive Youth Justice Amendment Act.

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Appendix A:

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 Works Cited

Alliance for Safety and Justice. Crime Survivors Speak: the first national survey
of victims views on safety and justice. April 2016.

Carrington, Frank. The Victims. New Richelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1975.

Casey Foundation. Youth Incarceration in the United States. Feb 26, 2013.

Center for Science & Law. The Underdeveloped Adolescent Brain: Should They
Be Sentenced According to the Same Standards as Adults? 2017.

Council of the District of Columbia. B21-0683 - The Comprehensive Youth

Justice Amendment Act. Apr 5, 2016.

Gettinger, Steve. Corrections Magazine. U.S. Prisons Population Hits All-Time

High.1976.

Greene, Judith. Getting Tough on Crime: The History and Political Context of
Sentencing Reform Developments Leading To The Passage of 1994
Crime Act. Hampshire. Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2002.

Kearney et al.

Peak, Kenneth J. Introduction to Criminal Justice: Practice and Process. SAGE

Publications, 2013.

Travis, Jeremy. National Research Council: Committee on Causes and

Consequences of High Rates of Incarceration. The Growth of
Incarceration in the United States: Exploring Causes and Consequences.
April 2014.

Tonry, Michael, Sentencing Matters, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Trump, Donald. First 2016 Presidential Debate. Hofstra University, Sep 26, 2016.

Vera Institute of Justice. The Price of Prisons: What Incarceration Cost

Taxpayers. Feb 2012.

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