Juvenile Justice in America

Juvenile Justice

America is facing a severe problem today. While many believe that the economy is the most significant issue, they simply do not see what has been plaguing America for far longer than the down turned economy. What is hurting America today is the rate of incarceration of children. In the past twenty years, resources have continually been taken away from California’s grammar schools, middle schools, and high schools. At the same time, there has been an exponential growth in funding to juvenile detention centers. This is reflective of what America values. Instead of educating and preventing people from committing crime, it would rather impose draconian measures to punish those who break the law. Since proposition 21 passed in California, more and more youths have been tried as adults and sent to federal prison. Mark Salzman, in his book True Notebooks, explores this idea through his characters that are in his book. Through the actions and dialogues of characters, Mark Salzman demonstrates what is wrong with the juvenile justice system. He does this mainly through the staff, like Sister Janet and Mr. Sills, the inmates, and Mark Salzman’s character himself.

     Many youths within the juvenile justice system are not hardcore criminals who are inherently evil people. Most are misunderstood or were never cared for properly when growing up. Some people see the children for what they really are: children. Sister Janet, a Catholic Nun who works at the juvenile center where Mark teaches his writing class, believes in the children. She says to Mark, “’These children are in crisis…Most of them never had a chance, never got the guidance and attention they needed from adults. Is it any surprise they join gangs?’”(26) She brings up a major social issue with this comment. Many children who end up in juvenile detention centers had very turbulent and depressing upbringings. Their parents were often victims of the justice system while they were growing up. Many never knew their fathers and had strenuous relationships with their mothers. As Frontuto states in his initiation poem, “Dad why weren’t you there?” many of their fathers simply did not have a role in raising them and were absent from their lives. These children never receive the lessons and morals that decent children receive.

It is unfair to treat these children as if they were hardened criminals and place them in the same facilities as hardened adult criminals because they have never been fully raised. “The system is herding these into the adult system where they don’t belong. Most of the youths sent to the adult system could be better served in the juvenile system” (74 Numbers of Juveniles Charged as Adults up). These children need to be educated in order to be rehabilitated. Sending them to prison is simply punishment and not rehabilitation. Instead of spending thousands of dollars on inmates per year to keep them housed behind bars, the state should spend money preventing them from ever ending up behind bars, through education and freedom of information. But what really matters in juvenile detention is the staff.

         Some people should never work in the justice system. As Sister Janet says, “you have a lot of people working in law enforcement who are in the wrong profession”(28). There are also many people who belong in law enforcement like Mr. Sills. He originally is portrayed as a disciplinarian who is strict and harsh toward the children. But as the story progresses, he demonstrates through his actions and letters that he is fit to be in law enforcement, especially with youth. He treats the inmates as real human beings, offering them barbeques and activities. His attitude toward Kevin Jackson is what really constructs his character. He favors him and mentors him as a son. In his letter he writes for the court, Sills says, “In the beginning when I met Kevin I saw him as a young kid who has wasted his life….I believe meeting Kevin was a blessing to me because he made me a better person mentally and spiritually”(310). Mr. Joe Sills belongs in law enforcement because he sees the inmates as human beings that have an effect on himself, therefore meriting them an opportunity to better themselves. Mr. Sills sees that these criminals are just children and need to be corrected and rehabilitated instead of being sent to adult prison. He wishes to raise their self esteem so that they will view themselves as people of value instead of criminals.

     The children that are incarcerated within the juvenile detention centers  have a very peculiar view of themselves. Common among them all is a notion that they are being dehumanized. Kevin Jackson, an African-American inmate accused of murder, states that “Bein’ locked up can make a person feel like they’re no longer a person. It makes you feel lower than people on the outside, and that can destroy your will to succeed”(99). This dehumanization is detrimental to the person’s self esteem. When someone has low self esteem, they are more likely to lash out with violence  and reject the idea of being corrected and rehabilitated. The children only view themselves as they think others view them.

    Javier Francisco sees himself by the way he thinks society views him. At first, he is one of the boisterous inmates, often speaking out of turn or causing a distraction in class. Francisco begins to turn around when he offers insight into his condition to Sister Janet when he says “They don’t know anything about us!….All they know is what the newspapers say. They don’t know the whole story”(64). Francisco explains how he thinks society views him and the other inmates in the juvenile facility. When he says “they,” he is referring to society in general. People do not generally hold favorable opinions of children in juvenile hall. They often view them as being bad and inherently evil people. Society thinks that these children have given up on life. But Francisco later says, “I wanna do something’ with my life, Sister. I pray to God every night, askin’ him to help me”(64). Fransisco thinks that society has given up on him but he wants to show the world that he has something to offer.

     Many people’s views of the children in the juvenile justice system are based not on racial prejudice, but on ignorance. Mark Salzman initially rejects the idea of teaching the writing class. He remarks first in a list that he thinks the “Students all gangbangers; feel unqualified to evaluate poems about AK-47s” (9). Mark puts down the students by prejudging them and assuming all the children were gangbangers. When he sees the boy brought into prison in the back of the police car, he says the boy “I presumed, needed to be digested a while before being shit into the adult prison system or puked back out onto the streets.”(15). His view eventually changes once he has been teaching the class for a couple of months. Mark is never able to give a concrete answer as to why he teaches a class to criminals. But he does eventually say that “After all I’d been through with the boys-some of it wonderful and some of it terrible-all I could say was that a little good has got to be better that no good at all”(323). Mark sees the children as criminals, but also as children. He believes that the work he does with them acts a beneficial agent in re-socializing the children back into society.

        In Mark Salzman’s book, True Notebooks, characters are presented to the reader with the intent to challenge the readers thoughts and beliefs on the juvenile justice system. Prior to reading True Notebooks, I viewed the juvenile justice system with skepticism. I believed that the children who commit the crimes should pay for what they had done even if that meant trying them as adults. At the same time, I did not believe in draconian punishment for children who had made their first mistake. After reading the book, I changed my mind about trying children as adults. I believe that children who are repeat gang affiliated offenders or have multiple convictions or commit treason should receive no leniency, even though they are only children. They are legitimate threats to the safety and stability of our civil society and should be punished for trying to upset the balance. But I have taken up the position that more preventative measures need to be taken by the state to educate and guide children in high-risk areas to avoid gangs and violence. I think that programs that are in effect like free day cares in New York and other big cities are helping to stem the problem. I realize that these criminals are still in fact children in their minds, and their minds need to be stimulated. I hope our government will follow Plato in viewing education as the pinnacle of the government. When a state has a strong public education system, crime and deviance disappear. Instead of treating the symptoms of the disease of crime, the government should focus on its causes. In conclusion, children should be tried as children, and treated accordingly. However, those who are repeat offenders or gang members should be subjected to the full extent of the law.