Stop the War on Kids
In recent years "law and order" politicians have stoked the fears of the public with their rhetoric about the new "menace" of teen "super-predators." Despite the fact that serious crime among juveniles has dropped in recent years, many politicians continue the "get tough" talk. "Zero tolerance" is one of the new mantras. Variations of the "zero tolerance" mentality within the schools and elsewhere have not only taken us back more than 100 years as far as juvenile justice policy is concerned, but it has, more importantly, "widened the net" of social control in that more and more minor offenses are now being processed formally by the police and the juvenile court.
Examples abound, including the following: (1) a five year prison sentence handed out to a 17-year-old Texas high school basketball player who "threw an elbow" to the head of an opposing player in a basketball player; (2) two six-year-old children were suspended for three days for playing "cops and robbers" with their fingers (pretending their fingers were guns and going "bang, bang" toward other children); (3) a girl who gave a friend a Nuprin was suspended for "dealing drugs"; (4) some high school baseball players were suspended for possessing "dangerous weapons" on school grounds - a teacher who suspected them of having drugs found none, but instead found some baseball bats in their cars.
Hundreds more such examples could be presented. Here's my point. In recent years the juvenile justice system has been accused of being too lenient (actually adults get treated more lightly for comparable crimes) and so a "get tough" movement has taken over. One result is that minor indiscretions that once were handled informally or even ignored are now being formally processed, thus clogging the system so much that it barely has time to deal with the really serious crimes and truly problematic youth. Upon the passage of various "get tough" laws, officials look in vain to find the "super-predators" and, finding few, end up targeting minor offenders. I call it the Atrickle-down@ effect.
Contrary to the media and most politicians, the most serious juvenile offenders - the so-called Achronic violent predator@ or Asuper-predator@ - are rare. All across the nation, we search in vain for these kinds of youths and discover that they usually constitute less than 3% of all juvenile offenders (but they dominate the headlines, making us think they are the norm; but, after all, "if it bleeds, it leads"). Sometimes we are told that a certain percentage of youths referred to juvenile court are charged with Acrimes against the person@ or Aviolent crimes@ when in fact the majority of these Aviolent@ or Apersonal@ crimes are rather minor in nature - a fist fight, a fight between children and their parents, between siblings, a mere threat, etc. In short, the kinds of personal confrontations that people of my generation used to get involved in all the time when we were young - and no police showed up, no referrals were made to court. What happened? The community itself handled it - the schools, neighbors, community groups, and even the kids themselves. Even the police - like those where I grew up - handled these infractions through a stern lecture and a warning (chances are they knew you and/or your parents).
But nowadays we are driven by media images of the young Apredator@ or the rare killers on school campuses or the so-called Agang-bangers,@ and reacting as if this represents the typical youthful offender. And we are obsessed about identifying the next "super-predator," preferably at the earliest age possible. Which means we crack down on minor offenses - or no offenses at all, as in cases where we target so-called “high risk” children? There is an erroneous assumption that minor offenses will inevitably lead to bigger crimes later in life and that there is an easy way to identify future criminals. Not true.
Part of the problem is that America really loves its wars, as we always seem to want to solve a problem by declaring a Awar@ on it. Once we have declared a Awar@ this immediately sets up a Awe@ versus Athem@ and a sort of Asiege@ mentality - as in the erroneous, but ever-popular belief that criminals/gangs/drug dealers are Ataking over.@ In this case, we have, in effect, a "war on children." And as in any other war, there tends to be an attitude that we may have innocent casualties or, continuing the war metaphor, there will be "collateral damage," meaning that losses must be anticipated for the "greater good" of "winning the war" (suggesting that it is too bad that some innocent children get victimized or that minor offenses get criminalized). It is time we made some drastic changes in the way we handle crime and delinquency in this society. We don't need to Aget tough@ with these kids; we just need to Aget smart@ by changing our attitude toward minor juvenile transgressions. More importantly, however, we adults need to look in the mirror and realize that we are part of the problem; guess what age group commits the most crime and the most horrible of crimes? And guess what age group uses the most drugs, drinks the most alcohol and abuses (and even kills) the most kids? Adults. But we avoid our own problems by scapegoating kids.
Las Vegas City Life, 5/11/2000.
For further reading: A good critique of traditional views of young people and their crimes see Mike Males, Framing Youth: Ten Myths About the Next Generation. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1999. See also, Peter Elikann, Superpredators: The Demonization of Our Children by the Law. Reading, MA: Perseus Books, 1999.