Letter to the editor

HEADNOTE

Rethinking About Lessons to Be Learned

Recently in Corrections Today, Vincent Schiraldi wrote an article, "Lessons Can Be Learned," about Nathaniel Abraham, an 11-year-old boy who was "one of the youngest

murder defendants in history" to be tried in Michigan. More than half of Schiraldi's article shifted Abraham's problems to the society in which he was reared, blaming Abraham's problems on the high unemployment rate in Pontiac, Mich.; his single-parent upbringing; substandard schools; the community's lack of after-school and recreational programs; and the lack of adequate foster care. All are convenient, abstract targets. The juvenile justice system failed Abraham.

The article says we must "get smart" and not just "tough" on crime, and that we should "promote a system that holds youths accountable for their behavior without crippling their chances for success." What is wrong with this picture? First, let's look at what Abraham did. Abraham, who is black, killed an 18-year-old black man with a rifle. According to an Associated Press article in the Daily News, Abraham practiced for many hours with his rifle, shooting at stationary human-like cardboard cutout targets perfecting his aim. Then, when his victim appeared, Abraham sighted and pulled the trigger, ensuring a clean kill with a head shot. At school the next day, Abraham bragged, "I shot that nigger." Abraham's lawyer said he didn't intend to shoot the victim but rather, the bullet ricocheted off a nearby tree, accidentally striking the victim in the head.

What did the judge do in Abraham's case? Michigan passed a 1997 law enabling juvenile court judges to impose two types of sentences on youths convicted of serious crimes. Michigan's blended sentencing statute empowered judges to impose both a juvenile disposition and an adult sentence. When Abraham was tried two years later for the murder he committed, he was 13. The judge could have ordered Abraham to be placed in a secure juvenile facility until age 21. Then the judge could have imposed perhaps a 40-year prison term on Abraham following his juvenile incarceration. This sounds harsh, but Michigan's new law mandates an automatic review of offenders such as Abraham, which occurs six months before they turn 21. Thus, at age 20 and six months, Abraham's record would be reviewed by a board that would assess Abraham's "prior institutional conduct" while confined. If Abraham had behaved well and participated in the educational, social, psychological and remedial rehabilitative programs at the institution during his juvenile confinement, the board could suspend the adult portion of his sentence. The adult portion of Abraham's sentence could be suspended forever, provided that he behaved well while confined.

What does this mean? This means that Abraham would have been obligated to take advantage of the counseling, education, vocational programming and other support services offered by the institution during his confinement. His strong incentive to participate in these programs, whether or not he wanted to, would be that his adult sentence could be permanently suspended by the review board.

Some critics don't think much of the nature and types of programming offered in juvenile institutions. There is a pervasive and archaic mind-set that envisions juvenile institutions as Oliver Twist-like warehouses in which youths are merely maintained and mistreated. However, today, the variety and quality of social, psychological and educational/vocational programming in these institutions is remarkably sophisticated and firstrate. Abraham would be exposed to these services and programs and helped to the extent that he wanted to be helped.

The real culprit in the Abraham case is not society, the community, the schools, inadequate foster homes or unemployment. It is Judge Arthur Moore who sentenced Abraham to the juvenile system. Moore could and should have imposed the adult sentence on Abraham, if only to provide him with the incentive to participate in optional rehabilitative programming. Instead, Moore gave Abraham the least restrictive sentence. Now Abraham lacks the incentive to participate in high-quality institutional programming designed to help him. Abraham knows that when he becomes an adult, he will be freed. His adult institutional fate is nonexistent and irrelevant now. To add insult to injury, Moore chided the Michigan Legislature for passing such a "ridiculous" blended sentencing statute.

Juvenile violence figures cited by Schiraldi must be seen in perspective. According to the Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, between 1988 and 1996, juvenile violence rose 186 percent. Between 1996 and 1999, juvenile violence decreased 10 percent. Juvenile violence still is quite high. While the FBI and Schiraldi considered this downward blip in juvenile violence impressive, 1 would have been more impressed with a 186 percent decline in juvenile violence. We still have far too much juvenile violence.

The blended sentencing statute passed by Michigan simply made it possible to provide meaningful sanctions for youthful offenders who commit violent crimes. The path now is paved to make it possible for adult sanctions to be imposed together with juvenile sanctions. But dark-age judges such as Moore are making it next to impossible for these laws to be effective in punishing juvenile violence. As long as youths continue to believe they can get away with murder and other forms of violence, they will not change. Why should they? Nothing of significance ever will happen to them in juvenile courts no matter what they do. The juvenile justice system will coddle them and judges will shower them with leniency.

Schiraldi is right about one thing: We need to promote a system that holds youths accountable for their behavior without crippling their chances for success. This is precisely what blended sentencing statutes are intended to do. Perhaps we ought to give blended sentencing statutes a chance. We have experimented with leniency in juvenile courts for the past six decades and it has not worked. Certainly, we ought to give blended sentencing statutes a chance to work for a few decades. They can't make the situation of juvenile violence any worse than it already is. And they might even make a positive difference in the long run.

AUTHOR_AFFILIATION

Dean J Champion Professor of Criminal Justice Texas A & M International University