By Yoel Haile
At the age of 15, Frankie Guzman was arrested for robbery. He had no prior criminal record. Frankie’s friend, a young person of 16, was arrested with him and, with one prior arrest on his record (for possession of a stolen check), he was prosecuted and tried as an adult. As a result, at the age of 16, Frankie’s friend received a harsh, 7-year prison sentence.
The prosecutor tried, but failed, to try Frankie as an adult. He pushed for a harsh sentence and managed to send Frankie into the California Division of Juvenile Justice system, known then as the California Youth Authority. It rose to infamy in the late 1990s and early 2000s due to reports of violence, abuse, and neglect — as well as its failure to rehabilitate those in its system. Overcrowding was synonymous with the Youth Authority until the passage of Prop 21 in 2000, which drastically decreased the number of youth in the facility — while rapidly increasing the number of youth charged with felonies appearing in adult court.
By pursuing the highest sentence for both Frankie and his friend, the prosecutor completely disregarded an alternative path to rehabilitation and diversion. In Frankie’s eyes, the system viewed him as a “disposable child” whose race, mitigating circumstances, and background did not afford him a second chance.
Frankie’s testimonial places a great emphasis on the importance of acknowledging disadvantages and of pushing for equal treatment under the law. Furthermore, it demonstrates that the criminal legal system disproportionately punishes Black and Latino youth. Nationally, a study published by the Sentencing Project showed that in 2015, Black youth were 500 percent more likely to be incarcerated than white youth, while Latino youth were 65 percent more likely to be incarcerated than their white peers. Another study showed that in 2015, 88 percent of the children charged as adults were children of color.
Both studies, and Frankie’s own testimony, demonstrate that white kids with advantages and opportunities are often diverted out of the system and given a chance to improve their lives. Apart from highlighting the deep and inherent racism within the criminal legal system, these data points also show that kids can be successfully rehabilitated when given the appropriate support and diverted away from incarceration. If a district attorney makes it a priority, we can fully stop the treatment of youth as adults in the criminal legal system.
Yoel Haile is a Criminal Justice Associate at the ACLU Foundation of Northern California.
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The U.S. Prosecutes and Incarcerates “Children” as Adults because some “Children” are dangerous and need more than a “diversion” program (that fixes all their problems by the time they turn 18)…
“Hours after they murdered a homeless man because of the color of his skin, two white supremacists celebrated by planning to get lightning bolts tattooed on their upper arms, prosecutors said Friday. A badge of courage among white supremacists, the bolts represent the slaying of a minority. The details of the crime, which occurred more than two years ago, came to light for the first time in a hearing in Sylmar Juvenile Court to determine whether Jessica Ann Colwell should be tried as an adult in the slaying of Milton Walker Jr. She was 16 in November 1995, when authorities say she and two other white supremacists beat Walker to death. The next day, investigators said, Colwell bragged about the slaying to a friend. FBI Special Agent Jack Schafer said Colwell told at least two people that she killed Walker, beating him with a chrome pipe and shoving the pipe into his eye. In one case she allegedly boasted of having “played with his eyeballs.””
http://articles.latimes.com/1998/mar/28/local/me-33531
Nationally, a study showed that, proportionality to their populations, Black youth and Hispanic youth were significantly more likely to be involved in crime than white youth, and white youth somewhat more likely to be involved in crime than Asian youth.
The conclusion of the study’s authors were that a racial victim mentality perpetuated by political and media forces, combined with terrible economic, environmental and immigration policies at the federal, state and city level, contributed to a sense of hopelessness that destroyed families and social capital in low income neighborhoods, and this plus a terrible quality of the public schools in these neighborhoods, led these youth to turn toward crime rather than a lawful pursuit of greater prosperity.
Without information on the nature of the study and the methodology, etc., it is not possible to evaluate whether the conclusions of the study’s authors are valid.
Eric
No need much study of the problem . If millions people are living in ghettos under the poverty line than you have gangs , drugs , crime and proportion . USA is no different than Western Europe especially France and Germany with a different very large minorities population .