Excellent editorial by a Tucson Attorney, as posted in the Nogales International. The process by which this happens across the country is complicated and fragmented, making it difficult to track the impact of such laws on crime, populations and communities. Nevertheless, the US Department of Justice has concluded that transferring juveniles to the adult criminal justice system has had no positive effect on reducing juvenile crime. In fact, recidivism tends to be worse when kids are placed in the adult criminal justice system. Arguably, we harm more people than we protect this way.
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Juvenile transfer law should be repealed
By Veneranda Aguirre | Guest EditorialNogales International
Posted: Friday, February 3, 2012 8:44 am
In election years, candidates want to look tough on crime. In1997, as a Nogales High School senior, I wrote an opinion articlefor this paper about Arizona's attempt to pass a law permittingprosecutors to charge minors as adults for committing seriouscrimes. Laws like this are generally known as juvenile transferlaws.
In interviewing several officials in the juvenile justice system, Ilearned that the state had been providing vital services tocriminal youths to assist them in reentering society, such aseducation, career guidance, and family therapy, which the adultsystem did not. I predicted that the law, if passed, would harmjuvenile offenders and fail its intended effect.
After my article ran, then NHS principal Marcelino Varona pulled meout of class to lecture me on the need to be tough on crime and howwrong my op-ed was. Later that year, Arizona and 21 other statesenacted similar laws. Currently, 45 states have juvenile transferlaws.
The intent behind these laws is to deter juveniles from offendingand incarcerated juveniles from re-offending. But as an article inthe Jan. 29 Arizona Daily Star ("Serious youth offenders faringpoorly when put in adult system") points out, Arizona has failed tostem the tide of crime by prosecuting minors as adults.
Juvenile transfer laws have little impact on juveniles' initialdecisions to break the law. Why? Most juveniles are unaware ofthese laws, or they wrongly believe that they will not beprosecuted as adults. Furthermore, juveniles are not deterred fromcommitting serious crimes even when they know severity of apotential sentence.
As for those minors already in the adult system, six large-scalestudies have found that these individuals are more likely to commitcrimes than those tried in juvenile court. One study found thattransferred juveniles in New York had a 100 percent re-arrest ratecompared to 47 percent of juveniles treated as such in New Jersey.Researchers also found that juveniles put into "deep-end juvenileprograms" received the most benefit largely because these programsprovided inten sive, long-term job skills training and treatmentand longer sentences, which gave them more time to consider theirfutures and the consequences of reoffending. Conversely, juvenileswho were dumped into the adult system reported intent not toreoffend because the experience had been so horrible. Even then, 61percent of those surveyed said that their prison sentences had noimpact on whether they would reoffend. Some juveniles even admittedto learning more about criminal enterprise while in adultprison.
As one former inmate told the Star, "Prison is not a college to goto.... You learn the worst lessons there. It's a mean, vile place.When you're in the milieu of meanness, how else are you going tocome out? There are no good values being taught in prison."
While proponents of the law point out that these transferredjuveniles have been given many chances in the juvenile systembefore being transferred to the adult system, that fact only showsthat Arizona is failing its youth and sealing their doom by notproviding the necessary guidance and support systems juveniles needto become useful members of society. Instead, under the currentlaw, we are merely churning out more criminals and more violentcriminals.
The Arizona juvenile transfer law is broken. Being "tough on crime"does not prevent crime. It just makes it tougher to stop the cycleof criminal behavior. Repealing this law and investing inprevention, education, guidance and support are the only means ofbreaking this vicious cycle.
(Aguirre is a Nogales native and University of Arizona graduate whocurrently works as an attorney in Tucson.)
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