UD study says state wastes millions of dollars on treating low-risk juvenile sex offenders

6-26-2010 Delaware:

An examination of Delaware's approach to juvenile sex offenders finds the need for reform. Research released today shows the system costs taxpayers millions each year, treating many kids as high risk who simply do not fall into that category, while distracting the state from the truly risky offenders.

University of Delaware professor Chrysanthi S. Leon, J.D., Ph.D., will speak about the overuse of sex offender registration and residency laws in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, June 26 in the opening session of the conference of the national group, Reform Sex Offender Laws.

On Monday June 28, Leon and others will lobby Sen. Tom Carper and other members of Congress to amend the federal Adam Walsh Act, which can withhold funding from states that do not comply with its terms. At noon, Leon will participate in a press conference across from the Hart Senate Office Building, 245 2nd Street, NE. Leon and Smith College professor David L. Burton, Ph.D., authored, “Net Widening in Delaware: The Overuse of Registration and Residential Treatment for Youth Who Commit Sex Offenses,” which will be published in an upcoming issue of the Widener Law Review.

Last year, Delaware spent more than $5.1 million to send 62 youths out of state for treatment (FY09). In FY04, that expenditure was $2.9 million. These costs, Leon and Burton say, can only be justified if the youths are serious offenders who cannot be treated in the community and pose high risk of re-offense. But, the Delaware Youth Needs Evaluation, included in the article, shows they are low-to-moderate risk.

Leon and Burton argue Delaware's compliance with the federal Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act goes far beyond what is necessary. The unintended consequences of Delaware's registration laws are forcing the state to pay for unneeded treatment out of state. In total, Leon and Burton write, “the juvenile sex offender registry is the exact opposite of evidence-based corrections.”

They say the law needs revision, using methods proven effective in other states. Doing so would not entail new costs to the system. In fact, it would likely provide a cost-savings by properly focusing resources. ..Source.. Newark Post

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Offender registry called too strict

5-11-2010 Maryland:

Delaware's list includes juveniles as young as 9

Their youthful faces stare from the pages of Delaware’s online sex offender registry, some obviously scared, some scowling, some expressionless.

These are photographs of children who committed sex crimes. They are branded, a condemnation that can haunt them forever.

Delaware has some of the youngest sex offender registrants in the nation – one as young as 9 – according to backers of legislation that would give Family Court judges some discretion in deciding which juveniles belong on the registry and which do not.

In registering offenders who are younger than 14, Delaware’s registry system is more stringent than required by the federal Adam Walsh Act, a law that some states complain is too strict.

Advocates of the legislation cite research indicating that children convicted of a sex offense are unlikely to commit another one. Opponents cite studies that find just the opposite.

Due to political, legal and social concerns, the push to give Family Court judges a say in the matter has run into a wall of opposition.

Attorney General Beau Biden opposes the legislation. Election-minded legislators don't want to give opponents the opportunity to paint them as soft on sex offenders.

This is the problem in a nutshell, lawmakers who don't have the courage to speak the truth! They too fear the FEAR MONGERS like Delaware's AG.

Publicity about the abuse charges against pediatrician Dr. Earl Bradley has made the issue of sexual offenses even more politically toxic.

"I can't even get it out of committee," said Rep. Melanie George, D-Bear, referring to the bill she introduced last year that would give Family Court judges the power to decide if children younger than 14 should be listed on the registry. It also would give them discretion to decide whether juveniles older than 14 should be listed if they are convicted of certain lower-level offenses.

'Made my life difficult'

A law like that might have kept "Kevin's" name off the registry. But thanks to what critics say is Delaware's one-size-fits-all system, he's a marked man.

Now in his 20s and living in another state, Kevin agreed to an e-mail interview on the condition that his real name and certain details of his case be withheld.

Kevin's name does not appear on the sex offender registry of his current state, but his Delaware listing is easily found on the Web.

All you have to do is Google me and the top hit is [my name on] Delaware's registry," Kevin wrote.

At age 13, Kevin was caught "messing around" with a younger child and was convicted of two misdemeanor sex offenses. "We were just kids," he said, describing the encounter as consensual but declining to go into detail. Juvenile records are sealed and not available for review.

Kevin's listing as a moderate-risk offender put him on the registry -- listings of low-risk offenders can be accessed only by law enforcement -- and being on the public registry has followed him into adulthood.

Like all registered sex offenders, Kevin must provide his name, date of birth, address, employer, driver's license number, Social Security number, professional licenses, passport, immigration status and school affiliations to the offender registry. He must update any change in these details of his life within three days or face a felony charge. His photo, name, physical description, address, car license number and crime are on display to anyone. There are restrictions on where he can live, and his status is a red flag on job applications.

"All this has done is made my life difficult. It's not like the public is being protected. I was just 13," Kevin said.

Kevin said the incident was his one and only legal offense. His name did not appear during a search of Delaware Superior Court and Court of Common Pleas records.
It's tales such as Kevin's that bother Lisa Minutola, chief of legal services for the Public Defender's Office.

Minutola has spoken with a few youth offenders whose names still appear on the registry years later, and "they definitely had horror stories of not being able to get employment, not being able to get an education," she said.

Age limits

According to Minutola, the Delaware registry has one person who was listed at age 9 who is now in his teens. Three individuals were placed on the registry at age 10, she said. The registry, which has 2,725 entries, isn't searchable by age.

The Adam Walsh Act does not require offenders younger than 14 to be placed on the registry; offenders ages 14 to 17 must be placed on the registry only if they commit certain serious offenses.

Only six states actually define the youngest age at which an offender must be registered, "which leaves open the possibility that even very young children who evidence sexual behavior problems may be subject to registration," according to the Center for Sex Offender Management, a project of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Of the six states that do define the youngest registration age, North Carolina sets the limit at 11; Indiana, Ohio, Idaho and Oklahoma begin registering offenders at 14, and in South Dakota the minimum age is 15.

Twenty states -- Delaware is not among them -- have instituted special juvenile procedures or time limits that can remove a juvenile from the list once a set period of time has elapsed and no further offenses have occurred.

Minutola wants Delaware judges to have more freedom when the federal law does not apply.

"What we're asking is for those juveniles that Adam Walsh doesn't even require registration for ... that the court would have the discretion to have a hearing to determine whether or not the juvenile should be registered," she said.

That's not the way Biden sees it.

Biden took steps to strengthen Delaware's sex offender registry soon after he took office -- and he's not amenable to legislation he believes would weaken it.

"Juvenile sex offenders do re-offend," and that's why they belong on the registry, Biden said.

"The public needs to know. The public has a right to know," he said. "No one's been able to provide us any [examples of] so-called miscarriages of justice."

Only six to eight other states give judges discretion on placing juveniles on offender registries, said Deputy Attorney General Christina Showalter, adding that a judge would not have enough information on the offender to make such a ruling at the time of conviction.

According to Biden and Showalter, keeping juveniles off the registry or easing restrictions would threaten public safety.

"These are young predators," Showalter said. If they aren't placed on the list or their names are expunged, "they go on to be camp counselors, baby sitters ... and that's the most chilling part of this."

Grier Weeks, executive director of the National Association to Protect Children, agrees.

"There's always a debate about where the discretion should reside, with prosecutors or with the judiciary. I'm sure these lawmakers are well-intentioned and they see this as a problem," Weeks said.

"It's not a black-and-white issue. Are there juveniles who commit sex crimes who do not belong on sex-offender registries? Of course," Weeks said.

"But when they are prosecuted and convicted for very serious sex crimes, then what I would say is, there's a saying in criminal justice circles that the sex offender's greatest weapon is camouflage. When you get into discussions about expunging records and removing people from sex offender registries ... you're essentially trying to erase the record of something the public needs to know."

Conflicting studies

Biden and Showalter cite a number of studies showing that juvenile offenders are likely to re-offend. Perhaps the most persuasive is a 2007 study by the Delaware Statistical Analysis Center that tracked juvenile offenders who were released in 2001.

Of those offenders, 41 percent were arrested for a new sex offense within five years of release.

Nicole Pittman, an attorney and juvenile justice policy analyst with the Defender Association of Philadelphia and the National Juvenile Defender Center who is urging Delaware to modify its law, cites studies that some find equally persuasive.

For example, a 2009 study published in the International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology tracked juvenile sex offenders from adolescence through age 26. Fewer than 2 percent were arrested for an adult sex offense by age 27.

Delaware's juvenile sex offender statute "is ruining the next generation," Pittman told a joint meeting of the state House and Senate judiciary committees on March 31.

"Delaware has the youngest registrants in the country, and when you say in the country, it means in the world," Pittman said. "Having offenders who are younger than 14 on the registry is problematic."

Pittman said recent studies indicate that juvenile sex offenders have a recidivism rate of 5 percent to 14 percent -- substantially lower than the rates for other juvenile crimes, which range from 8 percent to 58 percent.

In 2006, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed the Adam Walsh Act, which contains a provision known as SORNA: the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act.

That act requires juvenile offenders as young as 14 to register for life if convicted of more-serious sex offenses. States that do not comply will lose 10 percent of their funding from the federal Byrne Grant anti-crime program.

Delaware revised its law in an attempt to comply with the act, but in doing so it "cast an overly wide net that will tragically engulf nearly all adolescent sexual behaviors, including those prepubescent-like, exploratory behaviors committed largely out of curiosity," Pittman said in a prepared summary of her analysis of Delaware's law.

Politics in play

If the recent studies indicating that juvenile offenders are unlikely to commit another offense are true, Delaware's law could run counter to the 2002 state Supreme Court decision in Delaware v. Sapp.

In that case, the court advised the General Assembly to keep in mind that the registry statute must be related to the government's interest in protecting the public from the danger of recidivism of sex offenders.

The court also noted that then-current studies indicated that sex offenders -- particularly those who target children -- were likely to offend again.

But keeping Delaware in compliance with SORNA while easing the statute when it comes to the youngest offenders is a difficult political task, particularly in an election year.

"It's a volatile issue. Dr. Bradley's case certainly puts these kinds of cases in the spotlight," Minutola said.

"But Dr. Bradley is clearly a case of an adult offender. He's different from the children that we're talking about," she said. "Unfortunately, that case is highly publicized and it certainly might make things even harder."

Rep. Tom Kovach, R-Brandywine Hundred, voiced the political difficulties facing legislators who might otherwise consider backing George's bill.

"How do we protect the public legitimately," Kovach asked during the joint judiciary committee meeting, and how can legislators explain to the public that they aren't being soft on sex offenders?

No one had an answer. ..Source.. J.L. Miller

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Fla. Supreme Court Bans Shackles for Juveniles in Courtroom

12-19-2009 Florida:

The Florida Supreme Court has banned the widespread practice of shackling juvenile defendants in courtrooms, calling it "repugnant, degrading, humiliating and contrary to the state's primary purposes of the juvenile justice system."

In an unsigned 6-1 opinion, the court amended the rules of judicial procedure to state a juvenile defendant cannot be placed in handcuffs, chains, irons or straitjackets unless the court finds it necessary in specific instances.

In courtrooms around the state, children were being shackled by the wrists and ankles with belly chains, chained to furniture or chained to each other, the justices noted. The court suggested shackling may violate the children's due process rights.

New rules state restraints are allowed only to prevent physical harm against the child or others, if they pose a substantial flight risk, they have a history of disruptive behavior in court and there are no alternatives.

Justice Charles T. Canady disagreed in a partial dissent, saying due process concerns come into play only when the defendant is before a jury, Canady said.

"The rule unduly restricts the ability of juvenile court judges to ensure that security is maintained in the courtroom," he wrote. "The reality is that being subjected to physical restraints is an inherent part of being in custody."

The Florida Bar's Juvenile Court Rules Committee proposed the amendments based on recommendations in a 2006 report by the National Juvenile Defender Center.

The court notes the amendment drew a heavy response, with the University of Miami School of Law Center for the Study of Human Rights, the Florida Public Defender Association and Florida Children's First, among others, pressing for a change. Opposition came from the 2nd Circuit's state attorney's office based in Tallahassee and former 6th Circuit Chief Judge Robert Morris Jr., who now serves on the 2nd District Court of Appeal.

In interviews, two South Florida public defenders praised the high court's ruling.

Miami-Dade Public Defender Carlos Martinez, former vice chairman of The Bar's Legal Needs of Children Committee, said he has seen shackled children facing misdemeanors, petty theft charges and first offenses.

"Juvenile courts are supposed to be for rehabilitation and therapeutic purposes to make sure the children grow up to be law-abiding and successful adults," he said, adding shackling youths goes against those principles.

Martinez campaigned against the state Department of Juvenile Justice's policy of shackling juvenile defendants and prompted some judges to reconsider the practice. He said children rarely are in shackles now in Miami-Dade courts.

Broward Public Defender Howard Finkelstein said the ruling indicates there is intelligence in the judiciary.

"It's a shame it took so long and so many kids had to be shackled and tied up and paraded through public corridors and courthouses around this state like they're animals," he said. ..Source.. Jordana Mishory, Daily Business Review

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New study finds high rates of childhood exposure to violence and abuse in US

10-7-2009 National:

DURHAM, N.H -- A new study from the University of New Hampshire finds that U.S. children are routinely exposed to even more violence and abuse than has been previously recognized, with nearly half experiencing a physical assault in the study year.

"Children experience far more violence, abuse and crime than do adults," said David Finkelhor, director of the UNH Crimes against Children Research Center and the study director. "If life were this dangerous for ordinary grown-ups, we'd never tolerate it."

The research was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) and supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The research results are presented in the journal Pediatrics and an Office of Justice Programs/OJJDP bulletin titled "Children's Exposure to Violence: A Comprehensive National Survey (Summary)." The full report can be found here.

UNH researchers asked a national sample of U.S. children and their caregivers about a far broader range of exposures than has been done in the past.

According to the research, three out of five children were exposed to violence, abuse or a criminal victimization in the last year, including 46 percent who had been physically assaulted, 10 percent who had been maltreated by a caregiver, 6 percent who had been sexually victimized, and 10 percent who had witnessed an assault within their family.

The authors contend that earlier studies of violence exposure only inquired about individual crimes – looking only at bullying or child maltreatment or sexual abuse. In contrast, this study asked about all such exposures as well as additional ones that are rarely, if ever, covered such as dating violence and witnessing domestic violence.

The study found that more than a third of the children had had two or more different kinds of exposures in the past year and 11 percent had five or more.

"Studies have missed the fact that there are a surprisingly large group of very repeatedly and variously victimized kids whom we should be doing a better job to help and protect," Finkelhor said.

The researchers urge teachers, police, doctors, counselors, and parents to ask children about a broader range of possible victimization experiences, especially children who had been identified as victims already. They also call for new efforts to create safer schools, homes and other youth environments.

The study was conducted in 2008 and involved interviews with caregivers and youth about the experiences of a nationally representative sample of 4,549 children ages 0-17. In addition to Finkelhor, the authors include Heather Turner, professor of sociology at UNH, Richard Ormrod, research professor of geography at UNH, and Sherry Hamby, research associate professor of psychology at Sewanee, the University of the South.

###

The UNH Crimes against Children Research Center (CCRC) works to combat crimes against children by providing high-quality research and statistics to the public, policy makers, law enforcement personnel, and other child welfare practitioners. CCRC is concerned with research about the nature of crimes including child abduction, homicide, rape, assault, and physical and sexual abuse as well as their impact.

The University of New Hampshire, founded in 1866, is a world-class public research university with the feel of a New England liberal arts college. A land, sea, and space-grant university, UNH is the state's flagship public institution, enrolling 11,800 undergraduate and 2,400 graduate students. ..Source.. by Lori Wright, University of New Hampshire

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TX- Registering youths debated

9-21-2009 Texas:

HOUSTON — Samantha Portwood is marking the days on her calendar until Sept. 30. That’s the day her 24-year-old son’s name and picture are expected to be removed from the state’s sex offender registry.

For the past decade, her son Dale has lived under public scrutiny for a crime he committed when he was 12. He inappropriately touched a 7-year-old girl at his baby sitter’s house and was charged with aggravated sexual assault. After completing two years of therapy and probation, Dale had to register as a sex offender, which shocked his parents.

“It frustrates me,” said Portwood, of Pinehurst in Montgomery County. “He was 12 years old when it happened. He’s not a threat to society.”

Her son isn’t alone. About 3,600 people on the state’s registry were added as juveniles, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety, which administers the registry. Eleven were 10 years old when they registered.

The registry has 26 juveniles who currently are 13 to 16, according to state records. Many people are not aware that juveniles can be registered as sex offenders in Texas. Legislators made registration required for adults and juveniles when they established the sex offender registry in 1991. Texas does not have a minimum age for juvenile registration, but 10 is the minimum age for prosecution.

Juvenile registration is a sensitive issue that’s been debated by lawmakers, child advocates and crime victim proponents for the past decade. Those who support it contend that the community has a right to know about dangerous sex offenders — adult or juvenile — for protection. Critics argue that the negative consequences on juveniles and their families far outweigh any benefits to the community. No research suggests that registration makes communities safer, they said.

Access to court records for juveniles with delinquent backgrounds are generally restricted to protect them from shame and to give them a fresh start. But anyone can access the state’s online sex offender registry and see the juvenile’s criminal charge.

The registry, which went online in 1997, also makes available the juvenile’s address, where he attends schools and annual mug shots.

“I feel like this is totally inconsistent with the way we as a society have determined is the right way to deal with juvenile behavior,” said Theresa Todd, director of the Texas Network of Youth Services. “To protect juveniles from public derision is our job.”

Laura Ahearn, executive director of Parents for Megan’s Law and the Crime Victims Center, disagreed.

“Once a juvenile introduces violence into sexual behavior, it’s hard to rehabilitate,” Ahearn said. “They are worthy of registration.”

Unlike adult sex offenders who must register for life, juvenile sex offenders are required to register for 10 years after they leave the juvenile system.

The vast majority of juvenile sex offenses are against other children, and the juvenile generally knows the victim, juvenile justice experts said.

Juveniles lack the maturity to manage their behavior because their brains are still developing, said Dr. Bob McLaughlin with ADAPT Counseling, a juvenile sex offender treatment provider in Houston. As a result, juveniles are more amenable to treatment than adult sex offenders and can be rehabilitated, he said.

Juvenile registration only makes treatment and rehabilitation much more difficult, experts said.

In some cases, juvenile sex offenders have safety zone stipulations as part of their probation, and they can’t go to certain places, such as parks or community centers. The restrictions can limit their social activities and job opportunities, which are key to their rehabilitation, McLaughlin said.

Allison Taylor, executive director of the Texas Council on Sex Offender Treatment, said restrictions are a mitigating factor when considering public policy on juvenile offenders.

“Anytime you destabilize adults or juveniles, you increase the risk of recidivism,” Taylor said. “That is a public concern.”

Portwood has spent 10 years trying to protect her son from being bullied and ostracized. She said she helplessly watched as Dale’s self-esteem diminished.

In high school, classmates called him a rapist and child molester behind his back. He dropped out in the 10th grade.

“He came to me and said, ‘Mom, I can’t take it anymore,’” she said. “He said, ‘Do people look at me and think I’m a monster?’ What do you tell him?”

Portwood said she knows Dale’s actions were morally wrong but believes it didn’t merit him being labeled a sex offender.

His road to adulthood has been rocky. He has never had a steady job. He briefly got mixed up with drugs about two years ago and moved out of his parents’ house.

Failure to report a change of address, a registry rule, landed him in prison last year. He was released on parole in March and is living outside Austin, trying to get his life back on track.

Dale, who did not want his last named used, to protect his identity, said that at 12 he did not realize what he did was wrong. He said he never was a sexual predator and feels like registration robbed him of his childhood because his life was filled with constant embarrassment.

Nearly every legislative session, Texas lawmakers have tweaked the sex offender registry law. A major change came in 2001, giving judges discretion in handling juvenile registration.

Judges have three options. They can waive registration or remove juveniles from the registry. The juvenile must petition the court for removal. Judges also can defer making a decision until after the juvenile successfully completes therapy. Those who work closely with juvenile courts say judges often chose to defer registration. ..Source.. by RENÉE C. LEE - Houston Chronicle

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Sex Offenses: Balancing Protections For All Children

8-13-2009 National:

Legislators don't win reelection by appearing to be weak on issues surrounding public safety. Accordingly, there is a subtle, almost constant pressure to increase the sanctions and penalties for notable crimes. This is particularly true in the case of sex offenses against minors.

Few lawmakers are willing to stand up in defense of those convicted of sex crimes, when constituents can so readily picture the most gruesome and horrific events leading to these convictions. As a result, sex offenders are regularly subject to severe penalties, followed by ongoing monitoring long after they any sentence has been completed.

However, the image of a sex offender that is emblazoned in the collective consciousness does not always match the reality. In some states, children as young as seven years old can be labeled sex offenders and listed on the sex offender registry. This is a disturbing trend in which the laws that are designed to protect children from harm are increasingly being used against children themselves.

This is absolutely the wrong approach to handling children accused of sex offenses.

The Laws Governing Juvenile Sex Offenders

For children accused of committing sex offenses, two systems govern the potential penalties and repercussions of inappropriate actions.

Misconduct by youthful offenders is often addressed by the juvenile justice system rather than the criminal justice system. For example, under the Juvenile Act in Pennsylvania, a child accused of a crime is subject to an adjudication of delinquency rather than a criminal conviction.

The law provides some exceptions to this rule. Certain severe acts are subject to more serious criminal penalties even when committed by a person under the age of 18. Most of the time though, the juvenile justice system seeks to educate and rehabilitate youthful offenders without creating a permanent criminal record that will haunt the child for years to come.

On the federal level, the registration of sex offenders is governed by the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006. This Act increases federal criminal penalties for many crimes committed against children, increases penalties for crimes related to child pornography, and standardizes the minimum reporting requirements for sex offenders. The Act mandates the creation of a national sex offender registry and ensures that this registry will be placed on a publically accessible Web site.

For registration purposes, the Walsh Act incorporates a broad definition of the term "convicted." In addition to those truly convicted of sex crimes under the relevant criminal laws, this term includes those who are over the age of 14 and adjudicated of crimes comparable to or more severe than the federal crime of aggravated sexual assault. This broad definition has resulted in the public shaming of children, who would traditionally be protected and guided through the juvenile justice system.

The federal government is not mandating compliance with the Adam Walsh Act; states may choose not to adopt laws in compliance with the Adam Walsh Act. However, states that do not fully comply with the Act by July 2010 will lose part of their federal crime prevention grants.

The Problem with Treating Children As Adults

There are many problems with treating children as adults. Most importantly, penalties should acknowledge that the reasons for punishing a 40-year-old with a long history of sexual offenses are different that those for punishing a 14-year-old who once behaved inappropriately.

For adults, the sex offender registry serves multiple purposes. First, the serious penalties are intended to operate as a general deterrent; the idea is that the knowledge that committing a sex crime may result in life-long registry as a sex offender will help to prevent someone from committing a crime before it happens. Additionally, registration serves as a specific deterrent to prevent the individual sex offender from offending again; a person listed as an offender against children will likely have fewer opportunities to interact with children, which thereby protects the public.

For juveniles, the primary focus of the juvenile justice system is rehabilitation and education. The intent is to help children understand their actions and recognize that these actions are unacceptable. The sex offender registry cannot reasonably be considered a deterrent; a 14-year-old child cannot conceptualize lifetime mandatory registration, or even the 15 years of registration mandated by the lowest level offenses.

Furthermore, teenagers don't understand the practical implications of their actions, and serious criminal charges have not yet adapted to changing technologies and teen practices. Across the country, teenagers are being charged with possession of child pornography, as a result of the recent surge in "sexting." Teenagers are sending nude photographs of themselves to their friends or significant others; because the photographers and recipients are underage, this amounts to child pornography.

This is a significant problem and an issue that many states are currently attempting to address. While the laws are evolving, though, it is important to ensure that the laws designed to protect children do not inadvertently or unreasonably punish them.

When children are harmed, the obvious and immediate reaction is to increase the penalties in an attempt to prevent such events from happening again. When a child is responsible for the harm though, it is important to remember that two children must be protected. Laws affecting juveniles must be written to address their unique needs and to guide future decisions, not designed to punish and ultimately alienate them. ..Source.. by The Law Offices of David S. Shrager

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FL- Florida justice: Tough on youths

8-10-2009 Florida:

TALLAHASSEE - While other young men were heading to college or finding their first jobs, Terrance Graham entered a state prison at the age of 19 where he will spend the rest of his life.

The Jacksonville man, in the words of his own attorney, was "no angel." At 16, he was convicted of armed burglary. He violated his probation at 17 by fleeing police after a home invasion robbery.

Everyone agreed that Graham should be punished. Corrections officials recommended a four-year sentence. Prosecutors demanded a 30-year term. But a judge imposed the harshest sentence a juvenile criminal could face in the United States: life without parole.

Outside of Florida, no other prisoner in the nation is serving a life sentence without parole for a juvenile burglary conviction.

But in Florida, Graham's case is not rare. Records show that Florida has handed out more life sentences to juveniles for non-murder crimes than have all other states combined.

Florida's sentencing raises questions about cruelty as well as concerns about racial bias. While blacks represent about 16 percent of Florida's population, and about half its prison population, 84 percent of juveniles sentenced to life without parole for non-homicide offenses were African-American.

Florida has sentenced 77 young men to spend their lives in prison, without any chance of release, based on non-homicide crimes they committed when they were 17 years old or younger, according to a preliminary study by Florida State University researchers. Six of those prisoners were 13 or 14 at the time of their crimes.

A Herald-Tribune review of state records shows that some juveniles were given life without parole for as few as one or two convictions of non-homicide crimes.

Florida's stance has generated protests from human rights groups and a lawsuit heading to the U.S. Supreme Court, which contends such sentences violate the Constitution's ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

But the state shows little sign of stopping judges from imposing life sentences on juveniles or providing a path to freedom for those already in prison. Lawmakers rejected a bill last spring that would have allowed juveniles in some non-homicide cases to eventually become eligible for parole.

The controversy in Florida stands out because it differs so greatly from policies elsewhere. Florida prisoners represent 69 percent of the 111 inmates reported nationally to be serving life without parole for their non-homicide juvenile crimes. Thirty-six states have no non-homicide juvenile lifers. Researchers are still awaiting data from six states, but they do not expect Florida's standing to change.

Other findings:

• Only Florida has sent juvenile criminals away for life for burglary, battery and carjacking. Graham is among 24 juveniles sentenced to life for burglary.

• Forty-six juveniles in Florida were given life for armed robbery.

"Florida's practice of sentencing juvenile offenders to life without parole for non-homicide cases is unique among American states," said the preliminary research report directed by Paolo Annino, an FSU law professor who heads the school's Public Interest Law Center.

"It stands alone in its willingness to condemn young people for non-homicide offenses to life in prison, without a chance of a reassessment of their lives in some future time," the report said.

Why Florida?

The Florida juveniles have been caught in two converging criminal justice trends.

The state has made it easier to try juveniles as adults at the same time it has increased the potential penalties for many crimes. Currently, Florida judges have the power to impose a life sentence without parole for more than 50 crimes.

Many of the changes came in the 1990s, when Florida was hit with a highly publicized crime wave, including the killings of nine tourists in 1992 and 1993. A British tourist was killed by a group of juveniles at an Interstate 10 rest stop in 1993 in a robbery that drew international press attention.

Since that time, Florida has sentenced 65 of the 77 non-homicide juvenile criminals to life without parole, according to the FSU researchers.

Other states are sending more juveniles into the adult prison system, too, although none of them have embraced the use of life without parole for non-homicide juvenile offenses as aggressively as Florida.

"It's a national problem that has just taken on very dramatic examples in Florida," said Bryan Stevenson, the director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a legal aid group based in Montgomery, Ala., and a lawyer for one of the juvenile offenders in the court case.

But Stevenson said the imposition of a sentence that should be reserved for unredeemable criminals is highly inappropriate for many minors given the large body of scientific evidence showing that young people are developmentally different from adults.

"Our argument is not that these kids can't be punished, can't be sent to prison for a very long time," Stevenson said. "But to make a judgment that their sentences can never be reviewed for possible release is inconsistent with how we deal with kids in virtually every other context."

Supreme Court fight

Florida's stance against young criminals has become the focal point of a potentially landmark U.S. Supreme Court case.

In November, the country's highest court is scheduled to hear arguments in Graham's case and the case of Joe Sullivan, a Pensacola man convicted of rape as a 13-year-old. The court is being asked whether a life sentence without parole for juvenile offenders not guilty of homicide violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment.

In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for juveniles was unconstitutional and that opinion -- which underscored the physical and psychological differences between a juvenile and an adult -- has provided much of the legal basis for the challenge of Florida's life-without-parole sentences for juveniles.

Florida's harsh sentencing for juvenile crimes has drawn criticism from a wide spectrum of groups, including the American Bar Association, Amnesty International, the NAACP and the American Psychiatric Association, which have all filed briefs in the case.

A group of former juvenile criminals, including an actor, writers, a former federal prosecutor, a business executive and former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson, R-Wyo., have joined the appeal, pointing out that they were able to rehabilitate their lives despite committing serious crimes as teenagers.

"I just can't fathom sentencing juveniles to life without parole," said Charles Dutton, who served prison time for manslaughter but went on to drama school at Yale University and became a successful Broadway and television actor. Dutton said he had talked to some of the Florida juvenile prisoners.

"They were kids and now they're finished. There's a heart-wrenching sadness on their faces and you can see the fight is out of them," Dutton said in the brief. "If they were given a second chance, they'd be changed human beings."

Florida opposes changes

Thus far, Florida's legal establishment has yet to bend to the criticism of its juvenile sentencing, with Attorney General Bill McCollum opposing the appeal by Graham and Sullivan. And legislation to offer parole to some young criminals, who committed their crimes when they were 15 or younger, died in the spring legislative session.

McCollum's office asserted "the facts of the case are straightforward."

Sullivan was convicted in a one-day trial of raping a 72-year-old woman after he and two older friends had burglarized the woman's house earlier in the day in 1989.

The attorney general cited a pre-sentencing report that concluded Sullivan met the guidelines for a life sentence based on his prior record, which said that Sullivan had been found guilty of 17 criminal offenses in the prior two years "including several serious felonies."

But Sullivan's attorney said there remains "a lot of doubt" about whether his then 13-year-old client raped the elderly woman or whether the crime was carried out by one of his accomplices. Sullivan's lawyers had asked for DNA evidence in the case to be reviewed but the state said it had been destroyed in 1993.

"That's been a great frustration," Stevenson said.

In sentencing Terrance Graham to life in prison, Circuit Judge Lance M. Day of Duval County called it "a sad situation," saying Graham had a chance to turn around his life after his initial burglary conviction.

"And I don't understand why you would be given such a great opportunity to do something with your life and why you would throw it away," the judge told him.

Day said Graham, who was accused of leading a home invasion robbery where he held a gun to the head of the homeowner, had exhibited an "escalating pattern of criminal conduct" that did not warrant any leniency.

"It is apparent to the court that you have decided that this is the way you are going to live your life and that the only thing I can do now is to try to protect the community from your actions," Day said, before handing down the life sentence.

Bryan Gowdy, Graham's lawyer, said Florida is alone in imposing such a harsh sentence for a non-homicide crime like burglary.

"If you are anywhere but in Florida, you would not get this sentence," Gowdy said.

He also pointed the disparity in sentencing for many of the others involved in the same crimes as Graham.

A teenager who joined Graham in the restaurant burglary and hit the manager in the head with a steel pipe was later charged with the armed robbery of a gas station. He received a three-year sentence for the restaurant burglary and has since been released from prison, while Graham remains behind bars for the rest of his life.

Further, Gowdy said although Graham came from a troubled background, where his parents had drug problems, he had a relatively clean record before the restaurant burglary.

"This is what makes it, I think, shocking," Gowdy said. "You have a juvenile who had no adjudication of delinquency in the juvenile system, had no prior conviction in the adult system, and for his first offense, which is a non-homicide, he gets life without parole."

And, Gowdy said, as a young felon, Graham has struggled in the prison system, although he has earned a high-school equivalency degree.

"He's no angel," Gowdy said. "And we're not saying he shouldn't be punished. But he should be given a chance to prove he can reform himself."

Judge regrets decision

Even some in the legal community regret the sentencing practices.

One is J. Rogers Padgett, a retired Hillsborough County circuit judge, who says he never intended to sentence a 15-year-old Tampa youth to four consecutive life sentences without parole for participating in armed robberies in the Tampa Bay area in 2000.

"I have always been opposed to mandatory minimum sentences, except in first-degree murder convictions, it being my belief that the Department of Corrections knows best about whether and when an inmate should be released on controlled supervision," Padgett wrote to Gov. Charlie Crist and the other members of the state Clemency Board.

"This is especially true when the inmate was sentenced as a teenager," Padgett said. "It was not my intent at the time of his sentencing that Mr. Young never be considered for release."

Padgett was referring to the case of Kenneth R. Young, who was 14 when he got involved with a 25-year-old crack dealer who Young said coerced him into participating in a string of hotel robberies because the dealer said Young's mother owed him money.

"I believed (the dealer) would harm my mother if I did not obey him and I knew I had to protect my family. So I got into his car," Young said in a statement.

Young, who once dreamed about becoming an astronaut or weatherman but dropped out of school at 13, ended up helping the dealer in five robberies, where the teenager was responsible for grabbing the money while the dealer held a gun on the victims. No one was hurt in the robberies.

Young now says his "biggest regret" was the impact of his crimes on the victims.

"They did not deserve to have this happen to them," said Young, 23, who has served eight years in state prison. "I did this to save my family but I did not think about the pain this would cause other families. I am sorry."

And despite his sentence, Young, who now works as a prison barber in Lake County and has a largely blemish-free prison record, said he still hopes to have his own family.

"My goal is to one day have the opportunity to show the world that I have changed," he said. ..Source.. by LLOYD DUNKELBERGER H-T Capital Bureau

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TX- Justice experts say sex offender registry ruins a juvenile's 2nd chance

7-19-2009 Texas:

The faces of child sex offenders are startling – chubby cheeks, big eyes, a mop of hair, or wispy strands held back with barrettes. The descriptions on Texas' public registry are equally jolting: 4 feet tall, 65 pounds; 4 feet, 2 inches, 70 pounds.

"Those are not the people that we're walking around terrified of," says Michele Deitch, a University of Texas law professor.

The inclusion of children as young as 10 on the state's public sex offender registry is a little-known policy – even to juvenile justice experts such as Deitch.

"I'm absolutely a little bit shocked that kids that young can be on the list," says Deitch, who teaches juvenile justice policy at the LBJ School of Public Affairs.

She's stunned because public registration contradicts the purpose of juvenile justice: to give kids a second chance. In the case of some juvenile sex offenders, their criminal records are off limits, but information about their crime is easily accessible on the Internet.

"It is a terrible situation," Deitch says. "The juvenile justice system is designed to rehabilitate kids and to make sure that they can change."

According to the Texas Department of Public Safety, there is no minimum age for inclusion on the state list. But a child must be at least 10 to be handled by the state juvenile justice system, so a judge may order an offender that young to register.

No child can be certified as an adult in Texas until age 14.

Shocked though Deitch and others may be, Texas is actually more liberal on juvenile sex offender registration than some states. After experimenting with mandatory registration from 1999 until 2001, registration was left to judicial discretion. Juvenile registration lasts for only 10 years, and those on the list may petition for removal.

In some states, children can be registered at age 7, though Nicole Pittman, a Philadelphia attorney who monitors juvenile sex offender registration laws nationwide, says adjudication of children younger than 10 is rare.

Judge Tim Menikos of Fort Worth, past chairman of the juvenile justice section of the State Bar of Texas, says that since mandatory registration ended, judges rarely require juvenile registration. But according to a Dallas Morning News analysis of the Texas sex offender registry, there are about 4,000 people on the registry who were younger than 18 at the time of their crime, including 1,004 younger than 14.

Only two children currently under 14 are on the registry, but the inclusion of any child that young bothers many, including some victim advocates.

"I don't think it necessarily supports community safety to put really young children on the registry," says Annette Burrhus-Clay, executive director of the Texas Association Against Sexual Assault.

Burrhus-Clay has been working with sexual assault victims for decades and was stunned to hear young children are included.

She worries that sexual abuse may go unreported as a result. "If I found my 10-year-old child with my 7-year-old child, I would be very tempted – even after 30 years in the field – not to report my child just to keep them off the registry."

But not everyone opposes registration of young teens.

Dianne Clements, president of Justice for All, a Houston-based victims' rights organization, says the state's current system of judicial discretion with juvenile offenders works.

"We don't want to believe that children can do the types of horrible things that they do," she says. "But they do. And whether they're 13 or 23 years old, they can be as dangerous."

Nationally, the Adam Walsh Act calls for mandatory registration of sex offenders ages 14 and older. Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, says, "Congress got it about right by setting that 14-year level." He does, however, favor judicial discretion over mandatory registration.

"It's important, in our interest in protecting ourselves, that we not throw out all the protections of the juvenile justice system," he says.

But, he adds, those calling for juvenile registration often speak from painful experience.

In Wisconsin, teenager Amie Zyla pushed for public registration of juveniles after the 14-year-old boy who molested her when she was 8 assaulted other children after his release from a juvenile facility.

Texas has also had its share of juvenile sex offender problems. In 2005, Jeremiah Sexton, who had a juvenile record for molesting several children in another state, assaulted a 9-year-old girl in Arlington. Because he was not required to register publicly, neighbors were unaware of his past.

But most juvenile offenders do not re-offend, says Liles Arnold, chairman of the Texas Council on Sex Offender Treatment.

"With adolescent offenders, the recidivism rate is very, very low," he says. "Adolescents are not simply younger versions of adult offenders. They're highly treatable. They're good candidates for rehabilitation."

Their chances for rehabilitation may be hampered, Arnold says, by public registration.

Publicizing their names and addresses often leads to social isolation because parents don't want their kids associating with sex offenders. School officials must be notified of the offender's history, and registration makes getting accepted to college or finding work difficult.

"We're stigmatizing children who have a much better chance of success completing sex offender treatment and never perpetrating again," Burrhus-Clay says.

Clements, of Justice for All, agrees registration is a "tremendous burden" but says, "it may be a burden that they should bear."

Frank Zimring doesn't think so. Zimring, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley, is the author of An American Travesty: Legal Responses to Adolescent Sexual Offending.

Zimring says the laws allowing juvenile registration are an accidental byproduct of adult policies.

"Nobody is making policy for 12-year-olds in American legislatures," the professor says. "What they're doing is they're making crime policy and then almost by accident extending those policies to 12-year-olds – with poisonous consequences."

Zimring thinks it's inappropriate to register anyone adjudicated as a juvenile – which would be anyone under 18 in Texas.

"We have a cure for youth crime," he says. "It's growing up." ..Source.. by DIANE JENNINGS / The Dallas Morning News

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TX- Sex-offender label on boys unravels family's lives

7-19-2009 Texas:

In 1998, 7-year-old Mary was sexually assaulted.

That's enough sorrow for a lifetime.

It gets worse: Her assailants were her brothers, Billy, 12, and Mark, 10.

Their mother, Carol, says watching her adolescent sons shuffle into court – in handcuffs and oversized orange jail jumpsuits rolled up to fit their scrawny frames – for assaulting their sister "just tore my heart out."

But the horror was only beginning.

Following the juvenile justice philosophy that children deserve a second chance, the boys received probation, and their delinquency records remained private. But ostensibly to protect the public, their names were added to the sex offender registry.

The Smith sons, now in their 20s, are due to be removed from the registry next year after the 10-year juvenile registration limitation expires. But Carol says the family will never recover from the boys being branded as sex offenders.

"Even though they were 10 and 12 when this happened ... they'll be sex offenders when they die," she says.

The Smith family – whose names have been changed to protect Mary's privacy – is not unique. According to a Dallas Morning News analysis, about 4,000 people are on the Texas sex offender registry for crimes committed as juveniles. About a thousand of them were younger than 14 at the time of their crimes.


It's her label, too

Mary is 19 years old now, thin, pale and soft-spoken. She forgave her brothers long ago.

But she's never been able to put the matter behind her, primarily because of her brothers' registration. "It's always in the back of my mind," she says. "You know, not so much what happened, but [it's] who we are now."

Though she was never identified publicly as the victim, she suspects people know. Her brothers' registration information includes their address and the victim's age and gender. Even if the people in her North Texas town don't know she was the victim, she's recognized as the sibling of sex offenders.

"They see the word 'sex offender' and they automatically see it as some horrible monster that took some little girl out somewhere and raped her," she says. "Nobody really cares what the story is."

The case file is sealed, and attorneys and others involved in the matter would not discuss it, but court papers provided by the brothers' father, Bob, describe the story clinically: Billy penetrated Mary and had her perform oral sex. No violence was involved, but because of her age the crime is aggravated sexual assault. Mark later touched her genitals and was charged with indecency with a child.

Sex offender treatment providers say penetration by young children is unusual, but looking and touching is fairly common, falling within the range of "normal development."

Their parents, while not playing down the seriousness of the offenses, say the boys learned the behavior from adults.

"A kid came over and spent the night with Billy and brought with him a porno tape from his dad," Carol says. "That's where they got these ideas from."

Billy declined to talk for this story, but Mark says they also witnessed sexual activity between a teenage baby sitter and her boyfriend. Both boys were diagnosed with learning disabilities from an early age, and Billy was treated for emotional problems in kindergarten.

The Smiths admit their family isn't suited for a Norman Rockwell painting. Bob's trucking job took him away for long stretches of time. Carol worked at the post office and made extra money cleaning houses. The kids were often left with the sitter.

"We may not have been the perfect people, but we both tried," Bob says.

Mark doesn't blame his parents. "They did the best they could," he says.

Both parents say they don't know how long the behavior went on, but after Carol walked in on Billy and Mary in the bathroom one day, she and Bob "told him this is not acceptable, this is not the way people conduct themselves."

They also told Mary not to let anyone touch her that way.

Carol sought help, unaware the therapist was required to report the incident. When authorities interviewed Mary, she told them about Billy and about when Mark touched her.

Mark says Billy encouraged him to touch their sister, and their parents say Billy did so because he didn't want to be in trouble by himself.

Billy and Mark pleaded guilty and received two years' probation. Mark went to live with a foster family from Carol's church; Billy was sent to a residential treatment center.

Carol expected the kids to get help "and we could go back to being the family we were," she says.


4 feet 7, 80 pounds

But to the Smiths' horror, the boys' names, descriptions and crime soon cropped up on the Internet. Bob shuffles through a stack of papers and pulls out a copy of Mark's early state sex offender registration: white male, 4 feet 7, 80 pounds, size 6 shoe.

The family knew the boys would be registered with law enforcement authorities – Mark's acknowledgement was printed with childlike letters, signed in careful cursive – but didn't realize the information would be listed on the public sex offender registry.

Juvenile registration was not mandatory at the time but was left to judicial discretion as it is today. Court records do not show whether a judge specifically ordered public registration, and the Smiths are puzzled about why their sons, who received light sentences and eventually were sent home to live with their victim, were listed.

The Smiths say they favor public registration for sexually violent criminals, and maybe for repeat juvenile offenders, but "you don't need to protect the community from an 11-year-old kid," Mark says.

Carol says: "This was a horrible thing that happened, but ... they are not these horrible animals."

Registration "ruined both their lives," she says softly. "It totally ruined them."

When they returned to school, the principal vowed to keep a close eye on the boys; teachers asked if they were dangerous; fellow students quickly learned about the crime.

Attending church camp was nixed. Sleepovers became a thing of the past. After an old friend's mother saw Mark on the Internet, "He was not allowed to associate with that child," Carol says.

Both boys gravitated toward young thieves and junkies, Bob says, "because they're the only people that would accept [them]."

Neither son dated much. When Carol asked Mark why he didn't ask a girl he liked to go out, he replied, "I can't ask her out, Mom, I'm a sex offender."

Mark says his life spiraled out of control after his arrest.

"Once I was in jail when I was 10, that made me accept that jail was OK," he says. "It exposed me to drugs. It made me accept a world I never would have accepted."

Mary also struggled. At school, she says, her teachers told her that they knew her brothers and warned her not to be a troublemaker like them.

And, she added, "it was hard making friends."

Mary "continued really to be a victim," Bob says. "She couldn't live a normal life.

"We were scared to death if some girl came to the house and they were here and their parents knew."

At a counselor's suggestion, alarms were installed on Mary's bedroom door when the boys returned home. "I was OK with that," Carol says, "because I want Mary to be safe, too."

Being the parents of both the victim and the perpetrators is like "being pulled apart," Carol says. "Because if you take up for your boys, then they're thinking, 'What about your daughter? Don't you care about her?' And if you take up for your daughter, it's, 'What about the boys?' "

Her dream of a normal family life vanished "as soon as I knew it was on the Internet," she says. "Our family was looked at as a family of degenerates."


'Tremendous strain'

The Smiths' marriage was already on shaky ground, and the situation with their children made it worse.

"It caused tremendous strain," Carol says, and for a long time the couple blamed each other for what happened. "We don't feel that way now," she says.

Carol particularly had a difficult time dealing with the situation. She quit going to church after a deacon asked her, in crude terms, exactly what happened. And she began abusing methamphetamines.

"I can't deal with it," Carol says of her sons' status. "The way I've dealt with it is to not think about it."

She and Bob divorced in 2004.

All three kids dropped out of high school. Mary works at a fast-food restaurant, and Billy, who earned a GED certificate, recently landed a construction job. But employers willing to hire poorly educated teen sex offenders in a town of 25,000 are rare.

Bob considered sending his sons to live with relatives who were willing to give them jobs. But "nobody wanted their address" on the sex offender registry, he says.


Under one roof

Today, Billy, Mark and Mary call Bob's small rental house home. He's grateful his landlord has not objected to having sex offenders on the property, but others have not been so welcoming.

Bob points to a jagged hole in the siding where a passer-by shot a pellet gun, then ticks off the other incidents: two broken car windshields; a Molotov cocktail thrown in the driveway; a neighbor who complained about the boys visiting a nearby park; talk of forming a neighborhood group to keep an eye on the Smiths' sons.

Bob admits he has not always turned the other cheek. In 2002, he received deferred adjudication for a misdemeanor assault he says sprang from escalating tensions with a neighbor.

Ironically, Bob says, when irate people target his house, they're also victimizing his daughter again.

"I really didn't have much of a childhood at home," Mary says. "I kept to myself most of the time because I was afraid."

In and out of jail

Neither Smith boy has committed another sex offense. But they haven't stayed out of trouble either.

Both have been in and out of prison for crimes such as burglary. Billy also spent a year behind bars for failing to register as a sex offender.

"He didn't want to create problems for me and his sister," Bob says. "He didn't want his face in the newspaper. He had just made new friends – he was a teenager."

Even though juvenile registrations are capped at 10 years, the conviction for failing to register "is going to be on his record the rest of his life," Bob says.

What bothers Carol is that her boys accept prison life as normal.

"Billy's all but institutionalized," Carol says. "He sees no point in trying, because he's branded."

The last time Billy got in trouble, Bob asked him, "Why? Why did you do this?"

"What else do I got to do?" Billy replied. "At least if I'm in prison, I can crawl into my little hole. I don't have to deal with anybody on the outside."

Mark is currently in the local jail for using heroin in violation of his latest probation.

He doesn't seem particularly bothered by the prospect of spending a couple of years behind bars. "I don't have to deal with it in here," he says. "Nobody really knows."

By the time he is released, his registration period will have expired, and he hopes to find a job and a place to live without worrying about a sex crime appearing on his record.

"When I get out, it'll be a clean slate," he says hopefully.

He is less optimistic about his brother's chances.

"He may have taken it worse than anyone else," Mark says. "He's shy; he's never had friends.

"Me and my sister, we can get past this, but I don't think my brother ever will."

The rest of the family also continues to suffer. Bob recently applied for a part-time job as a security guard. After a background check, he was asked, "Who's the sex offender?" at his home. He explained the situation and never heard back from the company.

At 56, on disability because of two bouts with cancer and other health problems, he longs to leave Texas. But he's trapped, he says, because his sons would have no place to live.

"If I take off, if I bail out, then I'm stuffing it all on her," Bob says of his ex-wife. "I don't want to do that."

If Billy and Mark were simply thugs, "I would have said, 'Boys, I'm leaving. Y'all want to be crooks and thieves all your lives, fine,' " Bob says. "But because of the registration thing, that I feel deeply in my heart had such negative impact on their lives ... I don't have a choice."

The rest of the world may have given up on the Smith brothers, but their victim hasn't.

People can't understand "why we were still there for them if they were such awful people," Mary says. "But I'm not going to do that. I'm never going to abandon them." ..Source.. by DIANE JENNINGS / The Dallas Morning News

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New Internet Statistics

7-18-2008

A new report, The 2008 Mobile Life Report, out of the United Kingdom provides us with some current Internet statistics. A few of those stats can easily be taken out of context so we will deal with them first:

Claim: "One in ten children have sexually explicit conversations on the internet"
or- "11 per cent of children aged 11 to 18 have had sexually explicit conversations online"

Source: Mobile Life report 2008, page 46.

Highlights of Report:
The Mobile Life Report (2008) reveals that 1 in 3 UK children interact with strangers online; 1 in 7 find themselves in a situation where they find themselves uncomfortable or uneasy online; and 1 in 10 of the children and young people surveyed report having sexually explicit conversations online.

Those sexually explicit conversations are with people known to the children. i.e., their friends. Also that, the percentage is for the UK and not the US which reports a lower percentage. Also, that 49% of those children lie to their parents telling them they are doing homework when they are really online.

Within that report are many stats far too many to duplicate here so get a cup of coffee and enjoy this new report. Many of their comments are new ways of thinking about the truth of stats and unfortunately I can see some will be taken out of context.

eAdvocate

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KS- Juveniles entitled to jury trials, Kansas court says

6-21-2008 Kansas:

TOPEKA | In a decision affecting every juvenile criminal case in Kansas, the state Supreme Court has guaranteed juvenile defendants the right to a trial before a jury.

The court ruled Friday that young defendants should be afforded the protections of a jury because the distinctions between juvenile and adult justice have eroded over the past 20 years as lawmakers cracked down on juvenile crime.

The decision sent a shock wave through the juvenile justice community. Prosecutors and judges said the likely result is more juries, longer trials and higher expenses.

“This is huge,” said state Sen. Phil Journey, a Haysville Republican.

But Journey, a criminal defense attorney, said the ruling is justified.

“You cannot impose adult penalties on little children without giving them adult due process,” he said.

Previously in Kansas, it was up to judges to decide whether to grant a juvenile defendant’s request for a jury trial. Most states, including Missouri, do not offer the option in juvenile cases.

The rare use of jury trials is a hallmark of the juvenile justice system, which was set up a century ago to treat younger offenders more gently and encourage confidentiality and rehabilitation.

Teens charged with the most serious crimes often are tried as adults. Friday’s decision affects those who remain in the juvenile system. It applies to current cases, even those under appeal, and future ones.

“This decision will certainly cause an increase in the number of trials before the district courts of Kansas, increasing the need for more court personnel, judges and prosecutors,” Attorney General Steve Six said in a statement.

In Johnson County, for instance, some 1,000 juvenile cases have been filed so far this year, according to District Attorney Phill Kline, and yet only one courtroom is equipped to handle juvenile jury cases.

District Court Judge Brenda Cameron, who hears juvenile cases in Johnson County, said she does not know of one jury trial granted to a juvenile in the county before she came on board in 2002.

She began granting the trials, she said, because she thought juveniles should have that right.

In the past year, she said, she has granted requests for roughly 10 trials. All but two pleaded out, she said.

She described Friday’s ruling as “a big deal.”

The Kansas case arose after a 16-year-old Finney County boy, identified in court documents by initials, was found guilty of aggravated sexual battery and alcohol possession after he forcibly kissed a woman walking down the street.

The boy asked for a jury trial, but the judge said no. The boy got probation but had to register as a sex offender.

In the appeal, the teen’s attorney argued he should be allowed the same right to a jury trial granted to adults by the Constitution.

The Supreme Court sided with the boy and sent the case back to the lower court.

The justices cited several changes in the way juveniles are treated — including harsher sentencing rules, less confidentiality for defendants, and a shifting focus from rehabilitation to punishment.

The changes “have eroded the benevolent, parens patriae (parental) character that distinguished it from the adult criminal system,” reads the 6-1 ruling, written by Justice Eric Rosen.

Six said an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court isn’t available, since Friday’s ruling cited parts of the state constitution.

Kansas now joins a small list of states that make jury trials a right for any defendant. It’s a list other states should join, according to Jessica Feierman, an attorney at the Juvenile Law Center, a Philadelphia-based group that supported the Finney County boy’s appeal.

“We’ve (as Americans) decided this is the best way to protect defendants, to ensure there are some checks and balances,” she said. “It may be more expensive, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t give every defendant the same rights.”

Kline called the ruling “far-reaching and dramatic” and said that already on Friday, defense attorneys began filing motions demanding jury trials for juveniles.

The county doesn’t have the resources to add judges or prosecutors or court space to handle the extra work, he said.

However, he said, “we are going to have to find a way, of course.”

Attorneys who represent juvenile offenders welcomed Friday’s ruling.

“It doesn’t really surprise me with the way things have been going,” Randy McCalla said. “Frankly, the differences between juvenile and adult court now are very few and far between.”

Defense attorney Robb Edmonds agreed.

“It’s a very good thing for kids,” said Edmonds, who defended a 16-year-old Overland Park girl accused of killing her mother in 2005.

Johnson County Chief Judge Stephen Tatum said it will be a challenge to provide the resources, especially in a growing county. “We will do our best.”

The Wyandotte County district attorney’s office also recognizes that the new right will come with a cost.

“We know it is going to have an effect,” particularly on the time it will take from judges and prosecutors, spokesman Chris Schneider said.

But defense attorneys predicted that many juveniles would forgo jury trials anyway. Sometimes the better strategy is to present a case to a judge who has heard similar cases.

“Do I want a bunch of 50-year-old men and women deciding my 14-year-old’s case?” Edmonds asked. “What if they had never had kids before? That could affect what they know about kids.”

Kline agreed, saying that jury trials may be appropriate for serious cases. But in less serious ones, he said, a jury trial could reduce the court’s flexibility in helping the offender get back on the right track.

Turning a child’s life around should be the focus in juvenile court, he said. ..News Source.. by DAVID KLEPPER and DIANE CARROLL

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Convicted adolescents beyond redemption?

2-13-2008 Illinois:

An Illinois youth justice advocacy group called for the abolition of life-without-parole sentencing for youths 17 and under on Wednesday.

The Illinois Coalition for the Fair Sentencing of Children interviewed 103 state prisoners who got that maximum sentence even though they were 14 to 17-year-olds.

The oldest prisoner who talked about his life-without-parole sentence as a youth, is now 47. The study concluded that adolescents should have the chance to come before a parole board within the first 15 to 20 years of their life sentence.

The group said it is inhumane to lock-up minors for life without the chance of parole. They said adolescents are less culpable than adults and are capable of being rehabilitated.

The coalition pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court 2005 recognized that children are “categorically less culpable” for their crimes because their brain development is still evolving. Some psychiatrists said that young adults are not necessarily less culpable, but their developmental stage needs to be considered.

“The brains of children and adolescents are still developing and this affects how they make decisions and how they evaluate different situations,” said Dr. Susan Rosenthal, director of the division of adolescent and behavioral health at the University of Texas Medical Branch.

Two experts in the field contacted by the Medill News Service held different points of view.

Dr. Rosenthal said this is why it is important to consider a minor’s developmental stage when handing out sentences. “You need to evaluate the situation in which the adolescent made that decision,” Dr. Rosenthal said. “[He or she] may not continue to make that decision as an adult. So you need to evaluate the situation from [his or her] developmental perspective.”

Rudolph Nimocks, the chief of the University of Chicago police department, disagrees. He said most adolescents facing life without parole sentences commit serious and frequent heinous crimes. And that often it is too late to be rehabilitated.

“[The violence] is usually a multiple thing,” Nimocks said. “It wasn’t done spontaneously. It was cold-blooded and deliberate. So it’s hard for them to be rehabilitated. If they’re so far off the mark, they have deep psychological problems and would really need to be evaluated to see if they’d be able to safely re-enter society.”

Nimocks has been a police officer in Chicago for 53 years. He said he is discouraged by the increasing youth violence, but does not think a second chance can always be given to a violent offender.

“It’s a tough problem,” Nimocks said. “It’s a terrible thing if you let someone out and they turn around and do the same thing. I don’t say [rehabilitation] is impossible, but it would require a lot of work.”

The Illinois coalition wants the study to create just this sort of dialogue with state policymakers. The group said life without the possibility of parole for teens violates human rights and should be abolished. Dr. Rosenthal said the sentencing is unfair.

Illinois established life-without-parole sentencing in 1978. The United States is the only country to have this severe sentencing for minors, according to the coalition's report. ..more.. by Ali Reed and Ashley Sears

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Trying juveniles as adults fails, U.S. study finds

11-29-2007 Arizona:

A decade after a nationwide push to toughen sentences for juvenile offenders, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has released a study stating it is a mistake to send underage criminals into the adult court system.

According to the study, youths who have been previously tried as adults are 34 percent more likely to commit crimes than those who are dealt with in the juvenile system.

In addition, youths transferred into the adult system commit suicide at higher rates than those kept in the juvenile system and are victimized by other inmates far more as well.

Judge Patricia Escher, who presides over Pima County's Juvenile Court, said the study corroborates other studies done in recent years.

"There's a reason why juvenile courts were created," Escher said. "Children are not little adults. They are physically, neurologically and behaviorally different than adults and it's been proven the way we deal with adult offenders is not particularly helpful when dealing with juvenile offenders."

Arizona's legislators have already started to realize that judges need to be given back some of the discretion they lost in the mid-1990s, Escher said.

For example, they passed a bill last session that allows judges to send certain juvenile sex offenders back into the juvenile system, Escher said.

Hopefully, legislators will look at the CDC study and review other statutes to see if the state is taking the best approach it can, Escher said.

Legislators pushed for harsher punishments for juveniles in the 1990s because of an increase in juvenile crime. In addition, experts were warning citizens and police alike to get ready for a national wave of unprecedented crime that would be carried out by "super-predators" — violent teenagers with no conscience who lived for the moment and would commit crimes for the pleasure of it.

The super-predators never arrived and juvenile crime has actually decreased in recent years.

In Pima County, for example, the number of children charged with violent or property crimes fell 43 percent between 1997 and 2006. At the same time, the number of children between ages 8 and 17 living in Pima County rose 26 percent.

Leah Hamilton, supervisor of the county public defender's juvenile unit, said she, too, hopes legislators will review juvenile-crime statutes after reading the most recent study.

Locally, however, Hamilton said she has to give kudos to the Pima County Attorney's Office.

Prosecutors are quite judicious when seeking transfers into the adult system, Hamilton said.

They realize that "fundamentally kids and adults are two different species," Hamilton said.

In Arizona, juveniles can land in the adult system one of three ways.

They can commit a crime that requires them to be treated as adults, they can commit a crime that requires a prosecutor to seek a judge's approval for an adult transfer or they can commit a crime that allow the prosecutor to transfer them into the adult system without a judge's approval.

According to Pima County statistics, the number of children being remanded into adult court has dropped significantly since 2000.

In 2000, 134 children were remanded into adult court.

In 2006, that number was 93.

Peter Hochuli, supervisor of the Pima County Attorney's Office juvenile division, said fewer juvenile offenders are being transferred into the adult system because more services are available for them in the juvenile system.

"If we can provide rehabilitation, the community is going to be safer in the long run," Hochuli said.

One of the things he looks at when deciding whether to seek a transfer to adult court is the age of the child.

If a child accused of a less serious sex crime is 17 years, 6 months old, a treatment program may not help him much simply because he won't be able to finish it, Hochuli said. A 15-year-old accused of the same crime might benefit greatly from the same treatment program, though.

"We take our responsibilities very seriously," Hochuli said. "We are very careful about who we determine should be transferred into adult court."

Hochuli also said it was important to note that while the CDC study says juveniles are often victimized in adult facilities, that isn't the case in Pima County.
In Pima County, juveniles transferred into adult court are separated by "sight and sound" from adult prisoners, Hochuli said.

"If we can provide rehabilitation, the community is going to be safer in the long run." Peter Hochuli, Supervisor of the Pima County Attorney's Office juvenile division ..more.. by Kim Smith at 573-4241 or kimsmith@azstarnet.com.

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States rethink charging kids as adults

12-1-2007 National

A generation after America decided to get tough on kids who commit crimes — sometimes locking them up for life — the tide may be turning.

States are rethinking and, in some cases, retooling juvenile sentencing laws. They're responding to new research on the adolescent brain, and studies that indicate teens sent to adult court end up worse off than those who are not: They get in trouble more often, they do it faster and the offenses are more serious.

"It's really the trifecta of bad criminal justice policy," says Shay Bilchik, a former Florida prosecutor who heads the Center for Juvenile Justice Reform at Georgetown University. "People didn't know that at the time the changes were made. Now we do, and we have to learn from it."

Juvenile crime is down, in contrast to the turbulent days of the 1990s when politicians vied to pass laws to get violent kids off the streets. Now, in calmer times, some champion community programs for young offenders to replace punitive measures they say went too far.

"The net was thrown too broadly," says Howard Snyder, director of systems research at the National Center for Juvenile Justice. "When you make these general laws ... a lot of people believe they made it too easy for kids to go into the adult system and it's not a good place to be."

Some states are reconsidering life without parole for teens. Some are focusing on raising the age of juvenile court jurisdiction, while others are exploring ways to offer kids a second chance, once they're locked up — or even before.

"There has been a huge sea change ... it's across the country," says Laurie Garduque, program director at the MacArthur Foundation, which has worked extensively on juvenile justice reform. "It certainly helps that there has been a decline in juvenile crime and delinquency."

Not everyone, though, believes there's reason to roll back harsher penalties adopted in the 1990s.

"The laws that were changed were appropriate and necessary," says Minnesota prosecutor James Backstrom. "We need to focus on the protecting the public — that's No. 1. Then we can address the needs of the juvenile offenders."

Each year about 200,000 defendants under 18 are sent directly or transferred to the adult system, known as criminal court, according to rough estimates.

Most end up there because of state laws that automatically define them as adults, due to their age or offense. Their ranks rose in the 1990s as juvenile crime soared and legislators responded; 48 states made it easier to transfer kids into criminal court, according to the juvenile justice center.

These changes gave prosecutors greater latitude (they could transfer kids without a judge's permission), lowered the age or expanded the list of crimes that would make it mandatory for a case to be tried there.

Some states also adopted blended sentences in which two sanctions can be imposed simultaneously; if the teen follows the terms of the juvenile sentence, the adult sentence is revoked.

The changes were ushered in to curb an explosion in violent crime — the teen murder arrest rate doubled from 1987 to 1993 as the crack trade and guns flourished — and to address mounting frustrations with the juvenile justice system.

A series of horrific crimes by kids rattled the nation:

In Michigan, a baby-faced sixth grader, Nathaniel Abraham, shot and killed a stranger who was leaving a convenience store. When he was arrested in his classroom, his face was painted for Halloween.

In Florida, Lionel Tate was 12 when he beat and stomped to death a playmate half his age.

In Chicago, two boys, then 10 and 11, dangled, then dropped 5-year-old Eric Morse to his death from a 14th-story vacant public housing apartment. His terrified brother raced down the stairs, hoping he could somehow catch Eric.

Some politicians began using the phrase "adult crime, adult time." There were predictions of even bleaker days ahead.

Some warned that by the end of the century, thousands of remorseless kids — a new generation of "superpredators" — would be committing murder, rape or robbery, joining gangs and dealing drugs.

"There was an organized effort to label kids and make people afraid of juveniles," Snyder says. "People were saying their mothers had smoked crack, their DNA had changed. ... they were no longer the same people. They tried to make it seem these kids are different from your kids and that you need to do something."

But the super-vicious breed of criminal never emerged. (The professor who coined the "superpredator" term later expressed regret.) Drug trafficking declined. An improved economy produced more jobs. And the rate of juvenile violent crime arrests plummeted 46 percent from 1994 to 2005, according to federal figures.

"When crime goes down, people have an opportunity to be more reflective than crisis-oriented and ask, `Was this policy a good policy?'" Bilchik says.

The MacArthur Foundation said in a report to be released this month that about half the states are involved in juvenile justice reforms — among them, taking more kids out of the adult system, providing more mental health and community based-services and improving conditions at detention centers.

A national poll, commissioned by MacArthur and the Center for Children's Law and Policy and set for release at the same time, also found widespread public support for rehabilitating teens rather than locking them up. Most favored shifting some money states spend on incarcerating kids and using it for counseling, education and job training.

Some states have already begun to make changes.

_In Colorado, Gov. Bill Ritter, a former district attorney, recently formed a juvenile clemency board to hear cases of kids convicted as adults. The head of the seven-member panel says it's an acknowledgment that teens are still developing and different from adults — a point made in the 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision that outlawed the death penalty for crimes committed as juveniles.

This was the second revision in Colorado. In 2006, a law replaced the juvenile life-without-parole sentence with the possibility of parole after 40 years.

_In California and Michigan, life without parole for teens also is getting another look. This spring, a state Senate panel in California approved a plan offering the chance of freedom after 25 years. A package of bills that would ban the no-parole sentence for those under 18 and revamp the process allowing juveniles to be tried as adults awaits a hearing in Michigan.

_In Connecticut, lawmakers recently raised the age of juveniles to 18 for most cases; the changes will be phased in by 2010. Prosecutors can still transfer felonies to adult court.

Legislator Michael Lawlor said 16- and 17-year-olds charged with misdemeanors such as shoplifting and vandalism were hindered when they applied for jobs or college. "This caused people to think ... should all of these cases be adult all the time?" he says. Those records are now sealed.

_In Illinois, a proposal to move 17-year-olds charged with misdemeanors to juvenile court passed in the state Senate and is pending in the House.

In 2005, the state repealed the automatic transfer of kids to adult court for drug violations within 1,000 feet of public housing or schools. An advocacy group found virtually all the kids caught in this statewide law were minorities from Cook County; about two-thirds were first-time offenders — a population, it argued, that could benefit from juvenile court.

_In Wyoming, talks are under way to shed a system that routinely charges and jails juveniles as adults even for minor offenses such as underage drinking. One idea is to have judges, prosecutors and social workers evaluate first-time offenders and find treatment — mostly, without sending them to jail.

Not all states are easing up.

Rhode Island headed in the opposite direction — at least, temporarily. Last summer, the state passed a law to send 17-year-old criminal offenders to adult prisons in what was intended as a cost-cutting move. The measure, however, was repealed about four months later after some critics pointed out this plan probably would be more expensive.

And a North Carolina proposal to study whether the state should raise juvenile jurisdiction to age 18 stalled in a legislative committee this year.

It is a change that would have aided North Carolina attorney Deborrah Newton last year, when she fought to keep a 15-year-old boy out of adult court. He was charged with second-degree murder in the drug-related death of his 16-year-old friend, Erica Hicks.

Prosecutor Melanie Shekita argued the boy had supplied Erica with drugs, including Ecstasy. And, she says, when the girl collapsed at his house and a friend called 911, the boy hung up and later told the operator it was a prank.

Shekita says the boy's "reckless behavior," his juvenile drug history and the need to have "a red flag" on his permanent record were reason enough for him to be treated as an adult.

Newton painted a different portrait, of an insecure follower who wanted to "impress his peers, selling a dime bag of pot here and there to be popular. ... He was simply not mature enough to appreciate the consequences of his conduct," she says.

The boy was tried as a juvenile and found responsible for involuntary manslaughter. He eventually entered a residential treatment program. "This kid would not have survived an adult prison," Newton says. "The most fragile are preyed upon. It's simply not the place for a child."

It's an argument made by others who've studied kids prosecuted as adults.

"The juvenile correctional system is more rehabilitative or treatment-oriented," says Donna Bishop, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University in Boston. "The adult system, for the most part is a warehouse where (kids) spend a great deal of time with older, more seasoned, more serious offenders, many of whom talk about becoming a better criminal."

Reginald Dwayne Betts knows firsthand. He spent more than eight years behind bars in Virginia for an armed carjacking. An honors student who had never been in trouble with the police, he says he expected he might be sent to a juvenile detention center or even receive a suspended sentence.

Instead, he was tried as an adult. When he was originally sentenced to 23 years, he says, he didn't know the difference between the terms "consecutive" and "concurrent."

Locked up at 16, Betts spent most of his time in adult prisons.

"Of course it makes a difference if you're 15, 16 or 17," he says. "You're not prepared to deal with it physically or emotionally. You're trying to deal with being away from home. You're trying to deal with the stress that comes with being in prison."

Violence was a constant presence. "I got used to stuff most people I see today would never have to get used to — like somebody getting their head split open," Betts says. "You get numb to it. It's like, OK, somebody got stabbed."

Betts had serious problems at first. He wound up in isolation three times during his first 18 months. But he gradually retreated into books, taught himself Spanish, took a paralegal course, wrote and published poetry.

When he was released two years ago at age 24, he won a college scholarship, found work and started a book club for young boys. He's now engaged and has a book contract. He knows he is an exception: "People don't come out of prison and make good," he says.

In New York, Judge Michael Corriero is aware of those odds.

He presides over a special court in the adult system — it's called the Manhattan Youth Part and is responsible for resolving the cases of 13- to 15-year-olds accused of serious crimes.

Corriero tries to steer as many kids as possible away from criminal court, a philosophy he has detailed in his book, "Judging Children as Children."

"You take a 14-year-old and give him an adult sentence ... you're taking him out of the community at his most vulnerable time," he says. "His character is still malleable. Fourteen-, 15-year-old kids are supposed to be learning from their mistakes. They're becoming socialized.

"If you put them in an institution, what is that kid going to look like in 10 years?" he asks. "What special skills will he have? What empathy? What can we expect of kids that are taken away and criminalized before their time?"

Corriero says about 65 percent of the cases he handles are sent to mentoring, counseling or other alternative programs, mostly private. If the kids succeed, their records are sealed. The more hard-core teens are treated in the criminal courts.

Treatment programs are very expensive, but they pay off in the long run, declares Melissa Sickmund, senior research associate at the juvenile center. "If you do good in juvenile justice, you won't have adult criminals," she says.

Though juvenile crime tends to evoke images of gangs and murder, violent teens are the exception.

Studies show they account for about 5 percent of all juvenile arrests. Drugs, burglary, theft and other property crimes are among the more common reasons teens are prosecuted in adult courts.

Most of these kids, though, don't end up in adult prison, according to the Campaign for Youth Justice. A study the group commissioned of 40 large court jurisdictions in the country looked at teen felony cases in 1998 and found between a third and a half had no conviction or were bounced back to juvenile court.

Many states have what is called "reverse waiver" provisions, meaning judges can send the case in the other direction.

But crossing the threshold into the adult world is damaging in itself, argues Liz Ryan, head of the group. About 7,500 juveniles are held in adult jails on any given day, she says, and that number probably reaches tens of thousands a year because of turnover.

Being in an adult jail, Ryan says, increases a kid's risk of sexual abuse and assault. Educational opportunities are limited. Even good intentions can go awry; teens who are separated for their safety can end up isolated in 23-hour lockdown.

And for those eventually convicted of serious crimes in adult court, the damage can be irreparable.

"A lot of people say, 'So what? They get a slap on the wrist,'" Ryan says. "Well, there is a consequence. We call it perpetual punishment. You have a felony record that follows you the rest of your life."

Ryan says that can affect college loans and admissions, voting and job prospects. "By cutting off opportunity, it increases the likelihood they'll be back in the justice system," she says.

Sheila Montgomery worries about her son, Zack. He recently was released after serving 27 months for being an accomplice in the robbery of an Oregon convenience store. He had originally received a 7 1/2-year term after falsely confessing to being the robber; he was re-sentenced after evidence revealed he wasn't.

Montgomery says her son, then 15, was struggling with bipolar disorder. He's now 17 and a student again, though his mother says the school was reluctant to accept him.

"He'll forever be a felon," Montgomery says. "He can't put the past behind him. It was hard for him to find work. A lot of people didn't want to see him."

Montgomery says her son deserved punishment and she has no problem with "a little bit of jail time," but probation and counseling would have served him better.

"I feel there are more economical ways to approach juveniles with treatment," she says.

But prosecutors say some kids are just too dangerous to be considered juveniles, where they could be released to walk the streets again by age 21.

If a criminal is likely to get out in three or four years and do more harm, "then I come down on the side of risking the damage that is done by sending someone to prison," says Gary Walker, a Michigan prosecutor who is active in juvenile issues.

"When they tell me placing a younger person in an adult setting is not necessarily for the betterment of the individual," Walker says, "my answer is: 'Who thinks it is?'"

Minnesota prosecutor Backstrom didn't hesitate at all in prosecuting Matthew Niedere and Clayton Keister as adults in the murder of Niedere's parents.

The 17-year-olds, he says, carefully planned the crime: Niedere shot his father five times and his mother four times. Keister shot Patricia Niedere after she ran outside the family store, yelling for help, then returned and tried to save her dying husband.

Prosecution was one thing, punishment another.

"I had to make a very difficult decision whether to put these young men away for their natural lives, or give them a chance," Backstrom says.

He weighed several factors, including their lack of criminal record and brain research that shows the frontal lobe — the part that regulates impulse control and aggression — is still developing in the 20s.

Backstrom agreed to having the teens plead guilty to murder involving an armed robbery — allowing for the possibility of parole in 30 years.

"As I told them at sentencing, they're going to have to show more remorse than they did when they pled guilty," he says. "If that's the case 30 years from now, then we'll give them a chance in society."

More than a decade ago, Backstrom had pressed Minnesota lawmakers to make it easier for prosecutors to take serious cases into adult court.

He was spurred by a case in which he wasn't allowed to try a 16-year-old for murder as an adult; the boy fatally shot an acquaintance point-blank in the head in a dispute over marijuana. He served less than 1 1/2 years in juvenile detention.

"That's not justice," the prosecutor says. "That's a joke. ... He should have gone to prison 15 or 20 years. That's what would have happened today."

State Attorney Harry Shorstein of Jacksonville, Fla., has his own approach.

"I think I've created my own juvenile justice system," he says. "The secret is not choosing punishment vs. prevention, but using both."

In 16 years, Shorstein's office has transferred more than 2,600 juvenile cases to adult court. Almost all offenders go to jail for about a year, where they live separately from adults, attend school, meet with mentors and receive social services.

Meanwhile, the prosecutor buses in at-risk kids — ages 9 to 11 — so they can talk with a few teen inmates, seeing them locked up, cut off from their families.

"All this is not to try to scare them but ... have them interact with the juveniles they looked up to because of their guns, money and cars," Shorstein says.

But technically, the jailed teens have not been convicted. And if they stay out of trouble while locked up, and for two years of probation, their record is clean.

"I believe crime is like gymnastics," he says. "It really is a young person's sport. If you incapacitate a 15- or 16-year-old for a year, you can prevent more crime than if you imprison a 22-year-old for life." ..more.. by SHARON COHEN, AP National Writer

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