Violent Juvenile Offenders the Innocent

Violent Juvenile Offenders

The Innocent Criminals:

Juvenile Violent Offenders in the United States

Examination, Theories, and Recommendations

In 2007, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) program Frontline aired a documentary entitled "When Kids Get Life." The documentary told the stories of five Colorado inmates who were sentenced to "life without parole as juveniles" (Bikel 2007).

The inmates' stories were wracked with grief: sexual abuse, an inability to understand the permanency of murder, cases of blackmail, accidental weapon discharges, peer pressure and poor choices, phenomena that are not uncommon in the adolescent world, but that were life changing for these teens (Bikel 2007).

Along with Somalia, the United States is one of only two countries in the world that refused to sign the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which prohibits sentencing a child to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (Human Rights Council 2006). While around 2,000 criminals sentenced for crimes they committed as juveniles crowd United States' cells, only twelve others face the same sentence in the rest of the world (Bikel 2007, Human Rights Council 2006).

Many suggest that the abundance of childhood offenders sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole is a violation of human rights, and simply signifies the United States' inability to assimilate to a more liberal policy of rehabilitation rather than punishment. The existence of about 2,000 violent juvenile offenders serving life sentences in the United States is suggestive of a greater problem than U.S. human rights policies, though these may need a reexamination as well. The statistic and drastic measure that the United States has taken in order to keep juvenile offenders off the streets suggests that the problem of violent juvenile offenders in the United States is of a much wider scope than many believe. When juveniles commit violent crimes and are sentenced to life in prison or other monumental sentences that disrupt their chances at a normal development, both the child and society are affected. By examining the scope of the problem, postulating possible theories associated with violent juvenile offenders, and making recommendations based on these findings, criminal justice and child psychology professionals can work together in order to address the problem at all of its major sources.

The Scope of the Issue

A. Makeup of the Juvenile Population

According to the most recent and comprehensive study on the issue of Juvenile offenders, the Juvenile Offenders and Victims 2006 National Report, a publication issued by the U.S. Department of Justice, the juvenile population is increasing, resulting in a booming 72,894,5000 people under the age of eighteen in the United States (2). Many of those children live or are likely to live in poverty, a demographic that has been linked to delinquency. In 2002, for example, one sixth of juveniles in the United States were classified as living in homes below the poverty line (U.S. Department of Justice 2006, 6). In fact, children under the age of five were the most likely age group to experience poverty (U.S. Department of Justice 6). This rate is comparable to the twelve percent of all U.S. dwellers that live below the poverty line.

B. Juvenile Offenders and Offences

Although tracking juvenile offenses can be a difficult task because many juvenile offenders to not enter the criminal justice system, the 2006 U.S. Department of Justice report issued extensive statistics related to the number and type of juvenile crimes in the United States in recent decades (63). From the 1980s until the mid-1990s the number of juveniles arrested for violent crimes steadily increased, peaking in the 1990s and averaging a slowly declining growth rate for the early twenty-first century. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, a violent crime is considered an offense involving rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and homicide. In order to determine the number of violent juvenile offenders, criminal justice personnel view both arrest rates in addition to victimizations, or cases in which a crime's victim has reported that one of the offenders was under the age of eighteen. Each year from 1980 to 2003 the number of victimizations exceeded the number of actual arrests (2006, 64).

Homicide, arguably the most violent offence that can be committed by a juvenile, claimed just fewer than 1,500 cases in which juveniles were involved during 2002. This number was a sharp drop in the number of juvenile homicides committed during the late 1990s, an era that saw the largest amount of criminal homicides committed by juveniles since the early 1980s. Additionally, most of the juvenile homicides committed in the early 21st Century have been with the aid of another adult (U.S. Department of Justice 2006, 65). While these statistics allow researchers to understand the scope of the problem over time, they are also mitigated by the fact that most homicides go unsolved. For example, in 2002 16,200 reported murders occurred, while only 10, 400 of these murders were solved (U.S. Department of Justice 2006, 65). The number of male juveniles committing murders has remained significantly greater than the number of females committing murders since the 1980s, while in 2002, the number of African-American juveniles committing homicides was equal to the number of white juveniles committing homicides for the first time since 1980 (U.S. Department of Justice 2006, 66).

In addition to homicide, youths self-reported that they had committed a variety of other types of violent and potentially violent crimes using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which was given to youths between 1997 and 2001 and then interpreted by analysts. According to the data, 33% of youth reported being suspended from school at some point, 8% of belonging to a gang, 37$ of vandalism, 13% of assaulting with the intent to seriously hurt, 16% of selling drugs, and 16% of carrying a handgun. These numbers were greater for males than females in each case, though in some cases, like assaulting and selling drugs the numbers were relatively close (U.S. Department of Justice 2006, 70).

With these statistics, one can understand the scope of the problem of juvenile offending. Although numbers for violent crimes were generally down from their height in the 1990s, shocking demographic statistics, such as the number of juveniles in poverty, the number who had reported carrying a handgun, and the number who had reported selling drugs, are serious indicators as to the future of juvenile violence. Because gangs, improper handgun use, selling drugs, and other less than violent crimes often lead to violent crimes, criminologists and psychologists must recognize the danger of these statistics and resolve to find solutions that will result in less violent offenders emerging from the nonviolent.

Theories Regarding Juvenile Offenders

The problem of juvenile offenders in the United States is nothing new. Since its colonial days, the United States has played host to juvenile offenders committing both heinous, violent crimes and types of delinquency that most associate with typical teenage life, such as vandalism. In fact, the problem of violent juvenile offenders grew to such a height that cases of juvenile executions required a reexamination in the Supreme Court, which resulted in the 2005 decision making death sentences for criminals who were under the age of eighteen at the time of their crime illegal. In the 1990s, the amount of juvenile violent crimes and number of juvenile violent offenders boomed (U.S. Department of Justice, 2006). Although this trend has tapered since the beginning of the 21st Century, the problem of violent juvenile offenders still exists.

Criminologists and child psychologists have long worked together in order to suggest potential causes of juvenile crime. Some have suggested that causes come from home life, school life, and community life, while others suggest lack of discipline and experience with other crimes. By viewing both Rational Choice Theory and Social Disorganization Theory, one can consider a variety of possible influences and motivations for a childhood offender.

Rational Choice Theory

Rational choice theory is a term used by scholars in many disciplines to discuss a person's ability to make choices. The theory holds that a person, even a juvenile, can determine his or her own choices. The theory suggests that the offender weighs the choices of committing a crime or refraining to commit that crime rationally before making a decision. That is, the offender considers both the positive and negative aspects of committing the crime. If the benefits of committing the crime can outweigh the costs, than the offender makes the rational decision to commit the crime (Keel 2005).

While the Rational Choice Theory may be easily applied to the adult criminal, its application to juvenile offenders is controversial. Though a great deal of research has proven that adolescents are capable of making rational choices, other scholarship suggests full brain development does not occur until later life, making it impossible to ethically judge a juvenile as fully responsible for his or her actions. Although the ethics of the Rational Choice theory can be disputed, it is one suggested cause of juvenile behavior. Some juveniles' violent offenses are caused by their own choices and desires, not necessarily their socioeconomic condition, home life, or other factors. Though these factors can be an influence on the juvenile's choice to commit a crime, the ultimate cause of the crime was the juvenile's own cost-benefit analysis, according to this model.

A practical exploration of this model can be done using Jacob Ind, one of the five Colorado teenagers sentenced to life in prison without parole in Frontline's documentary, "Kids Who Get Life" (Bikel 2007). Ind was convicted of killing his mother and stepfather after years of sexual abuse. Ind defended himself saying that he did not understand the permanency of murder and just wanted the abuse to end (Bikel 2007). While other models may suggest that the cause of Ind's violent offense was his abuse and his misunderstanding of the consequences of murder, Rational Choice Theory would contend that the abuse and misunderstandings influenced his behavior, although they did not cause it. What caused his behavior, the theory would suggest, is Ind's admitted goal -- that the abuse would end. The theory would hold that Ind considered the murder and found the benefits, no more abuse, outweighing the consequences, dead parents and jail time.

Social Disorganization Theory

While the Rational Choice Theory claims that criminals make rational cost-benefit analyses that result in their crimes, Social Disorganization theory suggests that the culture and society in which the child is brought up has a direct impact on a child's decision to commit a violent crime. Current scholarship supports this argument in a variety of methods, suggesting that everything from parenting, to friendship, to poverty can result in a juvenile violent offender. In fact, in her 1997 study of learning definitions and violent delinquency, Karen Heimer found that "explanations of violent adolescent behavior must take into account the joint contribution of stratification and culture" (799).

For example, in their 2002 study "Juvenile Delinquency Under Conditions of Rapid Social Change," Boehnke and Bergs-Winkles suggest that conditions of rapid social change may lead to other factors that encourage juvenile delinquency. According to the study, rapid social change often throws teens into the arms of their friends and peers, who offer "an endorsement of delinquent behavior," in addition to the "infrastructure" for this behavior (57). As a part of the social disorganization theory, therefore, the study suggests that social factors such as rapid change encourage would-be offenders into situations where they are faced with other social factors, such as peer pressure, that will encourage and provide a means for their delinquency.

One of those conditions of social change that has been proven to impact the juvenile delinquent possibilities of juveniles is socioeconomic change. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, juveniles living under the poverty line have proved to be more involved in delinquency than juveniles who are not impoverished (2006, 7). Although the study contended that poverty does not necessarily have a direct link to juvenile violent offenses, it does tend to produce juveniles who are in single parent homes or who become parents during their adolescent years, both of which are indicators of delinquency.

Drawing on social structure and social learning data, Karen Heimer explored the issue of a connection between socioeconomic status and juvenile violent offenders more extensively in her 1997 study, "Socioeconomic Status, Subcultural Definitions, and Violent Delinquency." Heimer's conclusions suggested that violent delinquency was not directly caused by socioeconomic status, but instead by "learning definitions favorable to violence," which in tern were affected by a great many factors (799). Those factors included not only socioeconomic status, but also association with "aggressive peers," parenting, and previous crimes. Thus, Heimer cast light on the idea that while being impoverished does not necessarily equate becoming a violent criminal, the two are related.

Though Heimer established that parenting and the propensity to become a juvenile offender were, indeed, related, Simons, et al.'s 2001 study expanded on the idea, suggesting that the quality of parenting even through difficult seasons of defiance, and improvements in parenting during the adolescent years, especially those that decrease the adolescent's exposure to other delinquent teens, are indicators of teens who avoid delinquency, while ineffective parenting or a tendency to give in during seasons of defiance was more likely to produce teenagers who associated with other offenders, thus increasing their own likelihood to become violent offenders (63).