Blog Dec 18, 2012
Gun nuts run amok
This past summer a young man named James Holmes bought four guns at local shops and more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition on the Internet in the two months prior to opening up inside a movie theatre in Aurora, Colorado. Now we have still another man (they always seem to be men) going berserk in an elementary school in Connecticut , killed at least 30 people, 20 of them children. One recent report noted that “the gun murder rate in the U.S. is almost 20 times higher than the next 22 richest…
Why has crime, especially younger-age crime, plunged so dramatically in virtually every jurisdiction over the last 20 years regardless of its anti-crime policy or non-policy? We looked at standard explanations for the startling fact that today’s California and national youth and young adults represent the least criminal and violent generation ever reliably assessed. None suffice. Most social and institutional conditions thought to generate more crime have not improved. Youth poverty rates…
Blog Dec 13, 2012
DJF’s reform efforts, sounding like a broken record
The purpose of the juvenilejustice system is to rehabilitate youth, a concept California’s Division of Juvenile Facilities (DJF) continues to struggle with. Progress in reform efforts through the Farrell lawsuit, now entering its second decade, have begun to sound like a broken record. In October 2012, the most recent Report of the Special Master released to the court commends DJF on certain improvements; however, areas crucial to the reform process have yet to meet compliance. Key areas…
Blog Dec 11, 2012
Charging Youth as Adults: What’s the Impact?
The juvenile justice system works best when it rehabilitates youthful offenders and gives them the life skills to succeed. To solely emphasize punishment, neither serves the best interest of the youth nor of society-at-large. However, there remains an underlying tension between punishment and rehabilitation, specifically when the youth is charged with a particularly offensive crime. Given these circumstances, states across the country have transfer procedures in place, which can transfer…
FBI and California statistics showing a huge drop in violence and crime by young people of all races – particularly African Americans – to record low levels threatens the simplistic, often crazed gun-violence debate. The desperate need of interest groups for ever-rising epidemics of youthful gun violence was epitomized yet again by sports pundit Bob Costas’s irresponsible commentaries (borrowed secondhand from pundit Jason Whitlock with no evident fact-checking by either) berating “gun…