Jail Juvenile Offenders

[seahawk]

Jail juvenile offenders until middle age', Trump health secretary argued in 1991 memo

Donald Trump’s health secretary, who defended the administration’s child separation policy as “charity”, once argued in a private paper that repeat juvenile offenders cannot be rehabilitated and ought to be jailed until they reach middle age, according to a memo obtained by the Guardian.

snip

Azar is closely linked personally and ideologically to Brett Kavanaugh, the Trump administration’s nominee to the supreme court. The two men were among the first young prosecutors hired by Kenneth Starr when he became independent counsel and investigated the Clinton administration. In a tweet following Kavanaugh’s nomination to the high court, Azar said the judge had been a “close friend for 30 years”.



https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/201 ... -1991-memo

[Deleted User 75]

Almost 30 years ago. So no clue how relevant those statements are now, but....

Weird idea. It is somewhat difficult to actually be jailed in a juvenile detention center. You've got to do some pretty bad shit, and have little to no parental guidance, to land in a juvenile detention center. I was a bad kid, and ran with a rough crowd, so I know.....a few friends spent some time in "juve"....some are now dead (1 murdered, 1 suicide), but the other few did turn their lives around....

I think blanket statements like "repeat offenders can't be rehabilitated" just opens someone up to look foolish. Every case is different. Every person is different. I personally think juve and prison do very little to actually rehabilitate inmates. I golf with 2 prison workers every weekend, and they'd probably agree in most scenarios...

I think the credit for turning their lives around should go to the inmates themselves, with very little credit going to our rehabilitation provided while locked up.

1 of my very best high school friends went to prison right as I was going into my 2nd year of college....he was selling large amounts of weed. Driving to south Texas once a month or so, and bringing back hundreds of pounds of Mexican dirt weed. Over several years he made a lot of money, someone snitched, he got went to jail for over 8 years. He wasn't a drinker, wasn't a smoker or drug user, just an ambitious kid who liked money and living the fast life.....he's now working at a car dealership and owns several rental properties...my 2 friends who were right below him on the food chain never got arrested, they now each own several local business and restaurants in my home town....

So, I think it's absurd to say repeat juvenile offenders should be jailed until middle age. I know several who turned their lives around....I also know several who continue to be in and out of jail. They'll never be rehabilitated. They will continue to be career criminals until they get a life sentence, die, or are murdered.

One size fits all punishment is reckless. Each individual is different.

[DCHawk1]

HHS is in charge of juvenile offenders now?

Who knew?

[Leawood]

DC, that quip is not the angle of this thread. That's just being a smart ass.

[DCHawk1]

No. I'm just trying to gauge the relevance.

[Deleted User 75]

No. I'm just trying to gauge the relevance.

Minimal relevance, other than character assassination of anyone connected to this administration....but his dumb ass said it, so as much as I hate the trend of digging for statements from 30+ years ago to make people look badly, he must deal with it now.

[DCHawk1]

He wrote a brief he was directed to write by the man for whom he worked -- at age 24. He doesn't have to "deal" with anything. This is patently absurd, grasping at biodegradable paper straws.

[Deleted User 75]

As much as I agree....it does look as if he's going to have to "deal" with this since the Guardian is writing articles on it to rile up the left base

[seahawk]

He wrote a brief he was directed to write by the man for whom he worked -- at age 24. He doesn't have to "deal" with anything. This is patently absurd, grasping at biodegradable paper straws.

One could say the same about the whole Pocahontas narrative.

One would hope that he's changed the attitudes that got us into a totally insane criminal justice world that it's awfully difficult to unravel.

[Deleted User 62]

In my prior career, I was assigned to assist with the re-establishment of security at a facility in New Mexico who housed adjudicated juveniles. They had several occurrences of violence against staff over a month period.

What struck me then was that even though they were deemed violent offenders (and mostly all convicted of violent crimes) they were still very immature and child like.

I remember also transporting a kid named Bruce Enloe (I am pretty sure of the name). He was an 11 year old who, at the time, was one of the youngest convicted attempted murderers in Kansas History.

He was convicted of shooting an older teen who bullied him constantly. They got into a fight over who was going to ride shotgun on a joy ride, with young Mr Enloe firing a shot to the face of the other teen.

Spending some time looking through the case file, it was obvious that this child, who was very small in terms of his size relative to his age...suffered unfathomable abuse from family AND his peers.

He was a VERY smart kid, and was polite and kind once removed from his former environment.

[DCHawk1]

He wrote a brief he was directed to write by the man for whom he worked -- at age 24. He doesn't have to "deal" with anything. This is patently absurd, grasping at biodegradable paper straws.

One could say the same about the whole Pocahontas narrative.

One would hope that he's changed the attitudes that got us into a totally insane criminal justice world that it's awfully difficult to unravel.

Yes.

[seahawk]

Jeepinj,

What sometimes seems crazy with young offenders is that for some, being incarcerated is a natural outcome of being in a group home, which is a natural outcome of being a throwaway kid. There are always kids who'll be bullied and sometimes they'll fight back and then get further into the system.

Andrew Vachss, a noted NYC attorney who deals with juvenile issues, talked about a group home where the staff couldn't grasp what they were dealing with and a bullied kid went to the kitchen, got a knife and stabbed another kid after being bullied in a group discussion. The kid who lived with us hit another kid in a group home and got incarcerated. So far, he's lived for more than 30 years in the community, is still employed, owns his own home, found his siblings who'd also been in the system and lost to him, and hasn't been arrested for violence in that time.

[Deleted User 75]