This year, more than half a dozen states, including Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri and Utah, have passed new laws reshaping their juvenile legal systems. While some have adopted measures designed to divert more young people from incarceration, others have sought to impose stiffer penalties and expand prosecutors’ authority to pursue adult charges.
The opposite tacks underscore an increasingly fractured approach to juvenile justice nationwide.
Related, “In Texas Schools, a Crisis of Arrests of Kids as Young as 10 - A groundbreaking data analysis shows how districts across the state are arresting and citing children for common misbehavior, leaving lasting trauma as the Legislature rejects bills to raise the age of criminal responsibility and floods schools with even more police.” (arc)
How is this even a question. Rehabilitation should always be the goal. Punishment without Rehabilitation almost inevitably leads to recidivism.
Because, to Republicans, if you commit crime, you are therefore a bad person, and deserve punishment. There’s no logic to it, it’s that bad people deserve bad things to happen to them. It’s not about rehabilitating anyone, nor do they care to do that.
Only bad people would commit crime, and bad people deserve pain, cruelty, and nothing else ever. Since they’re not dead and can’t burn in hell, it becomes the duty of the state to make sure they live a version of hell until they die.
That’s their philosophy. It’s a big part of what makes them horrible terrible evil people. And what does it come from? Their vile, disgusting religion.
“But doesn’t their religion preach forgiveness and redemption?“ You might ask. Yes, but only for them and their friends. Because their religion also teaches hypocrisy.
Except when they get caught committing a crime. They’re always the exception.
I had a similar series of thoughts about religion relating to this story. It is reasonable to presume they support childhood religious indoctrination, specifically because of the malleability of youthful minds. Children are more open about imaginary friends than adults. At the same time, these states don’t want to acknowledge that a youthful mind is not yet a mature, adult mind, capable of understanding cause and effect as it relates to criminal behavior? A rather large double standard.
Red state craziness, all the people who might have resisted their crazy bullshit flee after their kids get persecuted or their industry gets wrecked or whatever other terrorizing bullshit policies their lawmakers can dream up to troll progressives, and then everything really starts to spiral as the craziness blows up in their own faces and their only viable political message is “actually we just weren’t crazy enough to get results!”
e; Also, related bit of research from a few years ago I think everyone should read, “A Police Stop Is Enough to Make Someone Less Likely to Vote”
A study I co-authored with fellow researcher Kevin Morris, published in December in the American Political Science Review, finds that traffic stops by police stops in Hillsborough County reduced voter turnout in 2014, 2016, and 2018 federal elections.
Our study compared the voter turnout of Hillsborough motorists who were stopped by police shortly before and after each election. Drawing on information about each person’s turnout in past cycles, we found that these stops reduced the likelihood that a stopped individual turned out to vote by 1.8 percentage points on average. The effect held when accounting for characteristics like race, gender, party affiliation, past turnout, and prior traffic stops to improve our comparisons. The discouraging effect of stops was slightly higher in 2014 and 2018.
These results make clear that the collateral consequences of policing—including worsening outcomes for economic security, educational attainment, and health—also extend to political participation. If the communities who are most frequently subjected to policing are also discouraged from voting as a result, it could create a vicious feedback loop of political withdrawal.
Why would traffic stops make people less likely to show up to the polls? Past research has already established that the most disruptive forms of criminal legal contact, like arrest and incarceration, discourage people from voting. Our study shows that low-level police contact matters in the same way. If a traffic stop makes a motorist fear that the government will harm them, it can prompt a withdrawal from civic life that political scientists call “strategic retreat.” Motorists might worry that a routine traffic stop could escalate into police violence, a more common outcome for Black people in particular. Beyond justified fears of violent victimization, voters might also bristle at the perception of being targeted to raise revenue through excessive ticketing. Accordingly, if incarceration ‘teaches’ would-be voters that their government is an alienating and harmful force in their lives, traffic stops could catalyze a similar form of ‘learning.’
Yes as someone from a state with Republican governor Republican Senators and all But one Republican House member. Whose neighboring states to the west south and east were all mentioned but somehow not mentioned Itself by name. I can vouch for much of that. There certainly is no shortage of cruel, myopic, easily manipulated people around.
There certainly is no shortage of cruel, myopic, easily manipulated people around.
Certainly too many people are born that way, but I also think a lot of people develop all those tendencies as a perverse response to being traumatized by authority figures
The system is working as intended. Private prisons shouldn’t exist.
Private prisons aren’t the norm like people seem to think. Only about 8% of inmates are in them.
The problem is the private contracts given to public prisons.
Rehabilitation should always be the goal.
Corrupt politicians and for-profit prison companies think otherwise. Recidivism, slavery, and scary headlines are the goal.
I’m OK with punishment if it’s based on the same rules used for a certain adult with 34 felonies. Didn’t even try rehabilitation with that asshole.
more like “politicians split between gaining voters or prison bribes”
I like to think its always about rehabilitation but honestly punishment plays a part in that. Just being incarcerated is punishment though and trying to punish more by what. Doing cruel things ourselves. I don’t think food should be inadequate. Heck it should be healthy as possible but you don’t get extra calories type of punishment. Forced to do it like someone following a nutrisionist. These good for you things help with discipline and should reduce healthcare costs in prisons. Now I do think some can’t be rehabilitated but they would be older and repeat offenders. Then its not punishment but just containmnet in my view. Even then im not sure we can take repeat offenders under our current system because we don’t rehabilitate. healthy food, excersise, education. thats whats needed and people should not need to get arrested to get these things. when not in prison we should have snap for all, nice public areas, and there should be free education available to all at any age (ie in the us community colleges)
Exactly.
Giving people the tools to cope with society and function in society should be the goal. Incarcerated people should get therapy and education. They need the tools they missed acquiring.
The tools should already be there outside as well, but sometimes people don’t listen until something drastic happens.
Getting rid of capitalism would go a long way to improving things, but one step at a time.
