Securing our Children's Future: New Approaches to Juvenile Justice and Youth Violence.

• Author: Geraghty, Thomas F.
• Position: Book Review

SECURING OUR CHILDREN'S FUTURE: NEW APPROACHES TO JUVENILE JUSTICE AND YOUTH VIOLENCE (GARY S. KATZMANN ED., BROOKINGS INSTITUTE PRESS 2002). 444 PP.

Some time ago, I represented a thirteen-year-old boy charged with murder. I represented him in an unsuccessful effort to keep his case in juvenile court. I was his lawyer in criminal court. He was convicted and sentenced to a long prison term. This boy was identified in the popular press as one of the dangerous "super-predators" plaguing our inner-cities. Our investigation of the case revealed that the murder with which our client was charged was ordered by the higher-ups in a gang. Our investigation also revealed the names of those gang leaders. That information was shared with the prosecution, but it was clear that prosecutors and police already knew, as did local community members, who was ultimately responsible. This wasn't a "juvenile" or a "super-predator" case, it was a case in which an entire community was being intimidated by a gang. Had some of the strategies described in Securing Our Children's Future: New Approaches to Juvenile Justice and Youth Violence been in place at the time my young client was arrested, the older gang members might have been discouraged or prevented from terrorizing their community through violence and the threat of violence. A murder might have been avoided, and a young person might not have had his best years taken from him as the result of a long period of incarceration.

The more one represents children in delinquency proceedings in juvenile court and children who have been transferred to criminal court to be tried as adults, the more one recognizes the complexity of the influences and forces which bring children into our justice system. The lawyers who represent and prosecute the children, and the judges who preside over these cases, address the consequences of failures to intervene earlier and to identify and implement successful strategies that might have avoided a confrontation with our juvenile justice and criminal justice systems. In many cases, interventions implemented in response to a child's "criminal" behavior are too late and too superficial to address both the individual needs of the child and the systemic failures that have brought the child to the courtroom.

There are two basic questions that juvenile justice professionals, defense lawyers, prosecutors, judges, and law enforcement must confront. (1) How do we identify, implement, and improve programs designed to prevent delinquency? (2) When prevention has failed, how should communities, juvenile courts, probation, and corrections address the consequences? Underlying these basic questions is the issue of how the various players in the system might cooperate, coordinate, and support the work of the others. These judgments, in turn, must be based upon solid information. What do the extensive research evaluating programs designed to change behavior of children and to support them in their communities tell us about the efficacy of proposed and on-going interventions? What do we know about the real needs and tendencies of the targeted populations and how well are existing and proposed programs designed to address those needs? Is there a proper balance between humane treatment of children and public safety?

The book reviewed in this essay makes a substantial contribution to answering these very important questions by presenting the perspectives of a cross section of actors who influence the conduct of institutions which have the responsibility for pieces of the juvenile justice puzzle. The book, which is the result of a collaboration between the Brookings Institution's Governance Project and the Program in Criminal Justice and Policy Management of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, contains essays by leaders in the disciplines which significantly influence the conduct of juvenile justice institutions and the formulation of juvenile justice policy.

What I like about the book is that it informs the various constituencies in juvenile justice about the work of others. Prosecutors can read about the perspectives of defense lawyers, and criminologists can get a sense of the interests and concerns of judges. Judges, who often make the most important decisions regarding a child's future, have at their disposal, if they read this book, the perspectives of the prosecutors and defense lawyers. They also have accounts of the newest developments in prevention and treatment programs and they can learn something about the ways in which correctional officials use (or sometimes ignore) research in designing and in implementing their programs.

What this book suggests, both explicitly and implicitly, is that despite the best efforts of those who work in juvenile justice to create opportunities for inter-institutional, inter-agency, and interdisciplinary collaborations, much more could be done to foster actual implementation of systems which have collaboration as their overarching goal. The question is how the example of this book can be replicated in juvenile justice systems across the country. As Professor Katzmann notes in his introduction:

[T]his volume ... examines, in practical terms, how institutions can be mobilized in the service of initiatives to combat youth violence. It attempts to identify promising strategies to confront the challenges of youth violence and to facilitate communication and sharing of perspectives among prosecutors, defense attorneys, the courts, correctional institutions, probation departments, faith-based groups, schools, the media, nonprofit institutions, and private entities in their efforts to develop and implement such strategies. (1) Each of the essays in the book is well worth reading. In fact, the message of the book is that each essay contributes to the creation of a necessary comprehensive perspective. It would be interesting to know, however, how the perspectives of the individual authors might be influenced by the work of the other contributors to this valuable volume. In this review, I write from the perspective of a lawyer who represents children in juvenile court.

The title of the book, Securing our Children's Future, New Approaches to Juvenile Justice and Youth Violence, suggests broad scope and objectives, including a comprehensive look at all aspects of juvenile justice which have to do with the future of our children. In fact, the book focuses primarily on the problem of youth violence, surely a crucial issue for children, parents, and communities. In order to understand the significance of this issue with respect to impact on communities and policy initiatives, the book portrays the current situation with respect to youth violence in measured, balanced, and realistic terms. Although there has been a recent decline in youth violence, this does not mean that the problem is not significant in its impact on communities (2) and schools. (3) The book is careful, when describing and evaluating the phenomenon of youth violence, to distance itself from the "super-predator" myth that did so much damage to the creation and implementation of fact-based juvenile justice policy. The vast majority of cases addressed by the juvenile justice system do not involve violence, (4) and the chapters of this book written by lawyers and judges describe the broad range of issues lawyers and judges confront every day in our juvenile justice system. In a very interesting chapter on the prosecutorial function, the authors hearken back to the pre-Gault days when probation officers--not prosecutors--were all powerful. (5) The authors suggest that many prosecutors are now taking the lead in creating individualized and community-based solutions to the phenomenon of juvenile delinquency. (6) These initiatives include paying more attention to the root causes of delinquency and working with police to identify strategic initiatives for law enforcement and prosecution that promote "order maintenance," (7) including focusing on the control of minor crimes as a way of improving a community's quality of life. As a consequence, prosecution of even non-"serious" cases involving children in juvenile court is viewed as a priority, as is diversion of serious and violent offenders to criminal court. The authors describe programs led by prosecutors that have resulted in dramatic decreases in the crime rate. (8) The authors of this essay warn, however, that despite the forward thinking of many prosecutors, there are dangers inherent in the shift to prosecutorial control over the system, especially as it relates to decisions regarding which children will, and which children will not, be tried in juvenile court. In the late 60's and early 70's, judges made these decisions. Now legislatures, at the urging of prosecutors, have required that juveniles charged with very serious crimes be automatically charged as adults. The danger that I see--and that the authors identify--is that the prosecutor's power has the potential to be misused. The authors note that they have provided examples of programs that "respect the rights of juveniles, seek to protect the interests of children, and serve the interests of children as well." (9)

It would have been interesting to...