Monday, March 18, 2024

The Socialist’s Journal: Raise the Age

Brookins Head Shot
Trevor Brookins

*In the mid-2000s Dave Chappelle  had a great bit, “How old is 15 really,” about the double standard involving teenagers. In fact Chappelle was commenting on race just as much as age, but the fact remains that a person’s adolescence is a trying time because of the conflicting messages coming from every direction.Over a decade later the issue still hasn’t been put to rest.

The people behind the “Raise the Age” issue are trying to convince the state of New York to abandon the practice of treating teenagers like adults in its criminal justice system. Behavioral and neuroscientists both point to the way the brain develops as reasons that adolescents make certain decisions and end up in bad situations.

Of course individuals should be held accountable for their actions but defense lawyers often point to extenuating circumstances for alleged adult criminals. The same should be true for minor alleged offenders and the brain not being fully developed is a hell of a circumstance.

The debate over how to charge juvenile offenders is a small slice of the how old should someone be before X. Probably the most prominent of these issues is the drinking age. While I support lowering the drinking age to 18, one of the arguments against lowering the age is that teenagers are not physically able to process alcohol and therefore should not be drinking; this is all the more true the lower the age of the individual. If that is true, then it is hypocritical to treat those same individuals as adults in the context of the criminal justice system.

And youth who are imprisoned with adults are more likely to be assaulted physically, emotionally and sexually. In addition youthful offenders being held with adults are more likely to learn the habits of those around them. Unfortunately the criminal justice system has a poor record of helping people turn from criminal activity as a result of incarceration, so youthful offenders are learning the habits of hardened criminals. That is not a recipe for a successful rehabilitation. On the other hand being placed among other youthful offenders exposes a perpetrator to no one who has already has a long criminal history. I would imagine being incarcerated on any level is not a fun experience so it is not as if imprisoning youthful offenders in an area separate from adults is akin to a country club. They will be paying a debt to society but also have a chance to make their commission of a crime an isolated incident rather than the first of many.

Raise the Age

The story of Kalief Browder is indicative of the dangers of housing a minor with adults. Partly due to the stress of being held with adults Browder attempted to end his life multiple times while in custody and was eventually successful after being released from jail. Forgetting the problem with the criminal investigation into his alleged theft, were Browder held with other 16 year olds and not with adults, he likely would not have faced the abuse that led him to spiral into depression.

The map at raisetheageny.org indicates that only New York and North Carolina continue to keep open the option of treating 16-17 year olds as adults when in court. Another way of saying that is 48 out of 50 states in the country think that the penalties for adults committing a crime are serious enough that it is worth making sure the person being penalized understands what they did and deserves the punishment.

Teenagers receive conflicting messages every day. They might be asked to act responsibly and take care of younger siblings while being told they are not old enough to rent the tools to help with those siblings. There is an opportunity for New York to eliminate one of these discrepancies, make life clearer for teenagers, and join with most of the country in this matter. But even more than that there is an opportunity for New York to do the right thing.

Trevor Brookins is a free lance writer in Rockland County, New York. He is currently working on a book about American culture during the Cold War.  His writing has appeared in The Journal News. You can reach him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @historictrev.

 

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