Criminalizing Teens for Being Teens
I came across a blog post about the trend of criminalzing teenagers for being teenagers. (Hat tip: Andrew Sullivan, who also points the way to a must-read Economist editorial on this subject.) As a mother of a young son, this trend scares the hell out of me.
The graph, from Classically Liberal’s site (linked above), tells the story. Obviously, the graph isn’t sourced. But the story it tells is poignant. It looks to me that 14 year olds are the most dangerous people in the country, as it applies to sex offenses.
The fact is that we have Puritanical attitudes toward sex in America. It shows up in society’s attitudes toward teen sex and teaching kids about sex; it shows up in society’s attitudes toward gays and gay rights. Many people have hang-ups about sex because of these attitudes that have been beaten into us while growing up, which does everyone a huge disservice.
Obviously, sex offender laws are not all bad. If they work as they’re supposed to, they will protect us from predators. But criminalizing a teenager (or younger) for being a kid is just wrong. I said it in my last post: Grow up, America.
Deanna: Actually there is no evidence these registries protect us. And they are now so cluttered with absurd cases as to be useless. Make them available to to the police but not to the public. And the registries have to be clear as to what the offense was. Right now they lump people into large categories. A teacher who molests a student can be listed under the same category as two teens who have consenting sex. Most people who work with offenders say that stress can cause reoffending. These registries increase stress. On the innocent kids who are being incarcerated it won’t make them “offend” again. But when it comes to real offenders then using these lists to make their lives difficult will more likely induce a new offense. No one benefits from that. Police in many areas now say that the registries make it harder for them to track dangerous criminals because they are policing thousands of non-dangerous offenders. In addition, due to the lists, many offenders are now just disappearing and not registering at all. And, the lists are frequently out of date so an offender may be listed at an address but other people now live there. People who have never offended in any way are being harassed by vigilantes because their address is on the registry. The whole system needs a rethink. Throw it away and start over.
CLS, they might not help, except psychologically. I’m not implying that the registries are all bad. They are flawed, though, flawed quite badly. There’s no sense in stigmatizing kids for being kids. We’re giving them a new scarlet letter that will follow them the rest of their lives.
Teens have raging hormones, and to criminalize a natural stage of development is just insane. That is why true sex education is needed in the schools. Otherwise kids are just experimenting.
As for the sex offenders lists, here in Miami we have dozens of “sex offenders” living under a bridge in Biscayne Bay because by law they cannot live with in so many feet of a child. I don’t know how that is helping anyone.
I agree with you, Alan, especially if we’re going to prosecute and brand kids for doing something that comes naturally, something that they literally don’t know how to control. We know that teaching abstinence only doesn’t work. Yet that’s what we’ve been teaching kids for years.
People seem frustrated with the crime rate — frustrated that it will not buckle — that the world won’t be perfectly safe — and, the general reaction seems (increasingly) heavy-handed tactics. That same tactics do not work better than soft power and punitive measures yield high recidivism rates seems irrelevant to frustrated masses.
There seems a general push to treat “criminal” children like adults despite the fact that evidence strongly suggests the following: persons under twenty-five (e.g., adolescents, who seem to constitute the bulk of such offenders) are incapable of the same kind of thought processes characteristic of fully developed adults.
Moreover, US people have a hard time agreeing on “good moral values”, which compounds the problem. Where and when do we use soft power? How do we use soft power?
I think the trend will get worse before it gets better. People who have forgotten history will have to learn for themselves.
I think we agree, Adam. Your last point is right on — “those who forget history are doomed to repaat it.” We’ve had witch hunts in this country since Salem, only now they seem to be hunting kids for being kids. That’s frightening.