The passage of Proposition 21 has changed California’s juvenile justice system. The number of offenses for which 14 and 15 year olds can be tried as adults has increased; it requires that youth offenders 16 years of age and older that are convicted in adult court be sent directly to the Department of Corrections without first having been under the jurisdiction of the Youth Authority. Ethics of care allows me to have at least a little compassion for the juvenile facing time in adult prison, and let me tell you why. Incarcerating children with adults can have devastating results. According to the US Department of Justice, children incarcerated with adu

In January 2000, Mike Males and Dan Macallair conducted an analysis of juvenile adult court transfers in California. Their study found that “minority youths are 2.7 times more likely than white youths to be arrested for a violent felony (the crimes more likely to result in transfer to adult court).” Once in the system, “minority juvenile violent crime arrestees are 3.1 times more likely than white juvenile violent crime arrestees to be transferred to adult court….” Their “Color of Justice” study is only the tip of the iceberg when we consider the ramifications of transferring juveniles to adult court and subjecting them to the death penalty. The lack of deterrence, cost, juvenile mindset, and racial disparities are the consequences of citizens casting their votes based on emotion instead of intellect. The irony is, the California Criminal Justice Statistics Center (a part of the CA Department of Justice) indicates that as of 1999 juvenile incarceration rates have actually fallen! Why, then, impose, or even suggest, legislation like Proposition 21?

Also thrown into the mix is the issue of the death penalty for juveniles. It is bad enough that we ignore the ineffectiveness of capital punishment for adults. Do we really want to make the same mistake with juveniles? According to studies conducted by author Roger Hood, “Research has failed to provide scientific proof that executions have a greater deterrent effect than life imprisonment and such proof is unlikely to be forthcoming.” He fur

Some topics in this essay:
Department Justice, Dan Macallair, , Bar Association, Medical Center, Roger Hood, Authority Ethics, death penalty, human rights, capital punishment, adult court, Department Corrections, violent crime arrestees, violent crime, department justice, proposition 21, costs death, based emotion, juvenile violent crime, costs death penalty, times white,