All the system is doing is creating more monsters: About 40 percent of those with a DJJ case file are going to do jail time as adults.
By George Diaz, Orlando Sentinel columnist
As if to frame the dilemma perfectly, a 12-year-old boy robbed a convenience store with two plastic BB guns in Orlando while leaders from the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice and other groups met here for a conference on young offenders.
I suspect that the best thinkers on Earth could meet for a year and still come up short on answers for dealing with kids and crime.
It’s an escalating problem. An epidemic. A frightening one, too. Manslaughter cases involving juveniles in Florida are up from 73 during the 2002-03 fiscal year to 124 in 2006-07 -- a 70 percent increase. Attempted-murder and manslaughter referrals increased 130 percent in those years, from 36 to 83, according to the most recent statistics available.
Citizens are crying for help. Law-enforcement officials are screaming that juveniles can’t continue to recycle in and out of the system without “consequences,” meaning jail time. Judges say their hands increasingly are tied by lenient social workers who have a say in determining punishment.
Everyone plods along, frustrated. They won’t find a definitive answer because, like some diseases, some of these problems are incurable.
Kids aren’t the same anymore. Our society is breeding sociopaths who have no value for human life. In the old days, kids would simply rob you. Today, they rob you, then pop a bullet in your head for good measure.
“We need to drop the hammer down on these incorrigible kids and make sure they are inside a facility to keep the public safe,” Department of Juvenile Justice Secretary Frank Peterman said Thursday.
But those incorrigibles account for only 20 percent of juveniles in the system. The challenge is with the other 80 percent -- rescuing them before it’s too late.
While complaints fly about no consequences for serious offenders, the zero-tolerance crackdown meant to deter violent crime in Florida schools has made criminals out of kids who didn’t do anything but misbehave.
Throwing erasers, marking on bathroom walls, scuffling with another kid -- the kind of stuff dealt with by a trip to the principal’s office back in the day -- now can earn you a DJJ referral.
In Broward County a couple of years ago, a student was charged with disrupting a school function for shouting “whoo-whoo” as he watched a fight between two other students. That’s zero thinking, not zero tolerance.
About 67 percent of school-related referrals are for misdemeanor crimes, with half of the youths getting arrested for the first time.
I understand that unruly kids are a problem for teachers, who feel discipline has been diluted by restrictive guidelines.
But somewhere in this chaotic equation, there has to be some common sense.
All the system is doing is creating more monsters: About 40 percent of those with a DJJ case file are going to do jail time as adults.
You can’t criminalize misbehavior. But you can’t let the wild child out on the streets either. That 80-20 balance is the crux of the DJJ dilemma.
There are plans in play, mostly focused on “restorative justice,” that lets victims, teachers, families and administrators determine just punishment but keep the offender out of the justice system.
There are other options, of course. The Legislature recently slashed $332 million in education money while signing off on $305 million to build three prisons.
All that’s going to do is create legroom for more criminals on the way.
Copyright 2008 Sentinel Communications Co.