While a growing body of research has demonstrated that punishing young people in the adult criminal justice system is not an effective deterrent, results in higher rates of recidivism and undermines opportunities for young offenders to mature and rehabilitate, the subjective views and experiences of young people in the adult criminal justice system remain largely undocumented and unexamined.
In September, my organization, the John Howard Association (JHA), hopes to fill in part of this gap when we release our study “In Their Own Words: Young People’s Experiences in the Criminal Justice System and Their Perceptions of Its Legitimacy.”
“In Their Own Words” examines how young people convicted of serious offenses perceive the criminal justice system, from arrest to prison. The study grows out of a pilot project we have developed to improve the criminal justice system’s response to young people who are prosecuted as adults in Cook County, Ill. Through the support of the MacArthur Foundations’ Model for Change initiative, we have monitored policies and practices in Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) by providing legal education to detainees charged with adult crimes. During this same period, we have provided similar assistance to many of these young people’s family members. Grounded in this initiative, JHA in 2013-14 conducted six in-depth, confidential interviews with people who were prosecuted and convicted of adult crimes in Cook County when they were 15, 16 or 17 and today are incarcerated in the Illinois Department of Corrections, serving sentences that range from 12 to 20 years.
[For more of this story, written by John Maki, go to http://jjie.org/op-ed-how-can-...nvolved-kids/107437/]
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