Holding juveniles accountable for acts
that have harmed others must be
approached in a developmental context
because young people think differently
than adults, are emotionally
immature, and do not have fully formed
moral values. Young offenders must
be taught to view their victims as
people and to view themselves as being
more in control of their choices. They
must also become successful at
something other than crime. Neither
treatment nor punishment repairs the
damage done to victims and the
community by delinquent acts. Juvenile
accountability requires a combination
of skills building, reparation to victims, and citizen protection in an
approach that encourages the
development of young people so they
become contributors to the community. As the Coalition for Juvenile
Justice described in its 1998 report to Congress:
Because juveniles are
developmentally and socially different from
adults, . . . they are more likely to be
rehabilitated by carefully designed
and tested treatment programs than
by a purely punishment-based
sanction system. . . . Young people who break the law must be held
accountable for the consequences of their illegal behavior . . . by a
legal system that balances the
protection of the community, the
developmentally appropriate
correction of juveniles who violate the
law, and the protection of the legitimate rights of the victims of juvenile crime.1
Teenagers tend to be idealistic about
what “should be,” intolerant of
anything that seems unfair, and vulnerable to a moral code that values loyalty above all. Sometimes adjudicated
juveniles genuinely believe that their
behavior, although wrong in some
contexts, is an unavoidable response
to higher moral principles of loyalty
and fairness. For juvenile offenders to
take responsibility for their actions,
they must be helped to think beyond
their first response to the perceived
or real unfairness of adults, lack of
opportunity, or rivalry with another
group and assisted in understanding
consequences.
Fear is another factor that interferes
with a juvenile’s ability to make
choices. When young people are scared
and feel cornered, they are often unable
(because of a lack of maturity) to think
of any way out. Frequently, juveniles
who use weapons do so when they
feel threatened and their judgment is
distorted. For young people who have
felt intimidated because of their gender
or race or as victims of physical or sexual assault, self-protection is an
understandable defense against helplessness.
As young people learn about their
own experiences as victims, they may
alter their self-protective stance and
see their victims as real people whom
they have put at risk or harmed.
Young offenders need to learn mature
thought processes (which include
anticipating the consequences of behaviors,
developing and following a plan,
imagining the worst outcome of actions,
seeing alternative choices, and acquiring other aspects of critical thinking
skills and abstract thinking) and to gain
empathy so they can understand what
they have done to their victims and can
do to make amends to them and to the
community. Efforts to encourage such
growth are most effective when they
build on each young person’s competencies. Finding strengths is not easy
because youth often appear to have
had little success at anything. Many
have neurological problems resulting
from substance exposure in utero.
Many have failed in school for years.
Many live in high-crime neighborhoods
where it is difficult not to be involved
in delinquency. Many seem hopeless
about employment prospects. Young
people behave better when their
strengths are appreciated and they
become involved in programs that
build their competencies rather than
punish them for their deficits.
Holding juvenile offenders
accountable for their actions involves
combining what is known about adolescent
development, public safety, and the
effects of victimization into a process
that helps young offenders acquire
empathy for those affected by their
actions and make changes so they
are less likely to put themselves and
others at risk in the future.2
In the
JAIBG Best Practices Series Bulletin
Developing and Administering
Accountability-Based Sanctions for
Juveniles
(further discussed below),
Griffin describes three interdependent areas of accountability:
-
For young offenders, recognizing
what they have done and taking
action to make amends to victims
and the community.
-
For the community, reinforcing
young offenders’ efforts to make
amends by teaching them and
volunteering in restitution and
mediation programs rather than
sending adjudicated offenders
out of the community.
-
For the juvenile justice system,
restructuring “to hold itself
responsible for outcomes; . . . and
to devise a carefully calibrated
continuum of responses to
juvenile crime.”3
The combination of accountability,
skills building, and community
protection results in young people who
understand how their offenses affected others, recognize that the behaviors involved in the offenses were
based on choices that could have
been made differently, acknowledge
to those affected that the behaviors
were harmful, take action to repair
the harm where possible, and make
changes necessary to avoid such
behaviors in the future.
