AMERICAN JUVENILE JUSTICE

Vol. 16 No.5 (May, 2006), pp.369-371

AMERICAN JUVENILE JUSTICE, by Franklin E. Zimring. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 264pp. Paperback. $19.95. ISBN: 0195181174.

Reviewed by Lucy S. McGough, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University Law School. Email: Lucy.McGough [at] law.lsu.edu

Franklin E. Zimring, formerly at the University of Chicago and now the William G. Simon Professor of Law at the University of California at Berkeley, presents a powerful and persuasive voice in the study of juvenile justice issues. His persuasiveness stems from the rare concurrence of a mastery of empirically grounded investigations and a clear, elegant style of writing. AMERICAN JUVENILE JUSTICE is a joy to read, even though it presents a complex exploration of the constitutional, political, social, and adolescent developmental variables that ought to influence public policies governing the determination of appropriate punishment of delinquent adolescents. I have 30 years of experience with the juvenile justice system, and, as I read this book, often thought, “of course.” That reaction is due to Zimring’s inexorable logic rather than that his conclusions are commonplace. He has the wonderful ability to discuss issues so persuasively that they seem like truths who are old friends.

All of the chapters, except two discussing teen pregnancy and overrepresentation of minorities in American juvenile justice, have been published previously, but this volume unites the essays in a single, highly accessible paperback. Zimring begins with a discussion of the animating ideas that drove the creation of a separate juvenile court. The treatment model sprang from the notion that children who are ill-trained, or ill-supervised or otherwise unsocialized should be individually diagnosed and provided with appropriate rehabilitative services; the court was warranted to intervene in families’ lives to “effect a rescue.” Zimring calls this the “dependent legal theory of youth.” The competing “diversionary theory,” suggests that the juvenile court was created to provide a less harsh set of sanctions for delinquent children as an alternative to imprisonment by the criminal justice system. Zimring makes the astute point that only depending upon its purpose can the modern juvenile court be judged a success or failure. Now that’s obvious, isn’t it? Though it is voguish to call the court a failure, as Barry Feld (1997) and others have done, the diversionary purpose is not only is compatible with GAULT (1967) but continues to justify the court’s existence.

The logical starting point for planning any institution that seeks to influence adolescents’ behavior, discussion of the nature of adolescence precedes an examination of legal doctrines and policies. There are four salient characteristics of adolescence that collectively point to diminished responsibility in both moral and legal terms: immature cognitive abilities that enable an adult to comprehend the moral content of commands and apply them to social contexts; lack of self-control, [*370] especially the inability to curtail impulsive behavior by sorting the consequences of options; and the susceptibility to peer pressure. The fourth characteristic – the “well-known secret” of the juvenile justice system – is that “adolescents commit crimes, as they live their lives, in groups” (p.73). According to rather stable statistics, the percentage of juvenile defendants who act with a confederate ranges from 60% for assault to 90% for robbery. Group offending distinguishes juveniles from adults who are charged with committing similar crimes.

Group offending also plays havoc with many statistical accounts of the incidence of juvenile crime which, in turn, often trigger legislative “get tough” measures. Zimring cites a Congressional finding in 1974 that juveniles account for almost half the arrests for serious crimes in the United States. Similar statements are still heard 30 years later. Does such a statistic mean that juveniles are responsible for half of the serious crimes that are committed? Although many reports leave that lingering impression, a single crime causing the arrest of four juveniles is a single crime rather than four separate incidents. Similarly, the group mindedness of adolescent crime confounds statistics of juvenile court dispositions. Should an announcement that there is a formal adjudication of delinquency in only 17 of every 100 arrests be grounds to get rid of the juvenile court because of its ineffectiveness or unresponsiveness? No, again because in group offenses there are inevitably different roles, different levels of culpability among the perpetrators which can and should be taken into account by a court founded on the principle of gradations in transgression and individualized dispositions. Furthermore, effective juvenile courts divert many adolescents who are arrested to informal probation, after school supervision or other programs that avoid altogether the adversarial process of hearings and judicial pronouncements. If, as Zimring passionately argues, the purpose of juvenile court is to minimize the imposition of “permanent stigma and disfiguring punishments” of young offenders, then the court that formally processes the fewest arrested juveniles is doing the best job.

Among the many tantalizing observations in this slim book, two deserve special mention. First, minority overrepresentation is viewed by most policymakers as the single most intractable problem of juvenile courts. Minority overrepresentation is not an irrational fear or uninformed accusation; it is a fact: although African Americans compose only 15% of the adolescent population, 40% of those incarcerated in juvenile facilities are African American. The statistics for arrest, pretrial detention, and formal trial are similarly racially skewed. Zimring takes the position that the juvenile justice system is less biased than the adult criminal system in that the percentage of African Americans in prison is even higher, a hair away from 50%. Thus, by providing an alternative to the criminal justice system, the juvenile system actually benefits minorities who otherwise would face far more harsh sanctions. Furthermore, Zimring observes that as diversionary programs [*371] and deinstitutionalization initiatives benefit all juveniles, African American adolescents also benefit from the resulting reduction in harm. If a new program results in the informal adjustment of the delinquency cases of 100 white adolescents and 50 African American adolescents, none of whom otherwise would have been diverted, then African American adolescents as a group benefit, even if they are half as likely to be chosen for the program. If overall “fewer African American kids were locked up, a greater proportion of the kids locked up might have been African American. Was this progress? I would suggest the answer to that question is yes” (p.171). Zimring avoids further speculation about eradicating or even greatly reducing current racial disproportionalities. He certainly suggests, however, that current federal regulations simply calling for reports by states of juvenile racial data for all critical stages, from arrest to disposition, may express the limit of successful governmental intervention. Highlighting the fact that disparities in treatment are a matter of national concern may be the strongest response that governments can make, absent some showing of purposeful racial discrimination.

The second controversial topic Zimring considers is authorization of waivers or transfers by the juvenile court (or more likely today, by the prosecutor) for trial in a criminal court. Zimring notes that the transfer option protects the juvenile court institution from wholesale dismantling in times when the media run sensationalized series on violent youth crime or predator gangs, or a particularly grisly, premeditated homicide by a pathological adolescent outrages the public, who perceive the juvenile court as lacking sufficiently punitive sanctions. In this sense, the jurisdictional waiver option is a safety-valve that permits the juvenile court to do its valuable work on behalf of most of the community’s children. Certainly Zimring does favor criteria-based judicial transfers over unguided prosecutorial discretion, and both over legislative waivers, but transfers per se may not be as harmful and misguided as many critics have argued.

AMERICAN JUVENILE JUSTICE does everything a valuable book should do: It is informative, illuminating and provocative. It can be profitably read many times.

REFERENCE:

Feld, Barry C. 1997. “Youthfulness, Criminal Responsibility, and Sentencing Policy.” 88 JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINOLOGY 68-136.

CASE REFERENCE:

In re GAULT, 387 U.S. 1 (1967).

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