The purpose of a juvenile justice system is to provide rehabilitative punishment to kids who have made criminal mistakes. When the state carries out this objective it is acting in its parens patriae capacity. The road towards the development of the juvenile justice system in America has been long, and is indeed still in process. Until the late nineteenth century, juveniles who committed crimes were dealt with through the same criminal justice system that addressed the offenses of adults.
Because they were not dealt with separately there was no way of addressing the special needs of juvenile offenders. Over time state legislators realized that there needed to be a court devoted to the issues of juvenile offenders. This is particularly necessary in the cases of juvenile sex offenders, as set forth in detail in Branded for Life: Juvenile Sex offenders and the Sex Offender Registry by Tiffany Verdell (Regent Law 2010). She demonstrates the need for unique treatment of juvenile sex offenders with the case of a 16 year old kid named Brandon.
“Brandon was a senior in high school when he met a 14-year-old girl on a church youth trip. With her parents’ blessing, they began to date, and openly saw each other romantically for almost a year. When it was disclosed that consensual sexual contact had occurred, her parents pressed charges against Brandon and he was convicted of sexual assault and placed on the sex offender registry in his state. As a result, Brandon was fired from his job. He will be on the registry and publicly branded as a sex offender for the rest of his life. In his mother’s words, ‘I break down in tears several times a week. I know there are violent sexual predators that need to be punished, but this seems like punishment far beyond reasonable for what my son did.’”
Tiffany Verdell argues quite persuasively that it is counterproductive to brand people like Brandon as a sex offender for life, and suggests the development of an aspect of the juvenile justice system to respond to this growing problem. The need for public safety must be balanced with the purpose of the juvenile justice system, the unique potential of the juvenile offender for rehabilitation and re-integration back in society, and the unintended consequences of registration.
Read the entire article here.
Working with the Center for Global Justice: 3L Reflections
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By Anne Darby Keating 3L Reflections Working with the Center of Global
Justice during my time at Regent University School of Law has been such a
blessing...
This presentation is very insightful and helpful in understanding the complex laws behind juvenile sex offender registry.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find particularly interesting is the law in Iowa, which provides judges with the discretion to determine whether the convicted sex-offending juvenile must register (with limited exceptions) as a sex offender. I find this interesting because I am left to wonder how judges make this determination objectively; it seems to me that a judge’s decision to require juveniles to register as sex offenders would be completely subjective—which may be the reason why the exceptions to this rule are in place.
This presentation also offers compelling reasons as to why sex offender registration laws are necessary; namely, that public safety outweighs the privacy interests of convicted sex offenders. However, despite these compelling interests, the presentation also demonstrates the potential predicaments of requiring sex offenders to register. Brandon M.’s story in particular exemplifies how requiring sex offenders to register can have grave affects on the persons involved. However, this one individual’s story (along with a handful of similar extraordinary cases) still in my opinion, do not outweigh the risk to the public of allowing sex offenders to remain undisclosed.
Finally, I agree with the recommendations made in this presentation. However, regarding these recommendations, I am unsure as to how feasible it would be to have a panel of experts available in every jurisdiction (this comment comes from someone who has worked in the local courts of a small town community).
I think the heading says it all. When I was younger, granted I'm still pretty young, I would have said lock them up like the rest of the adults. I wouldn't have cared about the kid's age or whether or not they had prior convictions. In my wiser, "older" years I realize that prison/jail should not be about locking everyone up, but rehabilitating those that can be, and locking up those that cannot be.
ReplyDeleteThere have been many studies that have shown juveniles just become bigger criminals once in the system or adult prisons. If anyone has the chance of being rehabilitated it would be the young, impressionable minds of juveniles.
What good is it rehabilitating a juvenile only to make them register into a sex offender system, most times for consensual sexual encounters? It seems like a mutated oxymoron. These registries will ruin their lives and suppress their chances of re-integrating back into society.
Rehabilitate (if rehabilitation is needed, I would argue none is needed in consensual sexual intercourse cases just because one is 15 and the other is 17)and send them home to their families, and community programs.
-Jonathan Growick