Let’s go over what you need to complete this week before midnight on Saturday by the date indicated on the syllabus.

1. Read my lecture, read chapters 18, 19 from the text.

2. Answer the questions on the quiz.

3. Answer the discussion questions on the bottom of this page.

I personally prefer to not work with juveniles. I tend to get emotionally attached to them. The year I spent as a Juvenile Court intake officer in Douglas County Nebraska made me understand why many children become delinquents. Before the police could detain the children, they had to bring the parents and the child to court and my job was to evaluate the situation for the court and make a detention decision. Mostly I saw parents or relatives who did not care about their children and did not desire to put the effort into the demanding job of being a good parent. My hat is off to those taking this course that presently works with juveniles and those that plan to work with juveniles in the future. I was particularly upset over babies with cigarette burns on their bodies. I would arrange foster homes for them.

The chapter on juveniles discloses the growing problem of juvenile violence. California as part of the get tough campaign has passed stiff gang member sanctions for youth that are involved in criminal behavior. An example is in the Los Angeles Times article of April 9, 2001 where a gang member by jury trial was found guilty of attempted murder for driving a car from which shots were fired at two youths. Without the gang allegation, he would have faced seven years in prison for attempted murder. The tougher laws to punish gang crimes resulted in a 15 year sentence for attempted murder, an added 20 years for the gun charge. The total sentence is 35 years to life for Michael Duc Ta. In the year 2000, prosecutors in Los Angeles County filed gang charges in 862 felony cases, 200 more than in 1999 and four times as many as in 1998. The prosecutors use the stiff gang penalty to squeeze out a plea. It is used as a hammer. Ta had no criminal record when the sentence was given. Neither of the intended victims was wounded, and the chase ended with their car being hit by the one Ta was driving before he sped away. Things can go wrong with juveniles and gang enhancements. I frequently tell the criminals that I have worked with over the years that a person is judged by whom they associate with and that they must make good decisions regarding who they associate with or pay the consequences.

Troubled girl crime has been going up. The U.S. News and World magazine article of May 14, 2001 discloses that girls composed 27.7 percent of the 2.21 million arrests in 1999. Get tough rules influence this increase in arrests.

Approaches are described for Juvenile Institutions on page 371-2. These institutions cannot make up for what parents aren’t teaching. Per an article in U.S. News and World report on June 4, 2001, schools are embracing a variety of programs and practices known as "character education." Forty states now require or encourage character education. The U.S. Department of Education has shelled our $33 million since 1995 for states to develop character-education programs. Hopefully on the long term, these educational benefits will produce positive results. No studies have been conducted to rate the effectiveness of an individual program.

Special Category Offenders are covered in Chapter 19. The mentally ill present a very difficult problem in Corrections . A new alternative described in the June 27, 2001 USA Today newspaper is taking place in Seattle, Washington. It is King County’s Mental Health Court. Defendants are called clients. The court has been in existence for two years and is exclusively for the mentally ill (which make up 15 percent of the county’s 2,950 inmates). The idea is to "sentence" the defendants to treatment, involving regular sessions with a psychiatrist, a caseworker and a probation officer- rather that to jail. The intent is the hope to improve the defendants’ lives while reducing jail crowding and enhancing public safety. Today, the Justice Department estimates that about 16 percent of the inmates in U.S. prisons and jails are mentally ill. That’s about 283,000 inmates–more than four times the number of mental patients in hospitals. Mentally ill inmates are more expensive to house in jail and are confined almost twice as long as other inmates because their illness often delays their release. The American Jail Association estimates that as many as 700,00 mentally ill people are jailed every year. Federal and County estimates exceed 1 million. This innovative type of solution making is what is needed if we are to have some impact on the revolving door of crime which we are committed to in the U.S.

Recently the CDC has come under attack by litigants regarding how we procedurally handled the developmentally disabled. The court case that examined us was Clark vs. California. I was designated as our institutional expert on the issue in 1998 and a young attorney interrogated me for two and a half hours on the issue. The Department ended up hiring some additional staff and providing a revision of our procedures because of this case. In most cases, significantly retarded inmates are diverted away from the criminal justice system and we do not see them in state prison. I have worked with slow thinking inmates in the past and they require patience and additional time to explain information to.

An area that I have strong thoughts about is sex offenders in prison (page 384). In a November 28, 1995 at a CDC Director’s Leadership Forum meeting that I attended, the Deputy Director of Paroles, Marisela Montes told us that 300-400 convicted sex offenders were paroled from prison every month in California. Most if not all these sexual offenders have not undergone any treatment, therapy for their sexual crimes, deviancy. We just throw them out there on the street. I have interviewed many sexual offenders over my 27 years as an employee of CDC and not one has ever admitted to me their crime. My experience is that when these predators think of sex, they think of sex in unlawful terms and we should make them participate in treatment. We owe this treatment to all their past victims and their possible future victims. Per Correction News, May 1991, Gary Lowe, CDC Parole Administrator stated that "the average sex offender has 380 victims during his lifetime, it is compulsive behavior. Per Corrections Today Magazine, August 1997, "Pedophilia in the Correctional System" by Musk, Swetz, and Vernon, the average pedophile who molests boys, will molest on the average 231 boys. Based on these numbers, politicians need to pass laws forcing all sexual offenders committed to state prisons to participate in behavior modification therapy.

In 1996, the Sexually Violent Predator Program took effect as a result of the passage of AB 888 and SB 1143 in 1995 in California. This program has a very high criterion and results in commitment to the California Department of Mental Health by court process. Most sexual offenders incarcerated in California prisons do not meet the criteria to be in this program. We should do something about the other sexual offenders in California who are routinely paroled in the state without a treatment effort having taken place.

A Press Dispatch article of June 10, 2007, page A-1 discloses that Juvenile sex offenders are on the rise. National statistics found, and treatment professionals say the offenders are getting younger and the crimes more violent. There has been a 40 percent increase in numbers over two decades. Some psychologists blame the increase in numbers on a society saturated with sex and violence and the fact that many of the accused were themselves victims of adult sexual predators. The number of children under 18 accused of forcible rape, violent and nonviolent sex offenses rose from 24,100 in 1985 to 33,800 in 2004. By comparison, rape and sexual assaults by adults decreased more than 56 percent from 1993 to 2004.

Page 389-391it is described how 8 percent of New York’s prison system is HIV positive. I am aware that California does not test all inmates to see if they are HIV positive. If testing took place for all inmates in California it is likely that California would test as high as New York. California does not test because of the expense involved. Staffs are trained to assume that any contact with an inmate is contact with a potentially infectious person and "universal precautions" are to be taken.

Do you think sexual offenders should be forced to participate in therapy programs in prison before release on parole? Why do you think as a society we are not confronting sexual law breakers with treatment? Do you think that merely punishing sexual offenders by imprisonment is enough to change their behavior?

Don't forget to take the quiz for this lesson by clicking the quiz link below. If the quiz is unavailable please contact your instructor at gbingham@bcconline.com.