For this week’s blog, I found an
article about the imprisonment of adolescents with adult criminals. Now the
article only refers to the U.S., but the way it is written sort of implies the
relevance of this issue in other countries as well. I can only assume this
because of our limited knowledge of prison operations in other countries. The
article talks about the numerous negative effects that the adult criminal
justice system has on juvenile youths. Any traumas one might experience such as
rape, injury and mistreatment could cause long term psychological damage to
youths that may already have problems. The benefits of exposing kids to that
sort of incarceration don’t outweigh the price of their recovery potential.
Additionally, the kids who are exposed to that are more likely to commit violent
crimes upon their return home. Some might even consider suicide during or after
their incarceration.
Some prisons have come up with ways
to segregate inmates of different age groups, but it usually means that the
younger one’s end up in solitary confinement. The effect of solitary
confinement on any individual alone regardless of age could destroy any hope of
rehabilitation. Instead of teaching young delinquents a lesson by putting them
with more dangerous criminals, we should be pushing them through the juvenile
justice system to make sure that they get the proper care they need. Prisons
should be for those adults who need to be removed from society for a long
period of time. Kids don’t belong in prison because they still have a shot at a
normal life. There’s the saying that children are our future. In that case, we
shouldn’t lock them up but help the troubled youths learn to function civilly
in society. Great measures should be taken to ensure that nobody under the age
of 18 ends up in adult prisons.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/opinion/adolescents-in-grown-up-jails.html?ref=humanrightswatch&_r=0
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