The Defense Attorney's Perspective on Youth Violence
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Description
On seeing the title of this chapter, readers may wonder why there is any need for reflection on the “defense attorney's perspective on youth violence.” Given the prevailing conception of defense attorneys as the representatives of individual clients in individual cases, it may seem that they have little to offer in a broad discussion of the management of youth violence. Moreover, given the defenders public image as a single-minded crusader who seeks to “get the client off” at all costs, it may seem that a defender would approach any such discussion with an instrumentalist bent, ready to advance the not-so-hidden agenda of maximizing the liberty of his or her clients. We have actually become accustomed to the absence of the defender’s voice and perspective in public debates of appropriate responses to youth violence. When the media choose to focus on the subject of youth violence—usually because of a horrific crime committed by a child—politicians and prosecutors weigh in with the standard litany of calls for harsher punishments for children while defenders often seem to stand mute. Politicians seek to establish themselves as “tough on crime,” including juvenile crime; usually missing from the debate is a voice to plead the cause of the children. As a result, certain myths have come to dominate public discourse, with no one to gainsay them. It has become commonplace for politicians, the media, and prosecutors to claim that the original conception of the juvenile court as a mechanism for rehabilitation is no longer viable because the “wayward child” of the past has been succeeded by the “superpredator.” Movies, television shows, and the media provide the subtext for those claims by projecting images of adolescents, particularly those who are African American or Hispanic, as violent, explosive, and remorseless. What effects have such claims and negative images had on the juvenile justice system? While cause-and-effect relationships are difficult to trace when dealing with cognitive phenomena, consider the following paradoxes: Although the rate of violent crime by juveniles has been falling since the mid-1990s, the rate of pretrial detention has generally remained constant (and, in some jurisdictions, has actually increased); despite evidence that community-based programs are better at combating recidivism than incarceration and are vastly less expensive, legislators and administrators cut funding for those programs while sinking more money into construction of adult and juvenile prisons;14 even when community-based alternatives are available, judges routinely incarcerate young people, even for non-violent crimes; and, although the available evidence strongly suggests that treating juveniles like adults does not reduce recidivism and may actually increase the likelihood of rearrest upon release, the type of systemic “reform” that seems to be most attractive to politicians is to transfer ever more children to the adult criminal justice system. This chapter draws heavily on the perspectives of the authors as juvenile defenders and advocates. As we argue in greater detail, the actions of legislators, prosecutors, and judges reveal a view of young people (or, more precisely, the young people who appear in juvenile court in delinquency cases) as incorrigible and usually dangerous. We take a closer look at the manifestations of that mindset and offer our theories about its sources, exploring the myths that animate—and are used to justify—the treatment accorded alleged delinquents. We also examine the role that the juvenile defense bar can play in combating such myths, for example, by representing their clients more effectively in individual cases and creating a systemwide mindset that is more responsive to children's needs.
Source Publication
Securing Our Children's Future: New Approaches to Juvenile Justice and Youth Violence
Source Editors/Authors
Gary S. Katzmann
Publication Date
2002
Recommended Citation
Fedders, Barbara; Hertz, Randy A.; and Weymouth, Stephen, "The Defense Attorney's Perspective on Youth Violence" (2002). Faculty Chapters. 779.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-chapt/779
