Social Welfare and Fairness in Juvenile Crime Regulation

The question of how lawmakers should respond to developmental differences between adolescents and adults in formulating juvenile crime policy has been the subject of debate for a generation. A theme of the punitive law reforms that dismantled the traditional juvenile justice system in the 1980s and 1990s was that adolescents were not different from adults in any way that was relevant to criminal punishment – or at least that any differences were trumped by the demands of public safety. But this view has been challenged in recent years; scholars and courts have recognized that adolescents, due to their developmental immaturity, are less culpable than adults and that the principle of proportionality requires that teens be punished less severely for their criminal offenses. Moreover, some scholars have invoked developmental research to challenge the core assumption underlying the punitive law reforms that harsh sanctions promote public safety and reduce the social cost of juvenile crime. And there is evidence that lawmakers are listening. In this Article, we argue that a developmental model of juvenile crime regulation grounded in scientific knowledge about adolescence is both fairer to young offenders and more likely to promote social welfare than a regime that fails to attend to developmental research. We challenge the punitive reformers who have presumed that public safety is enhanced and social welfare promoted if serious juvenile offenders are punished as adults, and who have been unconcerned about whether their approach is compatible with principles of fair punishment. We focus here primarily on the social welfare argument for a separate and more lenient juvenile justice system grounded in a developmental framework. First, the argument for mitigation on the grounds of developmental immaturity is more familiar, and although it supports less punishment, it provides no strong basis for a separate justice system. Moreover, lawmakers and the public care about accountability, but they may care even more about public safety; fears about the threat of young superpredators propelled the transformation of juvenile crime policy that took place in the late twentieth century. Thus, a regime that deals with juveniles more leniently than adults (because they deserve less punishment) is likely to fail in the political arena if public safety is imperiled. In short, the viability of the developmental model depends on evidence that the punitive response of the past generation is not only inconsistent with basic principles of fairness, but also that it has failed to minimize the social cost of juvenile crime, and that regulation based on social science research is more likely to attain this goal

Blaming Youth

In March of 2001, a fourteen-year-old Florida boy named Lionel Tate was sentenced to life in prison without parole for killing six-year-old Tiffany Eunick during a wrestling match that took place when Lionel was twelve years old. Lionel was convicted of first degree murder on the ground that the killing was the result of aggravated child abuse, a crime that contemplates injury of a child by an adult caretaker. His conviction and sentence have prompted much debate and discussion – about his case and, more generally, about the criminal punishment of young offenders. Although the verdict and Lionel\u27s sentence received considerable public support, many people are troubled by a justice system that sends a fourteen-year-old offender to prison for life. The debate is not about whether Lionel killed Tiffany, or even whether he represents a threat to public safety. Rather, the contested issue is whether adolescents who commit crimes should be subject to the same punishment as their adult counterparts. This Essay addresses the question of how lawmakers should think about immaturity in assigning criminal punishment to young offenders. For reasons that have much to do with the peculiar history of juvenile justice policy, basic questions about the culpability of young law violators and the extent to which they can fairly be held responsible for their crimes have received surprisingly little attention in policy debates or in the academic literature. During most of the 20th century, young offenders were dealt with in a separate system that held to the view that the disposition of its charges was not governed by the criminal law. In the rhetoric of the traditional juvenile court, youths who committed crimes were blameless children in need of treatment; responsibility and punishment were not part of the vocabulary of juvenile justice. This model has become largely obsolete in the last generation. Since the late 1980s, a wave of punitive legal reform has brought many young offenders into the adult criminal justice system. These reforms are worrisome; they have been carried out in a highly politicized climate, driven by exaggerated public fears that seem to be reinforced by illegitimate racial attitudes. In the conceptual void created by traditional juvenile justice policy, important changes in the processing and punishment of this unique class of offenders have proceeded with little attention to the conventional constraints that limit punishment under criminal law doctrine and theory

Rethinking Juvenile Justice

Legal reforms over the past generation have transformed juvenile crime regulation from a system that viewed most youth crime as the product of immaturity into one that is ready to hold many youths to the standard of accountability imposed on adults. Supporters of these reforms argue that they are simply a response to the inability of the traditional juvenile court to deal adequately with violent youth crime, but the legal changes that have transformed the system have often been undertaken in an atmosphere of moral panic, with little deliberation about consequences and costs. In this book we argue that a developmental model of regulation that is grounded in scientific knowledge about adolescence and juvenile crime is more compatible with the justice system\u27s commitment to fairness and also more likely to promote social welfare than the contemporary approach. This premise for the most part translates into a legal regime that deals with most adolescent offenders as an intermediate legal category of persons – neither children nor adults. Developmental knowledge clarifies that the typical teenage offender is less culpable than his adult counterpart and therefore deserves less punishment. It also indicates that most adolescents mature out of their inclination to get involved in criminal activity, and that correctional interventions may influence the trajectories of their adult lives. The research shows that programs that attend to developmental knowledge are likely to facilitate the transition to conventional adult roles, benefiting both young offenders and society by reducing recidivism and reducing the economic costs of crime regulation

Elimination of pain improves specificity of clinical diagnostic criteria for adult chronic rhinosinusitis

Objective Determine whether the elimination of pain improves accuracy of clinical diagnostic criteria for adult chronic rhinosinusitis. Study Design Retrospective cohort study. Methods History, symptoms, nasal endoscopy, and computed tomography (CT) results were analyzed for 1,186 adults referred to an academic otolaryngology clinic with presumptive diagnosis of chronic rhinosinusitis. Clinical diagnosis was rendered using the 1997 Rhinosinusitis Taskforce (RSTF) Guidelines and a modified version eliminating facial pain, ear pain, dental pain, and headache. Results Four hundred seventy-nine subjects (40%) met inclusion criteria. Among subjects positive by RSTF guidelines, 45% lacked objective evidence of sinonasal inflammation by CT, 48% by endoscopy, and 34% by either modality. Applying modified RSTF diagnostic criteria, 39% lacked sinonasal inflammation by CT, 38% by endoscopy, and 24% by either modality. Using either abnormal CT or endoscopy as the reference standard, modified diagnostic criteria yielded a statistically significant increase in specificity from 37.1% to 65.1%, with a nonsignificant decrease in sensitivity from 79.2% to 70.3%. Analysis of comorbidities revealed temporomandibular joint disorder, chronic cervical pain, depression/anxiety, and psychiatric medication use to be negatively associated with objective inflammation on CT or endoscopy. Conclusion Clinical diagnostic criteria overestimate the prevalence of chronic rhinosinusitis. Removing facial pain, ear pain, dental pain, and headache increased specificity without a concordant loss in sensitivity. Given the high prevalence of sinusitis, improved clinical diagnostic criteria may assist primary care providers in more accurately predicting the presence of inflammation, thereby reducing inappropriate antibiotic use or delayed referral for evaluation of primary headache syndromes. Level of Evidence4. Laryngoscope, 127:1011-1016, 201

Brain Development, Social Context, and Justice Policy

This article examines the role played by biological and psychological factors associated with adolescent criminal activity in the context of justice policy reform and its critics. Scott, Duell, and Steinberg assert that risk-taking behavior in adolescence is not solely associated with biological and psychological immaturity, but rather exists as a dynamic interaction between those factors and the individual social context. This interactive model of juvenile offending supports the trend of treating juveniles differently than adults in the criminal justice system and clarifies how correctional programs are crucial in either undermining or promoting healthy development in adolescents