Juveniles' Race and Police Relations
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Goshe/ Western Criminology Review 14(1), 39-50 (2013) Online citation: Goshe, Sonya. 2013. "Malleable Mandates: Liberal Ideology and the Politics of Protection and Punishment in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act.” Western Criminology Review 14(1): 39-50. (http://wcr.sonoma.edu/v14n1/Goshe.pdf). Malleable Mandates: Liberal Ideology and the Politics of Protection and Punishment in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act Sonya Goshe University of California, Irvine Abstract: While the notion that youth warrant special protection has a lengthy and controversial history in juvenile justice dating back to the child saving movement, little research has examined how the idea has played out politically in law- making bodies at the federal level. Further, there is limited attention to how the core ideological foundation of our legal system may have paved the way for politically reshaping the notion of protection in a punitive direction in recent legislative efforts. In this paper, I explore the shifting political meanings of “protection” and “punishment” contained in the evolution of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) and propose that their malleability partially stems from overlooked ideological forces in the liberal legal model including a weak, individualized version of public duty and variable understandings of youth autonomy and culpability. Together the underlying liberal dynamics engender an ideological affinity between protection and punishment that permitted their rhetorical vulnerability and political distortion. Keywords: law-making, legal liberalism, ideological affinity, Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, politics, protection, punishment, youth justice INTRODUCTION delinquency, drug abuse and educational drop-out (U.S. Department of Health and Human Service 2006). In the United States, rhetoric surrounding children The mismatch between rhetoric and reality has caused pervades the popular media. If one casually surfs the web, some scholars, like Martha Minow (1987), to argue that watches television, or listens to the radio, children figure children are “quite beside the point” and suffer from prominently as a subject of concern, a reason to hope, and “societal neglect” in policy making efforts. Given their a lucrative target for advertisers. As a country, we profess relative developmental, economic and legal dependence, to care about kids. Yet, despite our proliferate rhetoric, children lack the “voice” to effectively marshal legal and children and adolescents are the hardest hit by serious political resources, and subsequently find their needs social problems confronting our society. Under times of subsumed to other, more powerful interests. Yet, budgetary crunch, social programs receive “first cut” thousands of youth are processed through the juvenile leaving youth most exposed under the vagaries of the courts each year in dependency and delinquency cases, and market economy. Even during good times, budgets for most states have multiple mechanisms that permit the social services have to fight for survival. Children’s transfer of youth to adult court (Griffin et al. 2011; vulnerability in American social policy comes at a price. Kupchik 2006). It seems that while children do appear At least one in five children lives in poverty (U.S. Census “beside the point” in some important senses, they are Bureau 2011). Each year millions of youth fall victim to certainly the subject of societal concern and social control, abuse, neglect, and serious violence (U.S. Government and debates about how best to handle youth in trouble with Accounting Office 2011) and suffer from its toxic fallout the law have a long, contested history (Blomberg and facing increased risks of delinquency, especially violent 39 Liberal Ideology and Politics in the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act Lucken 2000; Getis 2000; Platt 1977, 2002; Ryerson 1978; strapped local juvenile justice systems. Beyond serving as Schlossman 1977). a funding source, the Act performs both practical and At the political level, critical criminologist and symbolic functions for the states as well. On a practical historian Thomas Bernard (1992) has argued that the level, the law limits what the states can “do” with juveniles policy debates in youth justice proceed in fairly predictable in their care if they desire access to federal resources. In “cycles” that vacillate between an emphasis on the case of the original formulation of the JJDPA, states rehabilitation and an emphasis on punishment. He argues were forced to do a better job of “protecting” youth by that myths about the seriousness and frequency of juvenile diverting them away from the system initially, separating delinquency as well as faulty perceptions of being “too them from adults when contact was unavoidable and hard” or “too soft” on juvenile crime propel the policy deinstitutionalizing youth charged with status offenses like debate and drive the swings between rehabilitation and truancy and running away. On a symbolic level, federal punishment over time. Bernard’s characterization law enshrines certain values into the infrastructure of identifies an important vacillation in our models of youth juvenile justice, providing a tool for advocates interested in policy, and points to some of the reasons that empirical shaping social policy, and a basic philosophy that can realities of juvenile justice seem incapable of penetrating guide future efforts at change. hegemonic understandings about youth, crime and government interventions at the level of policy-making. Yet, the model also begs some larger questions about METHODS whether the problem is somehow partly intrinsic to the The material for this project derives from a legislative political process itself (McCorkell 1987), and perhaps to analysis of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency the dynamic tensions at work in our understanding of Prevention Act from its inception, pre-1974, to its most juvenile justice that are produced by a legal system recent authorization in 2002. In addition to the text of the founded on Lockean principles of maximum individual laws themselves, congressional debate, committee and freedom and minimal government intervention, subcommittee hearing transcripts, and official committee particularly in the zone of privacy surrounding family life reports were reviewed. The documents not only trace the (McCorkell 1987; Minow 1987; Ryan 1987). change in language from pre-1972 to the present, they also In this article, I propose that the “individualized” illustrate the types of evidence presented in the debate and version of public duty in the liberal legal model which the rhetorical framing of that evidence, which provides a subordinates collective social issues to the primacy of glimpse into the legislative manipulation that is often individual freedom creates an “ideological affinity” missed in much policy research focused on the back end of between the meanings of protection and punishment that reforms. While it cannot tell the whole story, federal have facilitated their malleability and interchangeability lawmaking represents a crucial site to examine how over time. Further, tensions springing from contradictory ideology and values about youth are channeled into the understandings of youth autonomy and culpability in the policy process and impact states’ ability to receive federal liberal legal model also promoted the punitive re-shaping resources. of protection that occurred in the most recent re- It is important to acknowledge that the changes to the authorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency JJDPA developed within a complex legislative process Prevention Act (42 USC §5601; §5602; §5633). where multiple versions of legislation, debate and hearings While the impacts of policy reforms have been studied related to the JJDPA were proposed before the final extensively, the front end process of law-making has version became law. In order to examine how federal received comparably little critical attention (Ismaili 2006; lawmakers construed protection and punishment in the Jones and Newburn 2002; Solomon 1981; Cullen and JJDPA, understanding both the official legislative history Wright 2002). Yet, exploring how legislation conceives of contained in the committee reports, and the more “messy” and drives particular models of justice for youth permits legislative process found in years of debate, drafting critical criminologists to understand and theorize about legislation and hearing testimony are necessary. Clearly, how changes in justice come about, and how to intervene the entire lawmaking process for the Act will not be more effectively at this level. reflected in this analysis. Much of lawmaking that The JJDPA is one such law that merits critical happens behind closed doors, in the hallways, and on the consideration. Heralded as a victory for progressive youth phone with lobbyists, or in the field with constituents will justice advocates with its controversial passage in 1974 not be revealed here. Also, all the potential “voices” of the (Schwartz 1989), the JJDPA supplies funding for all states juvenile justice system are not included. Most notably in compliance with its four core mandates that dictate how absent include the voices of children and their parents. states handle youth in their care. Even though much of Yet, the focus of this study is on how federal lawmakers the work of juvenile justice takes place at the local level, rationalized key changes