Crime and Punishment (Children's Edition)---Case 1

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[published on July 18, 2005 in "The Flatland Oracles," my previous blog]

US police pursue girl over stone. An 11-year-old girl who flung a stone at a group of boys who were pestering her faces serious criminal charges. [BBC News | World | UK Edition] According to this article published by bbc.co.uk world news, an 11 year old child is being held on felony assault charges.  After a boy started a fight, she threw a stone at him, severely gashing her face.  That was a very bad thing for her to do.  She could have killed him, in fact.  I remember my father taking a neighborhood bully to task after he threw a stone at my brother, calling a severe gash in the temple.  My father, an optometrist, sternly explained to the boy that the stone could have blinded my brother or---if it had hit in the right spot and the right speed---killed him.  The boy in question seemed quite shaken. When I was five, running around in the playground, I grabbed a handful of very coarse sand and---in an excess of exuberance during a game; I don't know why I did it----flung a lot of it around.  Two little girls who were playing on the swings got some of it in their eyes.  I was made to stand in the corner for the remainder of the class---a humiliation I never, never forgot---and also patted pretty sharply on the palm with a ruler.  When I got home, I got what used to be known as 'a talking to.'  I also had to apologize.  I've never thrown so much as a paper airplane at anyone since.    Another child in my town threw a stone at his sister and blinded her.  Permanently.  He suffers pangs of remorse to this day, 20 years later.  In other words, children need to be taught that the most primitive response to a threat is not the right one and that throwing anything at anyone at all for any reason can cause the loss of an eye or worse.  They also need to be taught that force used in self-defense shouldn't be excessive in relation to the threat.  This child did wrong and caused a serious injury. But the punishment--and the process--should be designed to secure justice in proportion to the offense.      And in determining a proportionate response, the system needs to look to all the surrounding circumstances---e.g., 11 year old girl throws stone at one of a group of boys who had been harassing her (and at one who admitted to starting the fight). Certainly for a very young child, the primary objective of the justice system ought to be redemption rather than revenge and restitution (when possible) ought to be favored over harsh punishment; and the process by which the child is brought before the justice system ought to be adjusted to the child's age and level of understanding.   But according to the above-cited bbc.co.uk article, Maribel Cuevas was arrested in April in a police operation which involved three police cars and a helicopter. She has since spent five days in detention, in which she was granted one 30 minute visit by her parents, and has spent a month under house arrest. Her lawyer accuses the authorities of criminalising childhood behaviour. "They're treating her like a violent parole offender," Richard Beshwate said. "It's not a felony, it's an 11-year-old acting like an 11-year-old." ...Police say they had to investigate as the boy who was hit by the stone she threw suffered a deep gash to his head and needed hospital treatment. He has reportedly acknowledged to officers that he started the fight in late April... ..An ambulance was called, but arrived flanked by three police patrol vehicles. A helicopter meanwhile hovered overhead. The 11-year-old was then read her rights twice in English before being detained. Was this treatment of a child just in the circumstances? What interest of justice was served?  According to my American Heritage Dictionary (4th ed. 2001), the word justice stands for a principle of 'moral rightness' and 'equity.'  It also means 'conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude.'  to do justice means to uphold 'what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.'   My New Expanded Webster's Dictionary (1989 ed.) gives it substantially the same meaning.  My husband's Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed. 1955) says that it means 'the quality of being morally just....; the principle of fair dealing; just conduct, integrity, rectitude...Exercise of authority or power in maintenance of right; vindication of right by assignment of reward or punishment.... Roget's Thesaurus (1995 ed.)  provides these synonyms:  "The quality or state of being just and unbiased: detachment, disinterest, disinterestedness, dispassion, dispassionateness, equitableness, fair-mindedness, fairness, impartiality, impartialness, justness, nonpartisanhip, objectiveness, objectivity.  See FAIR."    The increasing push for harsher treatment of all criminals seems to be interpreted more and more by law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and victims as a process of exacting revenge----a reversion to older, harsher practices that ignored circumstances (including the offender's age and ability to understand the consequences of an act) and looked only at the nature of the offence and the seriousness of the resultant injury.  "Revenge," wrote Francis Bacon in Of Revenge, "is a kind of wild justice, which the more man's nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out."[1]   The same applies to societies.  While it appropriate for the state to punish wrongdoers, a just vindication of the wrong will be fair, measured, and in proportion to the circumstances from start to finish. I cannot see how the arrest of an 11 year old in the circumstances described in the bbc article could be described as fair, measured, and in proportion to the circumstances.  In this case, the response of the police seems to be of a nature to increase rather than diminish the damage flowing from this child's wrongful act.  If children are to be arrested and held under the circumstances described in this article, all children everywhere are at risk.  For a child to assault another in response to a perceived attack is within the range of normal childish behavior.    When the offender is a child, the interests of society in rehabilitating and educating the child should certain supersede any interest in exacting revenge. For a child offender, the criminal processes need to be designed to induce remorse and encourage restitution. They should be designed to minimize further damage. The objective shouldn’t be to teach the child that she is a criminal, or to make her feel desperate and powerless, but to teach her that her behavior was wrong with enough forcefulness to make sure she won’t engage in similar conduct in the future.  How can a just system or a fair process NOT make allowances for a child's immature emotions, lack of adult judgment and impulse control and inability to fully appreciate all the consequences of an impulsive act?  This child was 11 years old.  She could barely speak English.  She was taken into custody and held for five days with only minimal contact with her parents.  Please tell me how that can be right.  Is there something here I'm not understanding about the underlying facts? If I'd done the same thing at age 11, my father would have punished me by spanking me.  I say 'spanking' to distinguish corporal punishment that is largely symbolic, humiliating and temporarily somewhat painful from the sort of beating that goes on for more than a few seconds or that goes on hurting after it's over. In addition,  he would have made me apologize and I am sure that he would have insisted on paying the injured party's medical expenses, if any.  But whatever else he did, he would certainly have seen to it that I understood the consequences of my actions. Nowadays, spanking children is very much out of favor.  Indeed, I'm against it myself.  I fail to see, however, how an arrest of an 11 year old who threw a stone for felony assault is a more humane or enlightened or just solution or how the interests of society are better served.