Troubled Teens Resources

“Once they get in this system, it’s a meat grinder,” said W. Michael Coulson, one of about 25 court-appointed attorneys in the juvenile courts. “For the most part, they’re on a rocket sled headed for TDCJ, unless something really big steps in the way.”

The gentleman above is speaking of the fate of troubled teens who have committed adult crimes in Texas, but the same holds true for any juvenile whose crimes merit the possibility of being charged as an adult. As courts around the country struggle with the increasing number of violent youth offenders, some districts have begun executing harsher sentences, trying more juveniles as adults.

“Texas permits courts to certify juveniles as young as 15 to be tried as adults for murder and other violent crimes.

For the past decade, Harris County has prosecuted more juveniles as adults than Bexar, Dallas, Tarrant and Travis counties combined.

In 1996, Harris County certified 170 juveniles amid a public crackdown on violent youth crime. That number steadily dropped to roughly 55 a year between 2003 and 2005.”

(source)

It makes one appreciate the necessity of early teen crisis intervention when perhaps brat camp programs or some type of training might have made the difference between continuing to break the law or choosing another path. Recently a 16 year old was sentenced to 25 years for aggravated robbery. Is that too severe?

Where do you put such teens if the juvenile system can’t rehabilitate them? It is a debate we will be seeing more and more of as court systems across the country struggle with the most effective methods of saving a teen’s life while keeping the public safe.