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.

While Americans struggle with the notion of charging violent troubled teens as adults, New Zealand is considering lowering the juvenile prosecutorial age to 12 due to youth crime so pervasive that some say ignoring it “could blight the future for generations to come.”

“NZ First MP Ron Mark has what he believes is one significant answer - a bill before a parliamentary select committee that would lower the age of prosecution from 14 to 12 and introduce tougher penalties for young, serious criminals.”

I hope they establish some teen boot camps and schools for troubled teens also. From these statistics, it appears as if they need them.

“In New Zealand 14 to 16-year-olds commit about 45,500 crimes each year, with children too young to be prosecuted involved in more than 8500 in one year.

Justice Ministry statistics show police picked up 700 children under 10 and 7900 children 10 to 13 last year for crimes including violence, drugs and burglary.

All too often police are powerless to intervene.

They say there is little they can do in cases like a 10-year-old who attacked classmates with a piece of timber, two 12-year-olds with 33 burglary charges, and a 13-year-old who attacked police with a baseball bat.
[…]
Under 14 they can only be prosecuted for murder or manslaughter.

After that, when police can deal with them, they are already career crooks.

One Lower Hutt 13-year-old in social welfare care for sexual offences abused two-year-olds four more times while in care, with police unable to act.”

(source)