“Adolescents likely possess the necessary intellectual skills to make informed choices about terminating a pregnancy but may lack the social and emotional maturity to control impulses, resist peer pressure and fully appreciate the riskiness of dangerous decisions,” said Laurence Steinberg, PhD, a professor of developmental psychology at Temple University and lead author of the study. “This immaturity mitigates their criminal responsibility.”

The findings appear in the October issue of American Psychologist, published by the American Psychological Association.

Steinberg and his co-authors address this seeming contradiction in a study showing that cognitive and emotional abilities mature at different rates. They recruited 935 10- to 30- year-olds to examine age differences in a variety of cognitive and psychosocial capacities.

The participants took different tests measuring psychosocial maturity and cognitive ability to examine age patterns in numerous factors that affect judgment and decision-making. The maturity measures included tests of impulse control, sensation-seeking, resistance to peer influence, future orientation and risk perception. The cognitive battery included measures of basic intellectual abilities.

There were no differences among the youngest four age groups (10-11, 12-13, 14-15 and 16-17) on the measures of psychosocial maturity. But significant differences in maturity, favoring adults, were found between the 16- to 17-year-olds and those 22 years and older, and between the 18- to 21-year-olds and those 26 and older. Results were the same for males and females, the authors said.

“It is very difficult for a 16-year-old to resist peer pressure in a heated, volatile situation,” Steinberg said. “Most times, there is no time to talk to an adult to inject some reason and reality to the situation. Many crimes committed by adolescents are done in groups with other teens and are not premeditated.”

In contrast, differences in cognitive capacity measures increased from ages 11 to 16 and then showed no improvements after age 16 – exactly the opposite of the pattern found on the psychosocial measures. Certain cognitive abilities, such as the ability to reason logically, reach adult levels long before psychosocial maturity is attained, Steinberg said.

“Medical decisions are those where adolescents can take the time to understand and weigh options provided by health care practitioners,” said Steinberg. “Rarely are these decisions made in the heat of the moment without consultation with adults. Under these circumstances, adolescents exhibit adult maturity.”

Two friend-of-the-court briefs filed by APA in cases heard by the Supreme Court spurred questions about these maturity differences and the apparent inconsistency between APA’s positions in the two cases. In its amicus brief filed in Roper v. Simmons (2005), the case that abolished the juvenile death penalty, APA presented research showing that adolescents are developmentally immature in ways that are relevant to their criminal culpability. In an earlier brief filed in Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990), which upheld adolescents’ right to seek an abortion without parental approval, APA presented research regarding cognitive abilities that bear on medical choices, showing that adolescents are as mature as adults.

APA differentiated these two scenarios by looking at the decision-making processes required for each situation. In the Hodgson case, APA described adolescents as being competent to make informed and sound health care decisions. In the Roper case, APA characterized adolescents as too short-sighted and impulsive to warrant capital punishment, no matter what the crime. APA placed the research about psychosocial development of adolescents in the context of a court’s need to determine as part of a death penalty sentence that the perpetrator can reliably be assessed as among the “worst of the worst.”

In November, the Supreme Court is slated to hear two cases concerning the constitutionality of sentencing juveniles to life without the possibility of parole. “Similar questions about adolescent development may be raised in these cases,” Steinberg said. APA has filed an amicus curiae brief in those cases presenting relevant research, including Steinberg’s most recent study, to the court.

Adolescents’ legal rights, said Steinberg, should be guided by accurate and timely scientific evidence on the nature and course of psychological development. “It is crucial to understand that brain systems responsible for logical reasoning and basic information processing mature earlier than systems responsible for self-regulation and the coordination of emotion and thinking,” he said. 

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Article: “Are Adolescents Less Mature than Adults? Minors’ Access to Abortion, the Juvenile Death Penalty, and the Alleged APA ‘Flip-Flop’” Laurence Steinberg, PhD, Temple University; Elizabeth Cauffman, PhD, University of California, Irvine; Jennifer Woolard, PhD, Georgetown University; Sandra Graham, PhD, University of California, Los Angeles; Marie Banich, PhD, University of Colorado; American Psychologist, Vol. 64, No. 7.

(Full text of the article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office and at http://www.apa.org/journals/releases/amp-64-7-583.pdf )

Reposted from the American Psychological Association.

March 2, 2009

This 20-page report says that adult African Americans were arrested on drug charges at rates that were 2.8 to 5.5 times as high as those of white adults in every year from 1980 through 2007, the last year for which complete data were available. About one in three of the more than 25.4 million adult drug arrestees during that period was African American.

Overview

New national drug arrest data illuminate the persistence and extent of racial disparities in the “war on drugs” in the United States. According to Human Rights Watch’s analysis of arrest data obtained from the FBI:

1. In every year from 1980 to 2007, blacks were arrested nationwide on drug charges at rates relative to population that were 2.8 to 5.5 times higher than white arrest rates.[1]
2. State-by-state data from 2006 show that blacks were arrested for drug offenses at rates in individual states that were 2 to 11.3 times greater than the rate for whites.[2]

The data also shed light on the persistence and extent of arrests for drug possession rather than sales:

1. In every year between 1980 and 2007, arrests for drug possession have constituted 64 percent or more of all drug arrests. From 1999 through 2007, 80 percent or more of all drug arrests were for possession.[3]

The higher rates of black drug arrests do not reflect higher rates of black drug offending. Indeed, as detailed in our May 2008 report, Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States, blacks and whites engage in drug offenses-possession and sales-at roughly comparable rates. But because black drug offenders are the principal targets in the “war on drugs,” the burden of drug arrests and incarceration falls disproportionately on black men and women, their families and neighborhoods. The human as well as social, economic and political toll is as incalculable as it is unjust.

Racial disparities in drug arrests reflect a history of complex political, criminal justice and socio-economic dynamics, each individually and cumulatively affected by racial concerns and tensions. Reducing the disparities is imperative, but should not be accomplished simply by increasing the rate of white drug arrests. A fresh and evidence-based rethinking of the drug war paradigm is needed. We urge local, state, and the federal governments to:

• restructure funding and resource allocation priorities to place more emphasis on substance abuse treatment and prevention outreach, and less on drug law enforcement;
• review and revise drug sentencing laws to increase the use of community-based sanctions for drug offenses and to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for them;
• conduct comprehensive analyses of racial disparities in all phases of drug law enforcement to devise ways to ensure the enforcement of drug laws does not disproportionately burden black communities;
• assess the extent to which considerations of race may influence police decision-making, including decisions regarding the neighborhoods in which police are deployed for drug law enforcement purposes and whom to arrest, particularly for low level offenses such as simple drug possession; and
• monitor patterns in pedestrian and vehicle stops and other police activities to determine if unwarranted racial disparities exist that suggest racial profiling or other race-based decision-making and to take appropriate action to eliminate racially disparate treatment.

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New Administration Should Review Failed Crime Control Policies

New figures showing that the incarcerated population in the United States remains the largest in the world highlight the need to adopt alternative criminal justice policies, Human Rights Watch said today.

Statistics released today by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a branch of the US Department of Justice, show that, as of December 31, 2007, nearly 2.3 million persons were incarcerated in US prisons and jails, giving the United States the largest incarcerated population in the world.  With 756 of every 100,000 residents behind bars, the United States also has the world’s highest rate of incarceration. By contrast, Britain incarcerates 153 per 100,000 residents; in Canada, the figure is 108; and in Italy, 83.

“These new numbers confirm that the United States remains the world’s leading prison nation,” said David Fathi, US Program director at Human Rights Watch. “And they should prompt Americans to ask their leaders some tough questions. Why does the US lock up seven times as many people as Canada? Why are other countries able to protect public safety while incarcerating far fewer people?”

The new statistics for the United States show large racial disparities, with black males incarcerated at a rate more than 6.5 times that of white males and 2.5 that of Hispanic males.  Black females are incarcerated at approximately three times the rate of white females and twice that of Hispanic females.

The new figures also show wide variation between individual states, with the highest state incarceration rate (Louisiana) more than five times as high as the lowest (Maine).

Human Rights Watch urged public officials in the United States to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for all drug offenses and to adopt community-based sanctions and other alternatives to incarceration for low-level drug offenders and other nonviolent offenders.

Human Rights Watch also called on President-elect Barack Obama to chart a new course on criminal justice.

“President-elect Obama should lead a national conversation on crime-control policy,” said Fathi. “It’s time to turn away from the failed policies that have made the United States the world’s leading jailer.”

Reprinted from Human Rights Watch.

(Washington, DC, June 6, 2008) – New figures showing that US incarceration rates are climbing even higher, with racial minorities greatly overrepresented in prisons and jails, highlight the need to adopt alternative criminal justice policies, Human Rights Watch said today.

Statistics released today by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a branch of the US Department of Justice, show that as of June 30, 2007, approximately 2.3 million persons were incarcerated in US prisons and jails, an all-time high. This represents an incarceration rate of 762 per 100,000 US residents, the highest such rate in the world. By contrast, the United Kingdom’s incarceration rate is 152 per 100,000 residents; the rate in Canada is 108; and in France it is 91.  
 
“The new incarceration figures confirm the United States as the world’s leading jailer,” said David Fathi, US program director at Human Rights Watch. “Americans should ask why the US locks up so many more people than do Canada, Britain, and other democracies.”  
 
The new statistics also show large racial disparities, with black males incarcerated at a per capita rate six times that of white males. Nearly 11 percent of all black men ages 30 to 34 were behind bars as of June 30, 2007.  
 
In May 2008, Human Rights Watch released its report, “Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States,” in which it documented racial disparities in US drug law enforcement, with black men 11.8 times more likely than white men to enter prison on drug charges, despite the fact that blacks and whites use illegal drugs at similar rates. Although whites, being more numerous, constitute the large majority of drug users, blacks constitute 54 percent of all persons entering state prisons with a new drug offense conviction.  
 
“Decisions about drug law enforcement play a major role in creating the staggering racial disparities we see in US prisons,” said Fathi. “The ‘war on drugs’ has become a war on black Americans.”  
 
The US has ratified the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), a treaty that requires the US to guarantee, without distinction as to race, color, or national or ethnic origin, “[t]he right to equal treatment before the tribunals and all other organs administering justice.” In May 2008, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which monitors compliance with ICERD, expressed its “concern with regard to the persistent racial disparities in the criminal justice system of [the United States], including the disproportionate number of persons belonging to racial, ethnic and national minorities in the prison population.” The committee called on the United States to undertake “further studies to determine the nature and scope of the problem, and the implementation of national strategies or plans of action aimed at the elimination of structural racial discrimination.”  
 
Human Rights Watch urges public officials in the United States to eliminate mandatory minimum sentences for all drug offenses and to adopt community-based sanctions and other alternatives to incarceration for low-level drug offenders. Human Rights Watch further calls on the United States to enact legislation that, in accordance with ICERD, prohibits policies or practices in the criminal justice system that have the purpose or effect of restricting the exercise and enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms on the basis of race, color, descent, or national or ethnic origin.

Reprinted from Human Rights Watch.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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GENEVA, 22 JANUARY 2008 –  Strategies that can help reduce the number of children who die before their fifth birthday were highlighted today, at the launch of UNICEF’s flagship report – The State of the World’s Children 2008: Child Survival – in Geneva.

While recent data show a fall in the rate of under-five mortality, the State of the World’s Children Report 2008 goes beyond the numbers to suggest actions and initiatives that should lead to further progress.

“Community-level integration of essential services for mothers, newborns and young children, and sustainable improvements in national health systems can save the lives of many of the more than 26,000 children under five who die each day,” said Ann M. Veneman, UNICEF Executive Director. “The report describes the impact of simple, affordable life-saving measures, such as exclusive breastfeeding, immunization, insecticide-treated bed nets and vitamin A supplementation, all of which have helped to reduce child deaths in recent years.”

The report’s analysis also reveals that far more needs to be done to increase access to treatments and means of prevention, so the devastating impact of pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, severe acute malnutrition and HIV can be better addressed.

The challenge is to ensure children have access to a continuum of health care, backed by strong national health systems.

“Stepping up investment in health systems will be crucial if we are to meet the child health targets set by the United Nations, but progress can be made even when health systems are weak,” said Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization. “Innovative programs in many countries show that an integrated approach where each child is reached with a package of interventions at one time can bring immediate benefits.”

The new information in The State of the World’s Children 2008 is drawn from household survey data as well as material from key partners, including the World Health Organization and the World Bank.

It provides examples of successful initiatives, such as the Accelerated Child Survival and Development Initiative, which provides integrated primary care to impoverished households in sub-Saharan Africa, and the Measles Initiative; a global campaign that has helped to reduce measles deaths by around 68 per cent worldwide, and by more than 90 per cent in Africa, since 2000.

The approach to child survival that the report advocates would see the best disease-specific initiatives combined with investment in strong national health systems to create a continuum of care for mothers, newborns and young children that extends from the household, to the local clinic, to the district hospital and beyond.

The report emphasizes the need to involve local communities. These communities generate necessary demand for quality health care and their engagement is vital if marginalized and remote populations are to be reached.

Nowhere is the need for life-saving strategies more apparent than in sub-Saharan Africa where, on average, one child in every six dies before their fifth birthday. In 2006, almost half of all under-five deaths occurred in sub-Saharan Africa, even though less than one quarter of the world’s children live there.

The report provides information on a strategic framework developed by UNICEF, WHO, and the World Bank – at the invitation of the African Union – to help African countries and others reduce the toll of maternal and child deaths. The framework calls for: 

• Good data to inform policies and programmes;
• A shift to combine disease-specific and nutrition interventions in integrated packages to ensure a continuum of care;
• The mainstreaming of maternal, newborn and child health and nutrition into national strategic planning processes to scale up and strengthen health systems;
• Improved quality and increased, predictable financing for strengthening health systems;
• Political commitments to approaches that provide a continuum of care; and
• The harmonization of global health programmes and partnerships.

“Child survival is not only a human rights imperative, it is also a development imperative,” said Joy Phumaphi, Vice President, Human Development Network at the World Bank.  “Investing in the health of children and their mothers is a sound economic decision and one of the surest ways for a country to set its course towards a better future.”

Launch of The State of the World’s Children 2008 Report

The report will be launched at 13.30 (Geneva time) on Tuesday, 22 January, in Salle de Presse III, Palais des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland.

Speakers will include Ann M. Veneman, UNICEF Executive Director, and Dr. Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization and Ms. Bience P. Gawanas, Commissioner for Social Affairs of the African Union.

Attention broadcasters: Video footage is available free of charge at www.thenewsmarket.com/unicef

For more information:
For UNICEF:
Angela Hawke, UNICEF New York, tel:             +1 212 326 7269       , ahawke@unicef.org
Michael Klaus, UNICEF Geneva, tel:             +41 22 909 5712       , mklaus@unicef.org

Approximately 227 youth have been sentenced to die in California’s prisons.¹ They have not been sentenced to death: the death penalty was found unconstitutional for juveniles by the United States Supreme Court in 2005. Instead, these young people have been sentenced to prison for the rest of their lives, with no opportunity for parole and no chance for release. Their crimes were committed when they were teenagers, yet they will die in prison. Remarkably, many of the adults who were codefendants and took part in their crimes received lower sentences and will one day be released from prison.

In the United States at least 2,380 people are serving life without parole for crimes they committed when they were under the age of 18. In the rest of the world, just seven people are known to be serving this sentence for crimes committed when they were juveniles. Although ten other countries have laws permitting life without parole, in practice most do not use the sentence for those under age 18. International law prohibits the use of life without parole for those who are not yet 18 years old. The United States is in violation of those laws and out of step with the rest of the world.

Human Rights Watch conducted research in California on the sentencing of youth offenders to life without parole. Our data includes records obtained from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and independent research using court and media sources. We conducted a survey that garnered 130 responses, more than half of all youth offenders serving life without parole in California. Finally, we conducted in-person interviews of about 10 percent of those serving life without parole for crimes committed as youth. We have basic information on every person serving the sentence in the state, and we have a range of additional information in over 170 of all known cases. This research paints a detailed picture of Californians serving life without parole for crimes committed as youth.

In California, the vast majority of those 17 years old and younger sentenced to life without the possibility of parole were convicted of murder. This general category for individuals’ crimes, however, does not tell the whole story. It is likely that the average Californian believes this harsh sentence is reserved for the worst of the worst: the worst crimes committed by the most unredeemable criminals. This, however, is not always the case. Human Rights Watch’s research in California and across the country has found that youth are sentenced to life without parole for a wide range of crimes and culpability. In 2005 Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch published a report showing that nationally 59 percent of youth sentenced to life without parole are first-time offenders, without a single juvenile court adjudication on their records.

In 2007, Human Rights Watch surveyed youth offenders serving life without parole in California. In 45 percent of cases surveyed, youth who had been sentenced to life without parole had not actually committed the murder. Cases include that of a youth who stood by the garage door as a look-out during a car theft, a youth who sat in the get-away car during a burglary, and a youth who participated in a robbery in which murder was not part of the plan. Forty-five percent of youth reported that they were held legally responsible for a murder committed by someone else. He or she may have participated in a felony, such as robbery, but had no idea a murder would happen. She or he may have aided and abetted a crime, but not been the trigger person. While they are criminally culpable, their actions certainly do not fall into the category of the worst crimes.

Murder is a horrible crime, causing a ripple-effect of pain and suffering well beyond that of the victim. Families, friends, and communities all suffer. The fact that the perpetrator is legally a child does nothing to alleviate the loss. But societies make decisions about what to weigh when determining culpability. California’s law as it stands now fails to take into consideration a person’s legal status as a child at the time of the crime. Those who cannot buy cigarettes or alcohol, sign a rental agreement, or vote are nevertheless considered culpable to the same degree as an adult when they commit certain crimes and face adult penalties. Many feel life without parole is the equivalent of a death sentence. “They said a kid can’t get the death penalty, but life without, it’s the same thing. I’m condemned…I don’t understand the difference,” said Robert D., now 32 years of age, serving a life without parole sentence for a crime he committed in high school. He participated in a robbery in which his codefendant unexpectedly shot the victim. 

The California law permitting juveniles to be sentenced to life without parole for murder was enacted in 1990. Since that time, advances in neuroscience have found that adolescents and young adults continue to develop in ways particularly relevant to assessing criminal behavior and an individual’s ability to be rehabilitated. Much of the focus on this relatively new discovery has been on teenagers’ limited comprehension of risk and consequences, and the inability to act with adult-like volition. Just as important, however, is the conclusion that teens are still developing. These findings show that young offenders are particularly amenable to change and rehabilitation. For most teens, risk-taking and criminal behavior is fleeting; they cease with maturity. California’s sentencing of youth to life without parole allows no chance for a young person to change and to prove that change has occurred.

In California, it is not just the law itself that is out of step with international norms and scientific knowledge. The state’s application of the law is also unjust. Eighty-five percent of youth sentenced to life without parole are people of color, with 75 percent of all cases in California being African American or Hispanic youth. African American youth are sentenced to life without parole at a rate that is 18.3 times the rate for whites. Hispanic youth in California are sentenced to life without parole at a rate that is five times the rate of white youth in the state.

California has the worst record in the country for racially disproportionate sentencing. In California, African American youth are sentenced to life without parole at rates that suggest unequal treatment before sentencing courts. This unequal treatment by sentencing courts cannot be explained only by white and African American youths’ differential involvement in crime.

Significantly, many of these crimes are committed by youth under an adult’s influence. Based on survey responses and other case information, we estimate that in nearly 70 percent of California cases, when juveniles committed their crime with codefendants, at least one of these codefendants was an adult. Acting under the influence and, in some cases, the direction of an adult, however, cannot be considered a mitigating factor by the sentencing judge in California. In fact, the opposite appears to be true. Juveniles with an adult codefendant are typically more harshly treated than the adult. In over half of the cases in which there was an adult codefendant, the adult received a lower sentence than the juvenile.

Poor legal representation often compromises a just outcome in juvenile life without parole cases. Many interviewees told us that they participated in their legal proceedings with little understanding of what was happening. “I didn’t even know I got [life without parole] until I talked to my lawyer after the hearing,” one young man said. Furthermore, in nearly half the California cases surveyed, respondents to Human Rights Watch reported that their own attorney did not ask the court for a lower sentence. In addition, attorneys failed to prepare youth for sentencing and did not tell them that a family member or other person could speak on their behalf at the sentencing hearing. In 68 percent of cases, the sentencing hearings proceeded with no witness speaking for the youth.

While some family members of victims support the sentence of life without parole for juveniles, the perspective of victims is not monolithic. Interviews with the families of victims who were murdered by teens show the complex and multi-faceted beliefs of those most deeply affected. Some families of victims believe that sentencing a young person to a sentence to life without parole is immoral.

California’s policy to lock up youth offenders for the rest of their lives comes with a significant financial cost: the current juvenile life without parole population will cost the state approximately half a billion dollars by the end of their lives. This population and the resulting costs will only grow as more youth are sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison.

California is not the only state that sentences youth to life without parole. Thirty-eight others apply the sentence as well. However, movement to change these laws is occurring across the country. Legislative efforts are pending in Florida, Illinois, and Michigan and there are grassroots movements in Iowa, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Nebraska, and Washington. Most recently, Colorado outlawed life without parole for children in 2006.

If life without parole for youth under age 18 were eliminated in California, other existing state law provides ample protection for public safety. California’s next harshest penalty for murder secures a minimum of 25 years in prison. There are no reductions in the minimum time served for a murder conviction. Even then, parole is merely an option and won only through the prisoner’s demonstrating rehabilitation. If they do earn release after 25 years or more, they are statistically unlikely to commit a new crime of any type. Prisoners released after serving a sentence for a murder have the lowest recidivism rate of all prisoners.

Public awareness about this issue has increased recently through newspaper and magazine articles and television coverage. With a significant number of the country’s juvenile life without parole cases in its prisons, California has the opportunity to help lead the nation by taking immediate steps to change this unnecessarily harsh sentencing law.

This article is a summery of a Human Rights Watch report by the same title.  The full report can be read here.

¹ In this report the words “youth,” “teen,” “juvenile,” “youth offender,” and “child” are used to mean someone under the age of 18.

Statistics released today by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), a branch of the US Department of Justice, show that at the end of 2006, more than 2.25 million persons were incarcerated in US prisons and jails, an all-time high. This number represents an incarceration rate of 751 per 100,000 US residents, the highest such rate in the world. By contrast, the United Kingdom’s incarceration rate is 148 per 100,000 residents; the rate in Canada is 107; and in France it is 85. The US rate is also substantially higher than that of Libya (217 per 100,000), Iran (212), and China (119).

To read entire article go here.