Right now, our justice system for children and teens is like an exceptionally difficult maze, with too many paths leading into it and too few ways out. The latest tragic example of this is Kalief Browder, the young man who took his life last weekend after being imprisoned over 1,000 days at New York’s infamous Riker’s Island before the charges against him were finally dropped (“Man jailed for years without conviction commits suicide” June 8, 2015).
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), responding to the news of Browder’s death, alluded to the fact that Browder was denied his right, under the Sixth Amendment, to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury. Paul is correct: Browder spent three years (nearly two of them in solitary confinement) waiting for a trial that never came. According to an October 6, 2014 article in The New Yorker, Browder was rarely able to even speak directly with his court-appointed attorney — he had to go through his mother.
{mosads}Sadly, the abuses Browder endured extend far beyond the Sixth Amendment. For almost two of the three years he was detained pending trial, he was locked in isolation for 23 hours a day, 7 days a week—a practice that is especially damaging to teens. In his remaining time at Rikers, he was subject to wanton abuses by correctional officers and other youth, some of which were captured on surveillance videotape. When the isolation and trauma led him to attempt suicide (the first of several times), guards saved him — and then beat him up and deprived him of food. (Nor were these incidents unusual, according to an August 2014 report from the Department of Justice that found an “alarming rate” of violence used by guards at Rikers against adolescent prisoners.) Upon his eventual release, Browder went home with no re-entry plan, no supports, no hope.
Worse, the loss and pain that this young person endured in his short life is endemic among the 200,000 youth prosecuted as adults across the country every year. Many of them have been arrested for the first time and are not at risk for flight. Yet if they can’t make bail — Browder’s family was unable to pay his $3,000 bail—we allow them to be locked up, often with adults, and expect them to somehow survive brutal conditions. And all of this happens pre-trial, while every one of those young people is still presumed innocent.
There are some responsible, practical things we can do respond to this tragedy and ensure not only that fewer youth get stuck in the maze of the justice system, but that they are not traumatized while inside it. For example, one sensible response is to remove all youth under the age of 18 from adult jails and place them in facilities designed for teens with adolescent-appropriate programming. As it happens, the bi-partisan Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJDPA) Reauthorization Act of 2015, introduced by Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) in April 2015, also calls for keeping youth awaiting trial in criminal court out of adult lock ups, and calls for states to develop policies to eliminate the dangerous practices of unreasonable use of restraints and isolation on youth.
The law does several other things for youth as well. For 40 years, the JJDPA has advanced four core protections that ensure that youth are treated differently from their adult counterparts. These protections include: (1) ending the practice of confining youth who commit status offenses such as skipping school or running away; (2) removing youth from adult jails; (3) “sight and sound” separation from adults when they must be confined in the same facility; and (4) assessing and addressing disproportionate minority contact for youth involved in the juvenile justice system.
The new proposed law further extends these protections to youth such as Browder. The bill calls for support of what research says works—keeping kids closer to home and in their communities whenever possible, treating them with trauma-informed care—and ensuring that justice applies to children equally, regardless of their race or ethnicity. The bill has bi-partisan support and is co-sponsored by Sens. Blunt (R-Mo.) and Senator Leahy (D-Vt.).
Despite the seemingly strong support for this bill, its future is uncertain in the time of sequestration, even if it does pass. Earlier this spring, the House Commerce, Justice, Science (CJS) Subcommittee zeroed out JJDPA funding in its appropriation bill. This leaves the Senate CJS Subcommittee charged with making up the difference, which is unlikely to happen given the existing caps on budget expenditures. This means that despite the strengths of the newly proposed law to protect children like Browder, states will have very little financial incentive to apply the new law.
The untimely and grievous death of Kalief Browder is a direct result of our country’s failed crime policies, such as charging our youth as adults. We need to stop perpetuating this war on our children, and instead, start to protect them and their rights. We call on Congress to take this opportunity and right this terrible wrong by swiftly passing and adequately funding the JJDPA.
Mistrett is the chief executive officer of the Campaign for Youth Justice; Bryer is the director of the National Juvenile Justice Network.