American juvenile justice system

As you know, the basic principle of the American juvenile justice system is that children are different from adults. And, it follows that the way the justice system deals with children should reflect these differences. When the principle was established, it provided for the individualizing of treatment and services to vulnerable children.

However, this system is under threat. Critics say it's not tough enough. And also it fails to rehabilitate children. And some of you may agree. After all, criminal statistics point to a steadily increasing problem of youngsters committing crimes. But my concern is that young offenders may start to be treated as adults. Before any reforms are made, a rational examination of the whole system needs to be undertaken. As I see it, there are three key areas of research:

The first is accountability. OK, so in other words, how are juveniles different from adults in their understanding of criminal behavior? How do we assess their responsibility?

Secondly, we need to evaluate risk. Risk evaluation. So, this means, how can we determine the chances of a given youth committing a crime and how can we use this information to prevent the crime in the first place?

The third area of research is susceptibility. We need to know how susceptible young people are to change. Can we assess a child's or a young person's likelihood of changing behavior or of responding to treatment?

So, to repeat, accountability, risk evaluation, and uh, susceptibility to change. These three key areas of research should be based on a thorough understanding of child and adolescent development. We need experts from all relevant fields, as well as input from the general public. More needs to be learned about the origins, development, prevention, and treatment of juvenile crime, and that knowledge has to be spread among professionals and the community. In this way, eventual reforms of the system may really be able to tackle the growing problem.

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Galapagos Islands

Bruce: One of the places I remember most are Galapagos Islands.

Pat: Oh, yes.

B: This group of islands about 600 miles out from Ecuador.

P: I’ve heard of them, yes.

B: Yeah, fantastic place. We went to see some friends in Ecuador and the they organized this boat trip for us which lasted about a week.

P: And were they exotic, sun kissed, tropical islands as the brochures would have you believe?

B: Not at all, actually. They were quite grey, I just remember grayness, sort of volcanic rock, bit of vegetation, very cold, forbidding sea and a lot of cloud. Even though we went in August, it was quite cloudy.

P: Oh, did you get to see a lot of animals and birds?

B: Oh, yeah, it’s brilliant for that. Absolutely brilliant, you know. I was really excited- they have these giant land tortoises, you know the famous tortoises. They’ve got albatrosses, which are unique to the island, marine iguanas, blue footed boobies

P: What are they?

P: Oh, they, they’re great. They’re sort of rather stupid-looking, clumsy birds with blue feet and long necks and they are about size of a goose and do really strange, flappy dances.

P: And are they tame?

B: Yeah, all the animals are absolutely tame. You can walk through them they, they don’t run baway at all, they’re absolutely fantastic.

P: Oh, incredible.

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