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4/28
CRAAP-50

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4/28
CRAAP-50

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5 positive And Negative effects of video games on teens

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5 positive And Negative effects of video games on teens

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4/28
CRAAP- 50

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Posted By: Ms. Culbertson
4/20
CRAAP Score -- 43

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What explains the sudden decline in crime after a long rise? Better economic conditions? Cultural changes? A more convincing explanation is at hand: Courts have been handing out tougher punishment for crime, and potential criminals know and fear it.

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Should the Law Treat Kids and Adults Differently?

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Should the Law Treat Kids and Adults Differently?

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Posted By: Ms. Culbertson
4/20
CRAAP Score -- 42

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LANIS WATERS/AFP

When a child kills, does he instantly become an adult? Or does he maintain some trappings of childhood, despite the gravity of his actions?

These are the questions plaguing the American legal system today, as the violent acts of juvenile offenders continue to make headlines.

Wednesday, 14-year-old Nathaniel Brazill was found guilty of second-degree murder for killing his English teacher last year. The charge usually carries a prison term of up to 30 years, but Brazille's defense team is hopeful the sentencing judge will be more lenient in this case. They have a powerful ally: Jeb Bush. "There is a different standard for children," the governor said after Brazill was sentenced. "There should be some sensitivity that a 14-year-old is not a little adult."

In March, another Florida jury sentenced14-year-old Lionel Tate, who killed a younger girl while practicing wrestling moves on her, to life in prison without parole. The concurrent Brazill and Tate trials served to heighten the public misconception that juvenile violent crime is on the rise; in fact, recent figures show a precipitous drop over the last five years.

Are we seeing a drop because children are thinking more carefully about their crimes, knowing they could receive adult sentences? All but five states allow children of any age charged with murder to be tried as adults. The death penalty generally isn't an option — at least not for defendants under the age of 16; The U. S. Supreme Court has ruled capital punishment unconstitutional for anyone who hasn't celebrated their 16th birthday. Some states, however, will consider 16- and 17-year-olds for the death penalty.

Or are there other factors? Defense attorneys might offer a different argument: Since the bulk of the drop-off in juvenile crime predates most states' embrace of harsher penalties for young offenders, it is disingenuous to assume any connection between the two.

The fundamental question is, are children capable of understanding the consequences of their actions? Maybe not; recent studies suggest that the brain's prefrontal lobe, which some scientists speculate plays a crucial role in inhibiting inappropriate behavior, may not reach full development until age 20.

It's unlikely that America's thirst for vengeance will be sated by scientific theory. We are, as a nation, very much in favor of treating child criminals as adults — a recent ABC news poll showed 55 percent of us believe the crime, not the perpetrator's age, should be the determining factor in sentencing.

Below, a few of the arguments posited by both sides of the juvenile crime debate. At the end, there is an email address; we invite you to send us your comments. Let us know what you think.

Should the U.S. justice system treat juvenile violent offenders as adults?

YES

The end result of a heinous crime remains the same, no matter who commits it. Our justice system depends upon holding perpetrators responsible for their actions.

Harsh sentencing acts as a deterrent to kids who are considering committing crimes. Trying children as adults has coincided with lower rates of juvenile crimes. Light sentences don't teach kids the lesson they need to learn: If you commit a terrible crime, you will spend a considerable part of your life in jail.

Kids today are more sophisticated at a younger age; they understand the implications of violence and how to use violent weapons. It is absurd to argue that a modern child, who sees the effect of violence around him in the news every day, doesn't understand what killing really is. The fact that child killers know how to load and shoot a gun is an indicator that they understand exactly what they're doing.

NO

The juvenile prison system can help kids turn their lives around; rehabilitation gives kids a second chance. Successful rehabilitation, many argue, is better for society in the long run than releasing someone who's spent their entire young adult life in general prison population. A young person released from juvenile prison is far less likely to commit a crime than someone coming out of an adult facility.

Children don't have the intellectual or moral capacity to understand the consequences of their actions; similarly, they lack the same capacity to be trial defendants.

Children shouldn't be able to get deadly weapons in the first place. Adults who provide kids with guns used in violent crimes should be held at least as accountable as the kids themselves.

It's remarkably easy to find a seasoned defense lawyer who believes the current system is too vulnerable to racism: Statistically, black juvenile offenders are far more likely to be transferred to adult courts (and serve adult time) than their white peers who've committed comparable crimes.

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Breaking News, Analysis, Politics, Blogs, News Photos, Video, Tech Reviews - TIME.com

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When a child kills, does he instantly become an adult? Or does he maintain some trappings of childhood, despite the gravity of his actions? These are the questions plaguing the American legal system today, as the violent acts of juvenile offenders continue to make headlines.

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JUVENILE MURDERERS AND THEIR VICTIMS’ FAMILIES STRUGGLE IN LIMBO WHILE COLORADO WAITS TO ACT ON LIFE SENTENCES

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JUVENILE MURDERERS AND THEIR VICTIMS’ FAMILIES STRUGGLE IN LIMBO WHILE COLORADO WAITS TO ACT ON LIFE SENTENCES

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Posted: Ms. Culbertson
4/20
CRAAP -- 44

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Ann Hardy started serving her own life sentence the day her 18-year-old son, McKinley Dixon, was shot to death by another teenager in 1994. Her son drowned in his own blood while 16-year-old gunman Christopher Selectman ran home.

"My life turned upside down," Hardy said. "It was just like somebody took my heart and broke it in half."

Every time an appeal comes up in Selectman's case or new legislation is drafted to change his sentence, Hardy's heart breaks all over again, she said.

Hardy, her grandson and her great-grandson were among more than a dozen families to testify against the new law this spring. Every time Hardy has to ask that Selectman's sentence be left alone, it feels like another brush stroke painting her as the villain.

Under the Colorado Victims Rights Act, crime victims have a right to be present and heard when an offender's sentence is discussed. Hardy and other victims say even though the new law requires victims' opinions be considered during a review, their voices are still being silenced.

"Everybody seems to forget with these Supreme Court rulings, they don't change the fact that they are guilty. They are guilty of taking a life," said Jody Robinson, president of the National Organization for Victims of Juvenile Murders.

Since the Supreme Court's ruling in January, membership to the victims rights and support group has doubled. Some victims called in the middle of panic attacks and became physically ill after learning about the opinion, Robinson said.

"We're all going back to court," said Robinson, whose brother was murdered by a juvenile in Michigan 26 years ago.

Twenty-two years after her son's murder, Hardy still paces in her bedroom during sleepless nights. A photo of her son holding his 3-month-old baby - the grandson she helped raised - watches over her from her dresser.

She's memorized all the ways to get to work without having to drive by the lot in Aurora where Dixon was killed. She still has the high school diploma she collected for her son and the calendar he wrote everyone's birthday in.

A letter Selectmen sent her late last year also sits in the bedroom. Opened and unread.

"You don't get to say I'm done," Hardy said. "I'm in prison, too. I got a life sentence, but I don't get to parole from it. I don't get to be free."

* * *

Jeff Johnson walked into the visiting room at the Fremont Correctional Facility carrying a frayed folder full of failed appeals and bills that went nowhere.

"Don't ever get your hopes up," the 39-year-old said, resting his chin on his fist.

Johnson was convicted of first-degree murder in the death of John Leonardelli. Johnson was 17 when he watched 19-year-old Johnathan Jordan - who has since written a letter claiming responsibility - stab Leonardelli to death in an Aurora parking garage in 1994. The two left in the 55-year-old's Jaguar and took his watch, bracelet and ring.

Now, 39, Johnson never learned to drive. He's never voted in an election. Instead, he studied Supreme Court decisions and case-law.

Six years before the U.S. Supreme Court found automatic life sentences for juveniles to be unconstitutional, Colorado legislators passed a law eliminating them. But a clause that would have made the law retroactive was removed after Gov. Bill Owens raised concerns for the victims' families.

In June 2014, the Colorado Supreme Court heard arguments in four cases involving juvenile defendants. Attorneys for the men claimed the sentences of life without parole were unconstitutional under the U.S. Supreme Court's 2012 ruling.

State justices - who acknowledged there had been little direction from lawmakers on how to address those cases - ruled two of those four cases should be reviewed. Those reviews have yet to be completed.

Johnson was 18 when he went to prison. During his second night of lockup he watched another man unsuccessfully try to fight off a rapist. As he waded into the first years of his sentence, he dove deeper into depression.

One night he cut his wrist with a razor blade.

Eventually, it was too much and Johnson turned to one of few escapes available to him behind bars - heroin. Each hit, which he calls a "shot," was bigger than the last.

"I think I was hoping that one day one of those shots would just put me down," Johnson said.

John Johnson watched his son grow up in prison visiting rooms. He's confident his son will never give up, but he worries that he and others feel forgotten. He thinks about it every time he says goodbye.

"You don't know. Is this the last hug? Or will he still be there," Johnson said. "It's brutal."

Mike Leonardelli, John Leonardelli's son, also knows how hard goodbyes are.

He had to watch as his mother, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, repeatedly asked where his father was. She died two years to the day after her husband.

Then Leonardelli watched one brother die of alcohol abuse, then another from drugs.

"Dad was the rock of the family," Leonardelli said. After his death everyone scattered.

The family wanted the death penalty, and now they want the original sentence to stand. He cringes when he hears people call Johnson's sentence "cruel and unusual."

"There's nothing more cruel and unusual than killing somebody," Leonardelli said. "Why does he get that consideration when my dad never did?"

Jeff Johnson asks himself the same question all the time.

"I didn't do what a man should have done," Johnson said. "I didn't react the way I should have reacted, and I didn't make the right decisions after that either."

Johnson remembers the day he realized he might die in prison. It was the day he quit using drugs and started working toward becoming a role model for other inmates and at-risk youth. It was the day he decided to leave a different mark, something other than that night in the Aurora parking garage.

But he is careful not to fill in details when imagining his future. He pictures one day having a wife, maybe a son whose hockey team he could coach. That's as far as he goes.

Since 2012, 24 states have changed sentencing laws for juveniles convicted of murder, according to a report from The Sentencing Project.

"States have been passing laws in efforts to comply with this because they have realized that children are different than adults," said Nikola Nable-Juris, policy counsel for the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth.

Colorado now joins a minority of states, including Texas and Nevada, that require the longest sentence before the juvenile offenders can become parole eligible. Other states allow juvenile offenders to become parole eligible after serving 15 to 25 years, Nable-Juris said.

Under the new law, if Johnson is released he will be placed on parole for the rest of his life. After watching friends repeatedly return to prison for violations, Johnson worries that perpetual parole will set him up to fail.

"It might be nice to try to go make a life," Johnson said. "But it's kind of like saying you don't miss nothing you never had."

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Juvenile murderers and their victims' families struggle in limbo while Colorado waits to act on life sentences

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Ann Hardy started serving her own life sentence the day her 18-year-old son, McKinley Dixon, was shot to death by another teenager in 1994. Her son drowned in his own blood while 16-year-old gunman Christopher Selectman ran home. "My life turned upside down," Hardy said.

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Does Treating Kids Like Adults Make a Difference? 

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Does Treating Kids Like Adults Make a Difference? 

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Posted By: Ms. Culbertson
4/18
CRAAP Score -- 43

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Stats - Does Treating Kids Like Adults Make A Difference? | Juvenile Justice | FRONTLINE | PBS

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To date, there's no extensive research comparing the lengths of prison sentences received by juveniles convicted in criminal court with those who remained in the juvenile system. What research exists indicates that juveniles convicted in criminal court, particularly serious and violent offenders, are more likely to be incarcerated and receive longer sentences than juveniles retained in the juvenile system.

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Juvenile Life Without Parole: An Overview

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Juvenile Life Without Parole: An Overview

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Posted By: Ms. Culbertson
4/18
CRAAP Score -- 45

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Following the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. Alabama states and the federal government are required to consider the unique circumstances of each juvenile defendant in determining an individualized sentence. Montgomery v. Louisiana, a 2016 decision, ensures that the decision applies retroactively. For juveniles, a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole is unconstitutional.

Research on adolescent brain development confirms the commonsense understanding that children are different from adults in ways that are critical to identifying age appropriate criminal sentences. This understanding - Justice Kennedy called it what "any parent knows" - was central to four recent Supreme Court decisions excluding juveniles from the harshest sentencing practices. The most recent, Montgomery, emphasized that the use of life without parole (mandatorily or not) should only be reserved for those juveniles whose offenses reflected "irreparable corruption," a ruling that Justice Scalia (in dissent) wrote may eventually "eliminat[e] life without parole for juvenile offenders."

Supreme Court Rulings

Since 2005, Supreme Court rulings have accepted adolescent brain science and banned the use of capital punishment for juveniles, limited life without parole sentences to homicide offenders, banned the use of mandatory life without parole, and applied the decision retroactively. In 2012, the Court ruled that judges must consider the unique circumstances of each juvenile offender, banning mandatory sentences of life without parole for all juveniles; in 2016, this decision was made retroactive to those sentenced prior to 2012.

Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005)

The Supreme Court ruled that juveniles cannot be sentenced to death, writing that the death penalty is a disproportionate punishment for the young; immaturity diminishes their culpability, as does their susceptibility to outside pressures and influences. Lastly, their heightened capacity for reform means that they are entitled to a separate set of punishments. The court also held that the nation's "evolving standards of decency" showed the death penalty for juveniles to be cruel and unusual; 12 states banned the death penalty in all circumstances, and 18 more banned it for juvenile offenders. The Roper ruling affected 72 juveniles on death row in 12 states. Between 1976 and the Roper decision, 22 defendants were executed for crimes committed as juveniles.

Graham v. Florida, 130 S. CT. 2011 (2010)

Having banned the use of the death penalty for juveniles in Roper, the Court left the sentence of life without parole as the harshest sentence available for offenses committed by people under 18. In Graham v. Florida, the Court banned the use of life without parole for juveniles not convicted of homicide. The ruling applied to at least 123 prisoners - 77 of whom had been sentenced in Florida, the remainder in 10 other states. As in Roper, the Court pointed to the rare imposition of a particular punishment to prove that the punishment is unusual.

Court precedent recognizes that non-homicide offenses do not warrant the most serious punishment available. "The concept of proportionality is central to the Eighth Amendment," wrote Justice Kennedy. Thus, having denied the maximum punishment for all juvenile offenders (life without parole), the Court ruled that the harshest punishment must be limited to the most serious category of crimes (i.e., those involving homicide).

The Court called life without parole "an especially harsh punishment for a juvenile ... A 16-year-old and a 75-year-old each sentenced to life without parole receive the same punishment in name only." Limiting the use of life without parole did not guarantee such individuals would be released; it guaranteed a "meaningful opportunity" for release.

States that have banned or limited the use of juvenile life without parole sentences, 2017

Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs, 132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012)

Following Roper's exclusion of the death penalty for juveniles and Graham 's limitation on the use of life without parole, approximately 2,500 offenders were serving sentences of life without parole for crimes committed as juveniles, all of whom were convicted of homicide-related offenses.

In 2012, deciding Miller and Jackson jointly, the U.S. Supreme Court held that, for juveniles, mandatory life without parole sentences violate the Eighth Amendment. Writing for the majority, Justice Kagan emphasized that judges must be able to consider the characteristics of juvenile defendants in order to issue a fair and individualized sentence. Adolescence is marked by "transient rashness, proclivity for risk, and inability to assess consequences," all factors that should mitigate the punishment received by juvenile defendants.

Adolescence is marked by "rashness, proclivity for risk, and inability to assess consequences."

Montgomery v. Louisiana 577 U.S. ___(2016)

The Miller ruling affected mandatory sentencing laws in 28 states and the federal government. States inconsistently interpreted Miller's retroactivity. Supreme Courts in fourteen states ruled that Miller applied retroactively while those of seven other states ruled that Miller was not retroactive. In addition, California, Delaware, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, and Wyoming passed juvenile sentencing legislation that applied retroactivity.

The question was settled by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of 68-year old Henry Montgomery, who has been imprisoned in Louisiana with no chance of parole since 1963, a "model member of the prison community." Justice Kennedy, writing for a 6-3 majority, noted that the Court in Roper, Graham, and Miller found that "children are constitutionally different from adults in their level of culpability." Moreover, the severest punishment must be reserved "for the rarest of juvenile offenders, those whose crimes reflect permanent incorrigibility."

States can remedy the unconstitutionality of mandatory juvenile life without parole sentences by permitting parole hearings rather than resentencing the approximately 2,100 people whose life sentences were issued mandatorily.

Legislative Responses to Miller

Since 2012, 28 states and the District of Columbia have changed their laws for juvenile offenders convicted of homicide (including felony murder). All but four had previously required life without parole in these circumstances. These new laws provide mandatory minimums ranging from a chance of parole after 15 years (as in Nevada and West Virginia) to 40 years (as in Texas and Nebraska). Thirty states still allow life without parole as a sentencing option for juveniles. In most states, the question of virtual life without parole has yet to be addressed.

People Serving Juvenile Life Without Parole Sentences

Twenty states and the District of Columbia do not have any prisoners serving life without parole for crimes committed as juveniles, either due to laws prohibiting the sentence or because there are no individuals serving the sentence at this time. Thus, while 30 states allow the sentence, just three - Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Louisiana - account for about two-thirds of JLWOP sentences.

Childhood Experiences

The life experiences of the approximately 2,100 people serving juvenile life sentences vary, but they are often marked by very difficult upbringings with frequent exposure to violence; they were often victims of abuse themselves. Justice Kagan, in the Miller ruling, ruled that Alabama and Arkansas erred because a mandatory sentencing structure does not "tak[e] into account the family and home environment." The petitioners in the cases, Kuntrell Jackson and Evan Miller, both 14 at the time of their crimes, grew up in highly unstable homes. Evan Miller was a troubled child; he attempted suicide four times, starting at age 6. Kuntrell Jackson's family life was "immers[ed] in violence: Both his mother and his grandmother had previously shot other individuals." His mother and a brother were sent to prison. The defendant in Graham, Terrance Graham, had parents who were addicted to crack cocaine.

In 2012, The Sentencing Project released findings from a survey of people sentenced to life in prison as juveniles and found the defendants in the above cases were not atypical.

79% witnessed violence in their homes regularly

32% grew up in public housing

40% had been enrolled in special education classes

Fewer than half were attending school at the time of their offense

47% were physically abused

80% of girls reported histories of physical abuse and 77% of girls reported histories of sexual abuse

Racial Disparities

Racial disparities plague the imposition of JLWOP sentences. While 23.2% of juvenile arrests for murder involve an African American suspected of killing a white person, 42.4% of JLWOP sentences are for an African American convicted of this crime. White juvenile offenders with African American victims are only about half as likely (3.6%) to receive a JWLOP sentence as their proportion of arrests for killing an African American (6.4%).

Cost of Life Sentences

Aside from important justice considerations, the financial cost of JLWOP sentences is significant. A life sentence issued to a juvenile is designed to last longer than a life sentence issued to an older defendant.

Housing juveniles for a life sentence requires decades of public expenditures. Nationally, it costs $34,135 per year to house an average prisoner. This cost roughly doubles when that prisoner is over 50. Therefore, a 50-year sentence for a 16-year old will cost approximately $2.25 million.

What Makes Youth Different?

In amici briefs written on behalf of the defendants in Roper, Graham, Miller, and Montgomery, organizations representing health professionals, such as the American Academy of Child Adolescent Psychiatry and the American Psychological Association, explained current research on immature brains. In Miller, Justice Kagan noted that adolescence is marked by "immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate risks and consequences," all factors that limit an adolescent's ability to make sound judgments. Justice Kagan cited Graham and J. D. B. v. North Carolina in noting that juvenile defendants are at a substantial disadvantage in criminal proceedings; they are less able than adults to assist in their own defenses (working constructively with counsel) and they are likely to respond poorly to the high pressures of interrogation. Even before Roper, states routinely recognized differences between juveniles and adults in other contexts. Almost every state prohibits juveniles from voting, buying cigarettes and alcohol, serving on juries, and getting married without parental consent. Teenagers' drivers licenses are typically restricted through age 18. The Graham decision emphasized the importance of giving juvenile offenders a chance to become rehabilitated. These individuals have a substantial capacity for rehabilitation, but many states deny this opportunity: approximately 62% of people sentenced to life without parole as juveniles reported not participating in prison programs in large part due to state prison policies that prohibit their participation or limited program availability. They typically receive fewer rehabilitative services than other prisoners.

Momentum for Reform

Eliminating juvenile life without parole does not suggest guaranteed release of these offenders. Rather, it would provide that an opportunity for review be granted after a reasonable period of incarceration, one that takes into consideration the unique circumstances of each defendant. In Montgomery, the Court ruled that "allowing those offenders to be considered for parole ensures that juveniles whose crimes reflected only transient immaturity - and who have since matured - will not be forced to serve a disproportionate sentence in violation of the 8th Amendment."

In many other countries the period before a mandated review is 10 to 15 years. If adequate rehabilitation has not occurred during these years in prison, as decided by experts, the individual may remain in prison and his/her case be reviewed again in another few years. Nor is it appropriate to eliminate life sentences in name only, replacing them with excessively lengthy prison terms that can reasonably expected to last for an offender's entire life. There is mounting support for such reform in select states. Motivated by the Miller decision, the state of California (home to one of the largest populations of JLWOP defendants) now affords prisoners a meaningful chance at parole after 15 to 25 years if their crime occurred when they were a juvenile. Reforms are underway in other states as well. Sentences that close the door on rehabilitation and second chances are cruel and misguided.

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Juvenile Life Without Parole: An Overview | The Sentencing Project

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Following the 2012 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Miller v. Alabama states and the federal government are required to consider the unique circumstances of each juvenile defendant in determining an individualized sentence. Montgomery v. Louisiana, a 2016 decision, ensures that the decision applies retroactively.

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Posted By: Ms. Culbertson
4/18
CRAAP Score -- 44

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Opinion | Crime and the Adolescent Brain (Published 2017)

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Sixteen-year-olds who are tried as juveniles are less likely to be rearrested than those tried as adults.

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A California Court for Young Adults Calls on Science

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A California Court for Young Adults Calls on Science

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Posted By: Ms. Culbertson
4/18
CRAAP Score -- 45

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Instead, Shaquille - who spoke on condition that his full name not be used, lest his record jeopardize his chances of finding a job - wound up in San Francisco's Young Adult Court, which offered him an alternative.

For about a year, he would go to the court weekly to check in with Judge Bruce E. Chan. Court administrators would coordinate employment, housing and education support for him. He would attend weekly therapy sessions and life-skills classes.

In return, he would avoid trial and, on successful completion of the program, the felony charge would be reduced to a misdemeanor. This was important, because a felony record would make it nearly impossible for him to get a job.

"These are transitional-age youth," said Carole McKindley-Alvarez, who oversees case management for the court. "They're supposed to make some kind of screwed-up choices. We all did. That's how you learn."

Surprisingly, this alternative legal philosophy springs not from concerns about overcrowded prisons or overburdened courts, but from neuroscience.

Researchers have long known that the adolescent brain is continually rewiring itself, making new connections and pruning unnecessary neurons as it matures. Only recently has it become clear that the process stretches well into early adulthood.

Buried in that research is an uncomfortable legal question: If their brains have not fully matured, how responsible are adults ages 18 to 24 for their crimes?

Should they be treated more like adolescents, handled in the comparatively lenient juvenile system, or more like hardened 35-year-olds? Should young adults be held fully responsible for certain crimes but not others?

After attending a lecture at Harvard on brain development, George Gascón, the San Francisco district attorney, decided to tackle these questions head on. In 2015, he and Wendy Still, then the city's probation chief, established Young Adult Court, a hybrid of the adult and juvenile justice systems tailored to the biology and circumstances of offenders 18 to 24.

Mr. Gascón and his colleagues argue that neurological immaturity may contribute to criminal behavior. Adult sentences constitute cruel and unusual punishment, they say, and undermine the possibility of rehabilitation.

Trained by a clinical psychologist in recent neuroscience, members of the court's staff are trying to apply the scientific findings to prevent lifelong entanglement with the criminal justice system.

"It's an opportunity demographic, is what it is," Judge Chan said. "This is a really malleable group of people with tremendous capacity to change."

The Developing Brain

For most of the past century, scientists assumed brains were fully developed by age 18. Then, in 1999, Dr. Jay N. Giedd of the National Institute of Mental Health published a study in Nature Neuroscience that challenged this view.

He used M.R.I. scans to track the brain development of 145 people ages 4 to 22. The study was intended to explore structural changes during the transition from childhood to adolescence, but Dr. Giedd found that neural connections continued to be refined well past age 18.

Over the next decade, other researchers confirmed that the brain seems to undergo a burst of growth and connectivity after age 18, but few experts pursued those observations. In 2012, a comprehensive analysis of brain development omitted data on young adults ages 18 to 21 because so few studies had been done.

But if neuroscientists were not interested in the implications, legal scholars were. A series of Supreme Court rulings - most notably Roper v. Simmons in 2005, which abolished the death penalty for juveniles - was partly based on science suggesting that adolescent brains are not fully developed. This continuing process, the justices reasoned, diminished culpability and justified sentencing that was less harsh.

Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist at Temple University, set out to determine when exactly an adolescent becomes an adult.

Dr. Steinberg gave psychological tasks to 935 people ages 10 to 30 to distinguish between cognitive capacity and "psychosocial maturity." His team reported that people performed as well as older adults on cognitive tasks - such as recalling 13-digit numbers forward and backward - by age 16.

Yet psychosocial maturity - measured by impulsivity, risk perception, thrill-seeking, resistance to peer influence - did not begin until age 18, gathering momentum through the early 20s.

"It appeared that these two traits might develop on different timelines," Dr. Steinberg said.

In 2011, the MacArthur Foundation organized a group of legal scholars and scientists, including Dr. Steinberg, to study criminal justice and young-adult brains in more detail. It was no secret that the criminal justice system's approach to young adults was not working.

Young adults 18 to 24 make up 10 percent of the population, but they account for 28 percent of all arrests (2.1 million in 2015), a rate higher than that of any other age group.

Arrest rates are particularly high among minority males: Nationally, about half of all black men have been arrested by age 23.

Convictions at this age often are the harbingers of wasted lives: 84 percent of young adults released from prison will be rearrested within five years. Few with felony convictions will be able to find jobs.

A court informed by biological research could play a role in bringing down those numbers, Mr. Gascón hopes, even if most of these offenders face considerable economic and racial barriers.

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A California Court for Young Adults Calls on Science

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Instead, Shaquille - who spoke on condition that his full name not be used, lest his record jeopardize his chances of finding a job - wound up in San Francisco's Young Adult Court, which offered him an alternative. For about a year, he would go to the court weekly to check in with Judge Bruce E.

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Most violent and property crimes in the U.S. go unsolved

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Most violent and property crimes in the U.S. go unsolved

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Posted By: Ms. Culbertson
4/18
CRAAP Score -- 48

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Only about half of the violent crimes and a third of the property crimes that occur in the United States each year are reported to police. And most of the crimes that are reported don't result in the arrest, charging and prosecution of a suspect, according to government statistics.

In 2015, the most recent year for which data are available, 47% of the violent crimes and 35% of the property crimes tracked by the Bureau of Justice Statistics were reported to police. Those figures come from an annual BJS survey of 90,000 households, which asks Americans ages 12 and older whether they were victims of a crime in the past six months and, if so, whether they reported that crime to law enforcement or not.

Even when violent and property crimes are reported to police, they're often not solved - at least based on a measure known as the clearance rate. That's the share of cases each year that are closed, or "cleared," through the arrest, charging and referral of a suspect for prosecution. In 2015, 46% of the violent crimes and 19% of the property crimes reported to police in the U.S. were cleared, according to FBI data.

Reporting and clearance rates for violent and property crimes have held relatively steady over the past two decades, even as overall crime rates in both categories have declined sharply. Between 1995 and 2015, the share of violent crimes reported to police each year ranged from 40% to 51%; for property crimes, the share ranged from 32% to 40%. During the same period, the share of violent crimes cleared by police ranged from 44% to 50%; for property crimes, annual clearance rates ranged from 16% to 20%.

There are several caveats to keep in mind when considering statistics like these. Like all surveys, the BJS survey has a margin of error, which means that the share of violent and property crimes reported to police might be higher or lower than estimated. The FBI clearance rate data, for their part, rely on information voluntarily reported by local law enforcement agencies around the country, and not all departments participate.

The FBI's clearance rates also don't account for the fact that crimes reported in one year might be cleared in a future year. In addition, they count some cases that weren't closed through arrest, but through "exceptional means," such as when a suspect dies or a victim declines to cooperate with a prosecution.

The two agencies also don't track all of the same crimes, even though there is substantial overlap. The BJS survey excludes the crime of murder, for example, while the FBI includes it. And BJS counts some crimes - including attempted robberies and simple assaults - that are excluded by the FBI.

Still, looking at the data collected by the two agencies provides a big-picture view of the kinds of crimes that are likeliest to be reported to police and the kinds that are likeliest to be solved. And it shows that there is significant variation in the reporting and solving of crimes, depending on the specific kind of offense.

Of the individual property crimes tracked by BJS, for example, theft is the least likely to be reported to police (possibly because it is also the most common form of property crime). Only 29% of thefts were reported in 2015. By comparison, half of household burglaries (51%) and about seven-in-ten motor vehicle thefts (69%) were reported.

Among violent crimes, just a third (33%) of rapes and sexual assaults were reported to police in 2015. Simple assaults were reported 42% of the time, while robberies and aggravated assaults were each reported 62% of the time. A 2012 BJS study found that a victim of a violent crime might choose not to report it to police for a variety of reasons, with the most common being that they dealt with it in another way, such as by reporting it to a manager or school official instead of to law enforcement.

Police clearance rates also vary significantly by crime type. Only 13% of burglaries, 13% of motor vehicle thefts and 22% of larcenies and thefts were cleared in 2015. By comparison, police cleared 29% of robberies, 38% of rapes and 54% of aggravated assaults in 2015.

When it comes to deadly crimes, Chicago has drawn widespread attention recently for its historically low murder clearance rate in 2016. But murder is actually the crime that's most likely to be solved, at least when looking at national statistics. In 2015, 62% of murders and non-negligent homicides in the U.S. were cleared. That rate hasn't changed much since 1995, but it's far lower than in 1965, when more than 90% of murders in the U.S. were solved.

Topics: Criminal Justice, Federal Government, Social Values, Violence and Society

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Most violent and property crimes in the U.S. go unsolved

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Only about half of the violent crimes and a third of the property crimes that occur in the United States each year are reported to police. And most of the crimes that are reported don't result in the arrest, charging and prosecution of a suspect, according to government statistics.