Teenagers and the Justice System
- bulletjournalingfo
- Feb 3, 2023
- 8 min read
Most of my practical experience is based around offenders and more recently young offenders. Helping young offenders is close to my heart as nothing is set in stone, the right interventions applied, and support can change the course of someone's life. There is a reason teenagers are not treated as adults in the justice system and it has a lot to do with the fact that their brain is not fully formed so they can make impulsive decisions without thinking about the consequences.
This graphic created by the national institute for mental health shows the many ways a teenager is different from an adult.
In the world of neuroscience much work is being done to understand how teenagers' brains work and there are many longitudinal studies currently underway. One such study is Project NeuroTeen, Eva Telzer, PhD, a 5-year study of how parent and peer relationships influence adolescent decision-making and development. It shows that teens shift their behaviour to align with the risky choices of parents more than the risky choices of peers. This shift is supported by increased activation in regions of the brain related to reward, including the ventral striatum and ventromedial prefrontal cortex (Journal of Research on Adolescence, Vol. 31, No. 1, 2021).
Jennifer Silk PhD, Amanda Morris, PhD, of Oklahoma State University, and their colleagues have started to document the synchrony between teens and their parents in real time, using a new simultaneous scanning technique to measure how one brain responds to another during an interaction. They have found that adolescent brain activity tends to mirror parent brain activity, especially in emotion-processing regions such as the amygdala and anterior insula (Child Development, Vol. 92, No. 6, 2021).
“I think a lot of parents believe that it’s too late, that by adolescence, peers have all the power,” Silk said. “But this research is showing that parents shouldn’t give up, that they still do have the power to help their adolescents learn how to process and regulate their emotions.”
Many of us blame the parents when a child or teenager act up but that is a black and white way of looking at a situation that has every colour of the spectrum involved. Yes, we are seeing that the more research that is conducted in this field nurturing loving environments raise happy healthy kids, however sometimes there is no abuse, yet a child still chooses violence, why? Teenagers are such complicated creatures, they are full of huge emotions they cannot regulate properly, they experiment with different substances whilst all these major changes are going on. They are impulsive and indulge in risk taking behaviours, they do not understand the brains reward systems properly. I could go on and on about all the influences they are subjected to. Some of them will come out of the whole thing completely unscathed happy healthy individuals, able to regulate their feelings and productive members of society. Others will burn it all to the ground and take as many people as possible with them so why this huge chasm of difference? I do not have the answers to such complex questions but there are people trying to find those answers in the fields of neuroscience, psychology, and sociology.
“We’re not going to change adolescents’ brains, nor should we want to, what we can do is optimize what we know to create social contexts and environments that provide the most enriching experiences for them.” Eva Telzer, PhD, an associate professor of psychology and director of the Developmental Social Neuroscience Lab at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Much of this work is changing the way juvenile offenders are treated.
"We would not have seen this move toward more appropriate sentences for juveniles without the underlying neuroscience research that helped the court understand why youths behave the way they do," says Heather Renwick, JD, legal director for the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth in Washington, D.C. "The change has been incredibly important because it's giving hope to people who would have died in prison, and it's established a new standard going forward."
So far, hundreds of individuals have been resentenced, primarily those who have already served decades in prison, says Renwick.
Bobby did not receive a life sentence he is eligible for parole in 7 years and his sentence officially expires in 2043. He was incarcerated at 15 years old and placed in an adult facility. When the law in Maryland changed so that youths should not be held with adults, he was put into solitary confinement instead. Bobby states the only reason that did not cause more psychological damage was that he received countless letters and phone calls, so he did not feel completely alone.
Bobby did not actually kill anyone in his attempt and has always stood by the fact that he wanted to kill himself. He felt that if he did that no one would notice, and he wanted to make a statement about how he felt. He went to a very affluent school and although had no problems with girls, he did have many problems with the boys. He had been medicated at 12 years old for ADHD and thinks that when he first started abusing drugs. Bobby was not abused at home, more met with indifference and a lack of boundaries, but he states himself boundaries never meant anything to him anyway they did not apply to him. I cannot help but think that the right intervention could have not only saved his victim from a traumatic situation that will stay with him forever but also could have helped Bobby make a different choice. When we get it wrong with teenagers the results can be deadly for all concerned so for me Bobby has answers that can help me be more aware when dealing with boys especially. Boys do not really talk about their feelings; they are not going to express the dark or intrusive thoughts they are having so they are left to fester with no outside input. We talk about how he has grown up in jail and what that was like for him. Bobby is still incredibly youthful as he is now 25 years old, but he is also a deep and reflective man also. He is incredibly creative and draws, writes poetry, and even sews. His body has also become his canvas covered with sentimental tattoos and lots of funny ones too. Bobby usually introduces himself then asks if you want to know about his penis tattoo. He has an enthusiastic sense of humour but is also profoundly serious and reflective. I was not sure what to expect when I reached out to Bobby, but I have learned a lot in the time we have been talking. We talk about what the future holds for him a lot, he is currently working on a book project of his art and poetry, he writes about his experiences, and he draws intricate pieces. He writes lyrics and loves death metal. He is no longer the boy who grew his hair to cover his face and hide, now he sports dreadlocks usually tied up as he was not allowed his mohawk, always the rebel. He is articulate and has made the most of the programmes offered to him. Bobby feels contact with the outside world helps him no end as he is spent the last 10 years in jail. He is never had a debit card or smart phone; everything has changed so letters help him to adjust to all the changes that have taken place. I have included Bobby's details as he loves to receive letters from new pen friends especially pretty girls.
MARYLAND CORRECTIONAL TRAINING CENTRE
18707 Roxbury Road
Hagerstown MD 21746
When I hear about a school shooting in America, I always think the same thing. What made a child so angry, hurt, and despondent that they think the best option is to go into school and cause mass carnage. Why did a child have access to a military grade weapon? I live in the UK and the school shooting we had was perpetrated by an adult and is known as the Dunblane massacre. We changed the gun laws in the aftermath, and we have not had a school shooting since. Mass shootings perpetrated by adults are vastly different from school shootings. I am not going to comment on Americas gun laws it is a loaded topic but why are there so many school shootings in America perpetrated by children? Some phoney experts with no formal qualifications will tell you it is the devils work, or computer games or violent films. Any expert will tell you there is no evidence to support that. So, what is making these children so angry? Bobby said something that never occurred to me, he said
“If you don’t value your own life then you certainly don’t value anyone else's.”
He was explaining that all he wanted was to die, it was all he thought about and because he did not value his own life, it did not occur to him that anyone else's life was of value. He explained that someone incredibly special to him helped him to see that other people are valued not just by themselves but by everyone else they are involved with. It never occurred to Bobby that he would not just have hurt the people he shot, he never thought about the ripples that event would cause for other people. Now he very much understands the consequences of his choices. It also makes a lot of sense if you are looking for some of those illusive whys. If you do not see the people around you as part of you, part of your circle, community, village, and outsider if you will then you are not going to care or think of the consequences for others. We ostracise the youth, especially when they are in their teenage years, which extends till they are in their 20’s. They are outsiders, too young to mingle with the adults, too old to be with the children, so as always, as all of us did, you create your own villages with your friends. Sometimes that creates healthy relationships and bonds and mutual experiences. Sometimes it results in predatory behaviour and criminality. I just think that by ostracising teenagers the way we do they do not have adults they can come to when these problems arise, they go to their peers for advice instead or worse they say nothing at all, and it eats them alive. If we could have more open dialogues with our teenagers, we could support and help them with anything that comes up. It does not need to be a parent; teenagers just need an adult with good intentions that care about them.
Bobby had a variety of self-harming behaviours as a teenager. A study from 2019 on decision making and problem solving in adolescents who deliberately self-harm shows that teenagers with depressive self-harming behaviours are more likely to indulge in risk taking behaviour and make poor decisions. But once they stop self-harming their decision making will improve. If they address the core reasons for the self-harming behaviours the risk-taking element is not permanent. Lack of care for the self translates on to others.
On the morning of the shooting Bobby posted on Facebook that it was the
"First day of school, last day of my life."
Bobby stills struggles with depression, but it is no wonder considering the environment he is effectively grown-up in. But he uses his letter writing, art, and poetry to channel it and uses it as an outlet. I have included some of his work below and some further reading on the teenage brain. Bobby is not a monster, he is a man now, reflective on what life holds for him. He was a child when he committed his offence and I figure this whole experience has vastly changed the person he was. He has grown into a man that understands himself a lot more than he did, he has created outlets for himself to channel his feelings and his work is very expressive and full of thought. I wish Bobby every luck in his endeavours, and I am incredibly grateful he gave me a look into his world, I learnt so much from him. I hope some of this will give you something to consider too.
References
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/the-teen-brain-7-things-to-know
Why young brains are especially vulnerable to social media Abrams, Z., APA, 2022
A deep dive into adolescent development Weir, K., Monitor on Psychology, June 2019
Justice for teens Stringer, H., Monitor on Psychology, October 2017
Teens aren’t just risk machines—there’s a method to their madness Flannery, J., et al., The Conversation, February 6, 2018
Decision making and problem solving in adolescents who deliberately self-harm A. Oldershaw, E. Grima , F. Jollant, C. Richards , M. Simic , L. Taylor and U. Schmidt
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