Here is the place to explore the complex and often controversial issues 
of adolescent violence, substance abuse, and behavioral problems.  

There are serious issues that are progressively putting our young people at serious risk of harm from the criminal justice system that is supposed to be protecting and helping them.  The criminal justice system, fueled by media get tough rhetoric and emotionally driven by biased media presentations of high profile cases of horrific youth violence, is cracking down on young people in dangerous ways:

·   Our schools are being turned into minimal security juvenile detention centers as the result of emotional driven and factually inaccurate reports of the real danger of school violence

·   Parents and educators are becoming fearful of our children.  This fear prevents them from appropriately setting limits, standing firm, and using appropriate corrective discipline.  Instead they over-react in fear, involve the police in minor disciplinary problems that would historically be handled in the Dean's office, and are willing to suspend and expel kids rather than provide counseling and the mature adult help needed for problem kids to change.  Once suspended or expelled the risk of these kids becoming violent goes way up.

·   We are trying more adolescents in adult courts and sending them for long sentences in adult prisons where they will most likely experience physical and sexual assault, develop psychiatric symptoms, and become suicidal.

·   Even thought today's generation of youth are the least violent and most responsible kids this nation has ever seen, we are treating them with suspicion, fear, harsh retaliation for minor infractions, and a brutal willingness to throw their lives away in a knee jerk reaction that makes the problems worse and not better.

I will post the research that supports the above statements below.

Sentencing Children As Adults: The Position of Terence T. Gorski (03-11-01)

Should children be tried in adult courts and sentenced to adult prisons?  Gorski doesn't+ believe that they should.  This position paper explains why.

Lionel Tate Sentenced To Life Without Parole For Murder Committed At Age 12 (03-11-01)

At age 12, Lionel Tate killed a girl of six while playing games with her that emulated the professional wrestlers he considered to be real-life heroes.  Should he have been tried as adult?  Should he be sentenced for life without parole to an adult prison?.