President’s Essay
Working for Justice in the United States
While most of MacArthur’s investment in improving justice systems is abroad, we recognize opportunities to strengthen America’s commitment to justice as well. We have been recently concerned about the challenges to civil liberties and due process associated with anti-terrorist measures. But our longest-standing program focuses on improving the justice system for juveniles. With support from MacArthur, Human Rights Watch (HRW) has brought attention to rights violations committed under U.S. counterterrorism policies. These include the ill-treatment and violent interrogation of terrorism suspects and the denial of due process by military commissions to those imprisoned. HRW revealed the location of CIA secret prisons in Europe, used to hold and question people suspected of terrorism. This exposure influenced the Pentagon’s adoption of new rules for such interrogations and a suspension of the European “black sites.” And the ACLU , a longtime MacArthur grantee, has been active in defending the rights to due process, privacy, and free speech. In 2006, it uncovered and challenged the National Security Agency’s warrantless electronic surveillance of U.S. citizens. In August 2006, a Federal Court ruled that the NSA program violated the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Early in 2007, the Bush administration agreed to seek court approval before monitoring the communications of Americans. The ACLU continues to advocate for the closure of the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. It believes that detainees, some of whom have been held for more than five years, should either be charged with federal crimes or released to countries where it is clear that they will not be tortured or abused. It continues to monitor the military tribunals held in Guantánamo. Toward a Fair and Effective Juvenile Justice System
The current American system of juvenile justice was established in the late nineteenth century, and has not undergone fundamental reform since. During the 1980s and 1990s, a rise in crimes committed by young people led to an increasingly harsh response. More young people were tried as adults (“adult time for adult crime” was a popular slogan) and jailed with adult offenders. Calling the system soft, ineffective, and out of step with contemporary conditions, lawmakers curtailed the jurisdiction of juvenile courts and the discretion of judges. Funding declined for rehabilitation, and many educational, mental health, and drug-abuse treatment programs disappeared. Challenging this trend, MacArthur established the Research Network on Adolescent Development and Juvenile Justice in 1996. The Network, led by Professor Lawrence Steinberg of Temple University, included 17 experts in the social sciences, psychology, criminology, and law, as well as juvenile justice practitioners. The Network’s research revealed that most young people are not yet capable of the complex reasoning required for legal competence because of cognitive, social, and emotional immaturity. Key findings included evidence that young people’s brains are physically immature: less able to put facts together and draw conclusions the way adults do, and more likely to defer to authority figures and succumb to peer pressure. Young people are simply less able to recognize the risks and consequences of the choices they make. Further, the Network found that jailing young people with adults is costly and counterproductive. At more than $60,000 per year, locking up a juvenile offender is a burden on taxpayers. Yet harsh punishment has little or no impact on reducing crime and is more likely to increase recidivism. Adolescents processed in adult courts are almost twice as likely to be rearrested for violent offenses within six years, and 25 percent more likely to be incarcerated. More than 80 percent of those who do jail time go on to commit crimes as adults. The Network’s research persuaded policymakers, social workers, judges, and others in the legal system that immaturity was a powerful mitigating factor in crime and anti-social behavior. When the Supreme Court overturned the death penalty for juvenile offenders in 2005, Justice Kennedy cited the Network’s research, asserting that adolescents are inherently less culpable than adults, by virtue of their immaturity. States like Arkansas, Louisiana, Virginia, and Maryland began to use the Network’s findings to set standards for assessing competency and establishing due process. Also using the data, Illinois lawmakers rolled back automatic transfer to adult court for drug offenses.
Models for Change: Working in the States The first four states to participate — Illinois, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, and Washington — face different challenges and are at different stages in their programs of reform. But all have embraced six key principles as their guide:
While respecting each state’s circumstances, legal framework, history, culture, and tradition, Models for Change seeks to demonstrate that, despite different starting points, interventions, and pathways, all states can succeed in moving toward a model system. As the evidence of progress mounts in our partner states, other states will be more likely to adopt reforms. Within five years, we hope to see at least half the states in the country with the data they need to move forward in reducing racial and ethnic disparities, rolling back automatic transfer to adult courts, allocating money to services rather than to confinement, and funding better legal representation.
A central concern of Models for Change is the compelling evidence that people of color are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system. Study after study has revealed a pattern of “same crime, different treatment,” with harsher outcomes for young people of color. To address what is known as “disproportionate minority contact,” MacArthur has created an “action network” of as many as ten states committed to reducing racial and ethnic disparities. Our grantee, The Center for Children’s Law and Policy, is responsible for helping states craft a plan to reduce the disparate treatment of young people of color, set clear targets, and measure progress. Another action network will focus on the mental health needs of young people in the juvenile justice system, many of whom suffer from mental health and substance-abuse problems. Seventy percent of youth in contact with the juvenile justice system have psychiatric disorders that can be diagnosed and treated — two to three times more than in the general adolescent population. An overwhelming number of these young people are from low-income communities, with limited access to mental health services. Working with the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice, another group of as many as ten states will agree to establish a set of interventions, including standardized screening and diversion to treatment in the community, and work together to implement them. The Foundation will monitor the impact of Models for Change by looking at progress on specific indicators such as:
The Application of Science to the Law The Network’s studies focused primarily on three pivotal issues: the competence of people with mental disorders to make autonomous decisions, the risk of violence that sometimes accompanies mental disorder, and the coercion often associated with interventions to redress incompetence or reduce risk. This research helped refute common stereotypes about people with mental disorders, demonstrating that many are able to participate in making decisions about their treatment; that, with the exception of those who were also substance abusers, very few are violent; and that coercion often was applied unnecessarily. It strengthened the case for more nuanced and specific treatment of individuals, for greater inclusion in the community, and for a clearer understanding of the inherent rights of people with mental disorders. The Network also developed a new and significantly more accurate approach to assessing the risk of violence among patients hospitalized in acute-care psychiatric facilities. Most states now have laws and practices that require people with serious mental illnesses to adhere to prescribed treatment as outpatients in their communities rather than in institutions. But there is little data about what programs are in use, their costs, the effectiveness of community treatment, or if individuals should have the right to refuse therapy. To fill this empirical gap, which some have called the major civil rights issue for people with mental illness, the Foundation established the Research Network on Mandated Community Treatment. Also led by Professor Monahan, this Network is assembling scientific evidence to help define which policies and practices are effective in encouraging people to accept treatment. It is looking at the role of money and housing, the avoidance of jail or hospital, and the use of what are called “advance directives” through which individuals can express their treatment preferences. The Network also is sharpening the understanding of the legal, ethical, and political issues raised whenever incentives are used to secure treatment adherence. If mental health law and policy are to use incentives in a way that respects individual rights and produces good outcomes for individuals and communities, a base of solid evidence is essential. |
MacArthur - The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
