4/5 ~ Criminals and Human Dignity

For this week’s blog, I decided to research children in the criminal justice system and how their dignity is upheld.  I wanted to do something based on the prompt “Does our criminal system uphold dignity of individuals? With examples,” however, I decided to recreate that question into my own:

Is our criminal justice system able to handle in an ethically and with human dignity, the legal and emotional issues surrounding a preteen child charged with a capital crime?  Is he/she going to be treated fairly for someone of his or her age? For instance, the crimes of Jordan Brown, Christopher Pittman, Nathaniel Abraham , and Lacresha Murray are children charged as adults, but is the adult prison system set up for children? 

I know that I am probably not able to answer all these questions in my week’s blog, but I wanted to touch on this difficult and emotionally driven human dignity question.  I do not believe that our criminal justice system upholds the dignity of children placed in the adult systems.  They are not made for children.  For example, they did not have a child sized jumpsuit for Jordan Brown when he was  convicted of killing his father’s pregnant girlfriend.  There pictures of him in the media drowning in an adult orange suit.  There was no dignity there for him, even for his crime, he still needs human dignity.  Furthermore, I still believe children can change and reform with rehabilitation.  They can be saved.  I believe in second chances.  For instance, the story of Nathaniel Abraham will serve the longest time in prison then anyone else in history.  He convicted and committed at the age of 11 and received a life sentence. 

This is a picture of Jordan Brown, the convicted 11 year old

for murdering his father's pregnant girlfriend. 

Do believe his dignity is there or taken away? 

Do believe he can be saved? 

 Look at this face and tell me what you think or feel?

In the United States, children are treated as different from adults, except when it comes to criminal law: Most laws and policies acknowledge that children are different from adults. Children cannot drive, vote, drink, or even obtain a rental membership from a video store. We see them as in need of protection from the outside world and as insufficiently mature to justify being treated as adults. But the one glaring exception to this rule comes in the context of criminal law. Children who commit crimes are often perceived as “adults” and suddenly become “adults” for purposes of prosecution, trial, sentencing, and punishment.

Nothing is fair for these children when you change the age of 11 year old and make it an adult.  Close your eyes and tell me what you see when you hear an 11 year old, and then imagine seeing the 11 year old as an adult.  You cannot do it, because no matter that 11 year old is a child, and needs to be treated as a child, so they grow and be modeled into proper citizens.  Children need love not shackles, we need to protect their dignity and make the correct changes to save their dignity before being treated as the adults.