The Juvenile Justice System
As compared to the zero tolerance policy, the graduated sanction system is arguably a more effective strategy of dealing with juvenile delinquents. This can best be elaborated by first critically delineating between the two policies and exploring the purposes that each serve.
As noted by Taxman (1999), the high rate of failure to comply with the conditions of supervised release is a problem that undercuts confidence in probation services and raises doubt about the viability of probation as a sentencing option. Often, probation does not seem to work and, probation and parole violators continually contribute from 30 to 80 percent of prison intake each given year, again demonstrating the problem of non-compliance under supervised release. As a result, the future of probation and community correctional programs is uncertain because of this inability to grapple with the compliance problem.
However, criminal justice officials have recognized the promise that probation holds and the continued need for it. Recent evaluative evidence, point to the fact that if probation programs are properly designed and implemented, they can be effective on a number of dimensions including reducing recidivism. Therefore, to improve probation services, many states have introduced graduated sanctions as both a management tool and a programmatic tool. (Taxman, 1999, p.182-205)
Graduated sanctions are structured, incremental responses to non-complaint behavior while a person is under supervision. These sanctions are designed to give the probation officer the ability to respond quickly to non-complaint acts through a series of responses, for instance one day in jail, more drugs testing, more reporting or curfew. The sanctioning process uses modest steps to infringe on the offenders liberty to deter future non-complaint acts and ensure the integrity of the court order. The specific functions depend on factors such as the nature of violation and whether or not it is the first violation. Thus, graduated sanctions provide immediate and certain consequences for defiant behavior.
On the other hand, Togut and Snow (2008), regard the zero tolerance policy as a predefined mandatory consequence that is applied to a violation of school rules without regard to the seriousness of the behavior, mitigating circumstances, or the situational context. This is an expansion of the definition by the U.S Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistic, which considers zero tolerance as a policy that mandates predestined consequences or punishments for specified offenses. The zero tolerance policies involve suspension or expulsion for violations involving drugs, alcohol, fights, sexual harassment and minor non-violent violations such as tardiness, unauthorized use of pagers, and disorderly conduct.
From this we deduce that while graduated sanction is wider in scope, targeting not only offenses juveniles commit at a particular place, the zero tolerance policy only major on the offenses juveniles commit at school. Besides, while the graduated sanctions policy works to check on the progress of the rehabilitation process of a delinquent, the zero tolerance seeks to deter any criminal or prohibited activity. This is somewhat self-defeating because the knowledge of consequence doesnt necessarily deter people from engaging in illicit activities.
History and Current Trends of Juvenile Delinquency
According to a report by the Building Blocks for Youth (n.d.) there was a marked increase in arrest of juveniles from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s, for various offenses including some that are quite grave like homicide using firearms ( HYPERLINK httpwww.buildingblocksforyouth.org httpwww.buildingblocksforyouth.org). Today, more than 2.3 million youths are arrested each year and, approximately 600, 000 of these youth are processed through juvenile detention centers and more than 100, 000 are placed in secure juvenile correctional facilities (Skowyra and Powell, 2006).
Over the course of the previous two decades, state legislatures and local educational authorities have therefore, devised several means in response to calls for the increased school safety in the wake of such highly publicized school shooting as the Columbine and Red Lake High Schools. These means have included both the graduated sanction system and to a large extent, the zero tolerance legislation. These laws predicated upon the Gun Free Schools Act of 1994, typically calling for penalties ranging from school suspension to processing in the legal system for a student threatening or perceived to be threatening an act of violence towards members of a school community. (Grubbs, n.d.)
If anything, the zero tolerance policies have grown out of federal and government law enforcement programs that were focused on illegal drugs interdiction. By 1989, school systems in California, New York and Kentucky mandated expulsions for drugs, fighting and gang-related activities and by 1993 the zero tolerance policies had been adopted across the country.
Grubbs points out that, often the demand placed upon educators to curtail student expression and silence dissenting opinions, go a long way in limiting instructional opportunities and even discriminate against students from different backgrounds who may express their thoughts and feelings through means that the school officials may regard as threatening.
The breakdown in discipline in our schools is more of a function of a closed communication channels, where particular students resort to criminal tendencies to air their grievances or settle a score. What zero tolerance does in this case is send a message to these particular students to the effect that school wont stomach any aggressive activity they might opt to use to express themselves, the lack of a proper channel to do so notwithstanding. Graduated sanctions on the other hand, even though it comes after the aggression has been expressed, it works not to exclude the aggressor but try to fit himher back to the society and therefore amicably deter such tendencies in the person.
Assumptions on Graduated Sanction and Blanket Zero Tolerance
The graduated sanction is more of an inclusive system rather than an exclusive one. Matese (1997) argues that the system of graduated sanction achieves a broad spectrum of interests. For one, this system provides accountability through immediate sanctions within the community for first time offenders and non-violent offenders. It also provides intermediate sanctions within the community for more serious offenders and repeat non-violent offenders. Far from that, graduated sanctions do secure care programs that provide a high level of social control and treatment services.
The graduated sanctions programs employ a continuum of disposition options for delinquency reduction. It rather implies that the penalties for delinquent activity should move from those that are limited in their scope and intrusion into the lives of youth to those that are highly restrictive, in keeping with the severity and nature of the offense committed. In other words, youths who commit serious and violent offenses should receive more restrictive sentences than youth who commit less serious and nonviolent offense. However, for graduated sanctions programs to fulfill their promise of delinquency reduction, they must ensure that the right juveniles are connected to the right program.
The types of sanctions typically include immediate sanctions, targeted towards less serious non-chronic offenders intermediate sanctions, appropriate for juvenile who continue to offend following immediate interventions youth who have committed more serious felony offenses and some violent offenders who can benefit from supervision, structure and monitoring but not necessarily incarceration. Secure care is much more appropriate for serious violent, chronic offenders. And after care, which is appropriate for offenders transitioning back into the community following secure care.
A study of existing graduated sanctions systems found them to be more effective and less costly than juvenile incarceration. According to researchers at the University of Virginia, the graduated sanctions approach has many proven benefits which includes reduced costs, increased accountability by the juvenile and the community and enhanced responsiveness to a juvenile treatment needs. Moreover, graduated sanctions are seen as a useful tool in pursuit of restorative justice, supporting the process of reconciliation that holds offenders accountable through making amends. (Lawrence, 2009)
On the other hand, the zero tolerance policy while preferred by teachers and parents, it is rather quite ineffective in deterring juvenile delinquency. The policy is based on the assumption that by not condoning any wrong doing, teenagers will desists from committing the stated mistakes. But instead of achieving this, the policy rakes in opposite rewards as demonstrated by Peterson, (2006) in her paper, A Blueprint for Juvenile Justice Reform Youth Transition Funders Group, where she argues that zero tolerance policies are one of the factors that are driving up the rates of juvenile incarceration.
Peterson (2003) claims that over the past decade, disciplinary policies that mandated severe punishments , for instance suspensions, expulsions and referral to law enforcement have been expanded in many districts to cover a broad canvas of student behaviors, including not only possession of weapons, drugs and alcohol, but also prescription and over-the-counter medications and common objects like nail clippers as well as making threats, truancy, tardiness and vague, catch-all categories like insubordination and disrespect.
The zero tolerance policy is not balanced as it offers preferential treatment to juvenile offenders along class and racial lines. In other words, this policy indirectly promotes discrimination based on race. Peterson (2006) takes note of this when she points out that zero tolerance policies push struggling students out of schools and into juvenile justice system, dramatically increasing its racial disparities.
In the same vein, the report based on juvenile delinquency in Kentucky titled the Building Blocks for Youth, concluded that for both law violation and board violation, African-American students were suspended from school at rates that are significantly higher than white students. These data raise serious concerns that school officials have unlocked the backdoor of public schools and sent black children away.
Additionally, both the combination of broad authority by schools officials and vaguely defined violations allows non-objective and none-individual factors the preconceived notions and racial stereotyping have an impact on school disciplinary practices. A recent study by researchers at the University of Louisville and the University of Kentucky focusing on racial disparities in Kentuckys juvenile justice system provides some illustrations about how the most routine decisions can be racially biased. For instance, while colored youth comprise about 10 of the states childrens population, they account for 39 percent of the youth detained before their adjudication and 27 of those convicted and committed to residential facilities after their adjudication.
Conclusion
It is therefore arguably true that the graduated sanction system has more benefits to overall development of juvenile delinquents than the zero tolerance policies. This is because of the inclusive nature of the graduated sanction that seeks to monitor the delinquents as they slowly rehabilitate and get absorbed back to the society.
Secondly, the zero tolerance policy is a self-defeating mode of addressing juvenile delinquency. First, it severely punishes wrong-doers without considering the circumstances and gravity of their mistakes and thereby, it exacerbates rebellion amongst the young ones.
Recommendations
There has to be deterrent measures to ensure that massacres do not happen in our schools. In that line, the zero tolerance policies should not be blanket but only be limited to grave offenses that could have the capacity of bringing harm to others in the school community. However, the graduated sanctions system is the way to go since it handles offenders in a more humane way and ensures that they can get integrated back into the society.
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