Ms. Marsha Levick started off strong in her Ted Talk. She brought up the fact that in most elementary schools around America, children are made to recite the pledge of allegiance every day. Why that was a strong start is because she brought up the idea that not many children between the ages of 5 and 10 can actually conceptualize the ideas of liberty, justice, allegiance and more. She brought up the last line of the pledge of allegiance which says, "and justice for all." Is it really justice for all? Miss Marsha believes that our American children are the least fulfilled when it comes to justice for them. Our juvenile courts have gone through quite the evolution. From being treated as adult criminals, to suspending all punishment and criminal records for children, we have been through it all at this point. After 1967 is when juveniles were given the right to court appointed counsel, cross-examination, the right to have a prosecutor prove that the charges against them are beyond a reasonable doubt, and they are protected against double jeopardy. In the eighties and the early nineties, when violent crimes sky rocketed across America, juvenile justice shifted again. The belief that a child should serve, "adult time for an adult crime," became rather popular. When a child is tried as an adult they are exposed to the same kind of punishments as adults as well. Those punishments include life in prison without parole, the death penalty, and a variety of other extreme forms of punishment. One of the most interesting parts about this Ted Talk is when the, "kids for cash," scheme was brought up. I remember reading up on these scandals a few years back and thinking how crazy the whole situation was. If you don't know what the idea behind these schemes were it is pretty simple. Judges were being bribed by private companies that were opening juvenile detention centers. The deal was like this, if the judge kept sending kids to detention, the company would keep giving that judge cash in return. A judge in Pennsylvania had made over three million dollars off of these bribes alone. He was selling these people's childhoods to private owners of detention centers. There were a number of other judges involved in similar schemes, but the idea alone disgusts me. We fight so hard to get justice for juveniles, and this is what they get? The people of our future, the children we bare and raise are not being given the opportunities they should be. Instead of giving them the proper equipment to better themselves, those that are given authority over them are selling their innocence, their childhoods and their lives for a quick buck. We do not live in a perfect world, and things like this will inevitably continue to happen until it is drilled into the minds of our criminal justice system that justice is for everyone, including children. -psych001
Marsha Levick stats that kids in school say the pledge of allegiance but they are to young to know what it really means or what it stands for. She also goes on to talk about justice for kids and how they were mistreated back when the juvenile court first started out. There was only one person or judge their people in the community were not informed of what were going on and there were no news reporters there to tell people what was going on and in some cases the kid’s parents didn’t even know that their kid was being held by the court because they committed a crime that was against the law. In one case a kid made a prank call to his neighbor and he was arrested by the police and was sent to a dention center then a week later he was sent to a boys training school for six years for making that phone call, because of this they took his case to the supreme court because it was wrong and the court said that was wrong and they said that juveniles should have the same rights as and adult within the criminal justice system. This got better as the years went on, but they were sometime given sentences as adults until they changed the law, they helped them and said that they could not be tried as an adult and they could not be interrogated without a lawyer. It got better for juveniles over the years finally once they changed the law and police officer finally follow the laws on how they are to deal with a juvenile when they are arresting them. -vossie001
I completely agree, the past Juvenile Justice system was completely unfair to children that committed petty crimes for fun or just to fit in. I believe in child punishment but not to the extent they took it. I very pleased to hear they the Juvenile Justice System began cleaning up their act, even though it just started as equal sentences with adults. Thankfully over the years law enforcement improved the laws concerning juvenile delinquents. -LW001
In the beginning of Marsha Levicks ted talk about the pledge of allegiance, and how more than most children under the age of 10 can not properly understand the true meaning and purpose of it. She then states that out of Americans that out children do not get the upper hand when it comes to out court system. Through the years juvenile courts in America have had its highs and lows, but it wasn't until 1967 when children were finally given the right to a lawyer. After some time, around the 90's there was a huge spike in juvenile crimes in America, and not too long after people brought back, "adult time for adult crime" but its almost insane to think of a 15 year old to get the death penalty or life in prison. Initially i agree with everything Ms. Levick has stated in this video. Iv'e worked first hand with children who have gotten themselves in misfortunate situations. Luckily in the state of Kentucky we have a diversion court called "Teen Court." In that program kids were able to get a "second chance" if you will, and are given a defense attorney as well as prosecution team for the commonwealth. With that being said, if the kids finish their sentence in the amount of time given, their record would be expunged. So watching this video hit home because i really couldn't imaging seeing those kids in prison or jail for small petty crimes. -arii001
I agree with you, I think it's crazy that young children can be given a life sentence. I also think it's very interesting that you have had the opportunity to work with children that have gotten themselves into some trouble. I think that the state of Kentucky is doing a good job by having these programs like the Teen Court to help these troubled children.-CRJB002
I agree it is insane to think that someone so young who is still maturing can be sentenced to the death penalty. It is tough to think about kids being sent to Jail and then to a juvenile detention center for petty crimes. Its interesting to hear about Teen Court. Its nice that they get that chance and get to have their record expunged. ~PJWB001
I agree with you when you said that young people getting charged with the death penalty is insane. Teen court is great because you will get a second chance at life. The term you mentioned “adult time for an adult crime” is ridiculous becuase the childs mind is not fully developed, so they often make stupid mistakes. Everyone deserves a second chance. -Jas002
Marsha Levick states in the beginning of her speech that in the past kids of all ages were taught the pledge of allegiance, and were expected to recite it each day. She continues by stating that most young children do not understand the meaning behind the words they are reciting. She then goes on talking about how it is unfair that children are being punished more harshly then adults. I understand where Marsha is coming from, but on the other hand these children need to understand that there are severe repercussions for their actions. Punishing these children as harshly as they are is not right, but I believe there should still be repercussions to their wrong doings. Marsha’s main argument here is how according the pledge of allegiance, that these children were expected to recite every day, “justice of all” should be for everyone. Children deserve to be punished for their crimes, but depending on the crime there should be some lenience. Children should be punished for their petty crimes so they understand that there are consequences for their actions, but I do not agree with keeping these children from their families because of a possible mistake. I agree with the punishment of children for their actions, but I do not agree with children being punished much more harshly than adults. I hope the Juvenile Justice System begins to clean up their wrong doings and unfairness. -LW001
I agree with most of what you said but repercussions and rehabilitation are two completely different things. I believe rehabilitating children is far more superior than just throwing the book at them. I know when I was a kid, I learned a whole lot better when i got told why something is wrong and the effect it has on other people, rather than just getting my butt whooped. FIRE 002
I agree with your statement, mostly because I like that you looked at it in a different concept. I like that you agreed and disagreed with what the speaker was saying because everyone should be punished for their actions. In some examples she gives I do see where you would think that children are not punished more harshly than adults but in others it shows how some adults get the easy way out while kids their whole childhood or teen years taken away for small things like prank call to a neighbor.-HL001
You know, I never really thought about her first point until i heard her say it the way she did. Ever since kindergarten, we have recited something every single day, until adulthood. That's a long time to be saying something and most of us didn't even know what it meant. America was built on the right of every citizen to have liberty as well as justice, but why was it only the kids who were reciting this everyday. Why weren't the people making the laws and putting people, sometimes children, away for the rest of their earthly lives reciting them too? I ask that question because she made points in her speech that makes me think that America has forgotten what it was founded for when it comes to juvenile delinquency and even adult criminals. I was just watching a documentary the other day about kids behind bars. This one kid had murdered his best friend simply because she got him in trouble for wearing shoes in her house. Her parents scolded him so he left crying and came back when they were gone and shot the girl who ratted on him in the head. He was 12 at the time and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. At 12 years old, I was petrified to go anywhere without my mom, and this kid went to prison. He is 22 years old now and he has a chance at getting out. The reason he has a chance is that a claim was made to a higher court that a child under the age of 18 should be eligible for parole once their prefrontal cortex is fully developed. I somewhat agree with this because i did some stupid stuff at that age, but i also think that once you murder somneone, you are going to be mentally unstable the rest of your life and you have a lot higher chance of killing again. FIRE002
I understand where you are coming from with the child that murdered his best friend at the age of 12. Once a juvenile murders someone it is a different story. I also think that at that young of an age you don't really grasp the concept of what you are really doing. I do think he should spend many years behind bars but life without the possibility of parole seems ridiculous to me. Yes he killed someone, which is the worst thing you can do, but he was also 12 and spending the rest of his life behind bars does not seem fair to me. You should not be 80 years old paying for your 12 year old self crime. I think committed that type of a crime at that young of an age you should be given a second chance at life. -wb002
I also understand the severity of the 12-year-old committing murder and that punishment is necessary; however, I do agree, as well, that life without any possibility of parole is extreme for a child. It is very possible that the child did not think the murder through and acted on impulse alone because of his underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. A rehabilitation program should have been presented to him to help him understand what he had done and to work through any possible mental issues. -Gamma002
I enjoyed parts of the Tedx Talk given by Marsha Levick yet I found myself becoming bored when all she presented were problems without any actual solutions of her own. I understand that the Juvenile Justice system has often throughout its history treated children unfairly, yet in the broader scale of things the entire Criminal Justice System has treated huge swaths of people unfairly for centuries leaving me to feel this discovery is not that compelling or surprising. Yet the biggest outrage I felt was the story of bribery relating to sending kids to fill beds in private prisons. This is an issue that is much more far reaching than a tiny Pennsylvanian county and a corrupt judge. Millions of people of all ages get convicted on petty crimes or drug charges to fill private prison beds, especially those from low socioeconomic backgrounds. While I know this talk was specifically focused around injustices suffered by children throughout history, it was in this example I felt the most upset. -CamSlifton002
I kinda agree with what you had to say because there is so much more than just a small town getting injustice. So many injustices have happened and I think what would make her point stronger is that she shows more examples in more states to show its truly a worldwide situation that must be dealt with. Youre also right when you say its nothing new or compelling because its been an ongoing issue for a long time. It seems that things have gotten better however since there is always going to be people committing crimes we should try and improve the system more.
I absolutely loved how she started off the talk with talking about the pledge of allegiance. I had never really thought about what those words meant when I had to recite them every morning before school started. All I knew was that I had to know then because we recited it together every morning and thats all. I had never thought about what the words like "justice for all" meant nor meant to me at those times. Knowing that, like she said how many kids didnt think about it just like I didnt. I had no idea how much went into those few words. As criminal justice being my major I do understand the justice and injustices that a lot of people get. I believe that everyone who goes through this system whether that be juveniles or adults they should be allowed to get fair justice. The examples she used for her talk really gave me mixed feelings. The first case was the one where the boy made the prank call, I dont agree with the sentence he got however he should get the right punishment to ensure that he understands that is wrong and shouldn't do it again. Same with the girl who wrote nasty things about her assistant principal, the sentence she got was way worse than the crime but we need a system that shows you there is certain consequences for each criminal action even if that is as simple as a nasty comment about someone. Morally that is wrong and needs to be dealt with or else people are going to continue to do things like that. Now, with the young man who spent about 5 years of his life locked up for receiving stolen property, that just astounded me that the system didnt investigate enough to show that there was no intent or knowledge of it being stolen. I dont believe he should have gotten punished because he did nothing wrong, now if the parents knew the scooter was stolen then that would be a different story. However that is a serious case of a messed up system, a lot of systems around the world are messed up but we need to fix that. We have taken the right steps in trying to rehabilitate more juveniles and take away the juvenile death penalty and all but we have to look at each person who committed the crime and investigate enough to make the right punishment. I do believe in that juveniles should have to right to lawyers and cross examination etc, because everyone deserves a fair chance however again the courts need to really understand the whole story before making a decision that could ultimately change a juveniles life forever. -wags002
I completely disagree that these children should have had any form of judicial punishment at all. From the examples given venting about your vice principle on a website is not punishable or harassment. I don't believe a nasty comment should land you in jail and it should be protected by the first amendment as long as it's not libel, hate speech or of a threatening manner. Prank calls, unless they are threatening violence against the person receiving them, while deviant should not be criminal. Perhaps I just don't see childish antics as attacks against morality, yet I also don't believe we should be wasting our time policing morality in the first place. I agree that the case of the child unwittingly purchasing the stolen property and receiving a five year sentence was astounding and a complete lapse of justice. I feel that, although she didn't touch on it as much, the biggest problems with these juvenile court cases is a lack of due diligence on part of district attorneys and judge oversight. Too often veteran judges still line their pockets while systematically throwing the book at children today for the exact same reasons brought against the kids we heard about in that Pennsylvanian county -CamSlifton002
I agree with wags002 on when they stated that the boy should have not of gotten sent to jail. I will have to agree when this person said that they should have gotten some sort of punishment, and I also agree with this person because I hardly think about the pledge I just say it because I have always had to say it in school every single day since I was little. It has just become a habit to just stand up every day and recite the pledge without ever thinking as to what it meant. = Beretta001
Marsha Levick begins her Ted Talk with the hypothesis that children in America are continuously failed. Before listening to her speech I didn’t realize how much of a problem the juvenile courts were on children. I was very shocked listening to some of these childrens cases. The first case that really caught my attention was the fifteen year old boy who prank called his neighbor. Because of this minor prank that cost him to be arrested and sent to away to a detention center for six years. If this boy was eighteen years old he would have only been charged with a small fine or small amount of time in jail. To be sent away for six years because of a prank call seems absolutely absurd to me, considering the fact that most children in today's era have pranked called someone before. Another case I found sad was the boy who spent five years of his life locked up because he was arrested for receiving a stolen object. This is another case where you almost can’t believe it actually happened. Marsha Levick continues to say that children get treated worse than adults in the legal system. To support this claim she explains some compelling evidence. Every year around 200,000 children are being tried as adults, rather than getting them help through rehabilitation. To think that kids as young as 9 being tried as adults is insane. 2500 children passed before the juvenile judge and of these kids a half didn’t have a lawyer. Of these 2500 children two thirds of them were sent away to juvenile facilities. I feel bad for these children, because most of them didn’t have a chance going in with no lawyer. After watching this Ted Talk I realized how big of a deal the justice system actually is on children. I think this is something that can be fixed overtime, especially by getting this kind of information out to the public. -CRJB002
I do agree with you about the punishment those two boys receive, and if that boy who pranks called the neighbor is eighteen, he will only get a warning, small fine or just a few days in jail — not six years in detention. I cannot believe that the boy lost five years of his life because he did not know that the gift he receives is stolen or something, that punishment was unbelievable. -Cancun001
I find Mrs. Levicks point about how the pledge of allegiance is directed towards young children that really don't know what it means. She talks about the original juvenile courts and how there was no lawyers, prosecutors and no other adults really besides the judge. It looks as if the judge is just having a simple conversation with the juveniles because they had a very simple idea to treat children like children. The public was not allowed to be in the court and it was held in private. Gerald was 15 years old when he made a prank phone call, within a week he was sentenced to 6 years to an Arizona State training School for boys. If he had been 3 years older making him legally an adult he would have had a fine and maybe 2 months in jail. The idea of treated children like children was way different now. That amazes me that at such a young age he was punished like that for making a prank phone call. If he had been an adult he would have gotten a lesser sentence. After cocaine and gun violence soared in the 1980’s, states competed with each other to see who could punish juveniles worse. Juveniles were soon being prosecuted as adults which means facing the harsh penalties adults can face. Juveniles were starting to get executed like adults who commit horrendous crimes. The Supreme court finally banned the death penalty, life without parole, and other serious sentences. They also implemented Miranda rights to juveniles which it seemed that the US was making progress on Juveniles crimes and their punishments. Kids for cash has changed the game and is probably known as the largest judicial corruption scandal in American Legal History. The Juvenile Justice System shows time and time again that they don't care about juveniles as people but the crime they committed. I think the Juvenile Justice System is getting more and more attention which is a very good thing. -wb002
I agree with your point about treating children like children. I still do not really understand where the disconnect is for people. How can you treat some children like children and others like full grown adults? The idea reminds me of race associated with treatment. How are you going to punish a white man for a crime one way and a hispanic man completely differently for the same crime? We need to set a standard for criminal punishment of children and stick to it. -psych001
It is crazy how the pledge of allegiance has been with us ever since kindergarten and we said it everyday at school. Mrs. Marsha Levick gave some very well given points and when she began to talk about the prank call with the 15 year old. I remembered back to when I used to always prank call people for fun but, the people I called did not know my number because there was a certain way to block your number from the person that was receiving the call. Then the boy spoken about by Marsha was sent off to jail and that the parents did not even know about their child being arrested really surprised me because I feel like the parents should always be informed that the child is being detained but if he was only 3 years older and been 18 that he would not have had to spend as much time but to be given a 50 dollar fine and maybe 15 days top in a jail. Dhifting gears to the 1980-90s, crack cocaine and gun violence sky rocketed, therefore raising the question "do we charge juveniles who commit these crimes, as adults?" I believe that a juvenile who committed an adult crime should be sent to a juvenile detention center, and once they turn 18, are sent to a prison to finish out the rest of their sentence as an adult. I agree with Marsha when she states that if a juvenile has committed an adult crime, they should not be treated as if they are an adult. It is morally wrong for someone under the age of 18 to be put into a prison where they will run the risk of being put in harms way by adult criminals. I do believe reform is needed for The Juvenile Justice System, and within time, juveniles will be prosecuted appropriately without the fear of an 11 year old child could "wake up in the morning in their bed holding a teddy bear under their arm, and go to sleep at night on a thin mattress, in an adult county jail." Juvenile Justice reform will take lots of time but, with people like Marsha bringing juvenile injustice to everyone's attention, we may be able to reach justice sooner then later. Beretta001
I agree that it is a bit much to have children in grade school recite a pledge that they do not fully understand and are forced to participate in. It wasn't until I was older that I realized that you are not required, by law, to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. This begs the question, why should children who do not understand the meaning of the pledge be forced to participate in it. This goes into how children have been wrongly treated by our judicial system over the years and have not been provided with proper rehabilitation, when most of the time, depending on the age of the juvenile, do not fully understand the severity of the crimes they commit. Until certain parts of the brain are developed, the human body reacts on instinct and impulse, not common sense. The fact that children were put in institutions like that for years in hard to believe because, as stated, children are people too and are represented in the Constitution; therefore, they should have had access to a court system similar to an adult one but modified for juveniles. The fact that children were not given attorneys until fairly recently is an a sad example that our judicial system has been failing our youth for years. If we make our children pledge to something they can barely understand, why have we not been providing them with "justice for all"? -Gamma002
I agree that the judicial system has been wronging children for many many years, and it is only getting worse for them. Also, putting them in institutions is a very hard thing to picture especially considering what was classified as a crime for them, locking them up in there would probably drive most sane people crazy! JU002
I don't believe that having children recite the pledge in school is crossing any kind of line, yes they may not understand exactly what they are reciting but most of the music they hear on the radio and sing would be categorized as the same thing. As for the judicial system I do believe that it has failed children. At an age under much younger than 17 I don't think they understand that their actions have consequences which should be kept in mind when considering what the proper punishment would be. Sending them to any kind of rehabilitation facility is a very far-fetched idea as, in my opinion, they don't have the mental nor emotional capacity to be separated from their parents or legal guardian. As a whole I believe that there are many steps that need to be taken as far as legal punishment for children. Throwing them in a jail cell or rehabilitation facility could lead to them doing many worse things in the future from the possible mental and emotional scarring that could occur in either of the before mentioned places. JU002
So I found this video interesting, I am always the one to play devil's advocate. So what I found interesting was that when she spoke of the phone call she only defined what the phone call was by saying that it was a “lewd” phone call. So I didn’t know the definition of “lewd” So I googled it. The definition of lewd is crude and offensive in a sexual way. So, I also researched and looked for what was said in the phone call. I fell short of there was no record of the court hearing. This also gave me the question of did Levick know the contents of the phone call. I have made prank calls but never in a crude or sexual manner. I do agree that the justice system more than failed him, but I do believe in justice for juveniles. I believe in justice and rehabilitation in teenage kids. I believe though it is extremely hard if not impossible to reform or rehabilitate adults of more serious crimes. Another piece I found interesting was that the supreme court decided to add a few factors in a case where the ideal sentence was life without parole, they factored in familial experiences, social experiences, immaturity, and development as some guidelines as to whether they get life without parole. It’s interesting, because I wonder if they do it or would they do this same thing with adults. A lot of what shapes psychopathy in adults, starts early in their childhood so couldn’t the crime they committed be a link to familial problems from childhood, or their experiences from the past when they were younger. Jorg002
I like your take on this. I do agree that the pledge of allegiance is not the only thing children are regularly exposed to without their understanding. I also believe though that that does not make it right. Nor do I think that subliminal messages in music and media are right. I think people just focus more on things like the pledge of allegiance because it's the idea that our government is trying to control the minds of our youth in a way. I don't know about you but that concerns me a little bit more than a young kid inadvertently singing about smoking weed or drinking. I think you make a good point though, I am just here to play the devil's advocate.
Ms. Levick starts with the school children, recites the Pledge of Allegiance every day. The question is, does those children who recite them know what it means? What the Liberty and justice for all? I don’t think those five, seven, or ten years old know what it means. She states that justice for children been unfulfilled by America. I do agree with her on that because, in reality, our government put more money on military defense and less on education. Through the years, the juvenile court in America has had its highs and lows. But not until 1967, where kids have given the rights to a lawyer. I cannot believe that States competed to pass legislation that will punish juvenile as an adult. Instead of helping them, they prosecute them as an adult with sentences like the death penalty or mandatory life without parole. She states that 2,500 children passed the juvenile court judge, and around half of them does not have a lawyer present. I cannot believe that the juvenile court of County of Luzerne makes the children as a business to pocket money. The main thing that Ted Talk attracts me the most is when the US Supreme Court decided that juvenile cannot have the death penalty. They banned mandatory life without parole, and give children the same right as an adult like Miranda rights. As a criminal justice major, I believe in a word that “justice for all” because it is for all. I think that the juvenile justice system still needs more improvement to be done. -Cancun001
I agree and disagree. Those five, seven or ten may know the pledge means. When I was those ages I did. But I was also told what it meant. Children may be young and may not fully understand certain things but they can have their own opinion. They can decide what they want to do or believe. -PB008
One of the topics Marsha Levick discussed in this Ted Talk was the first juvenile court made in Chicago, IL. Back in the 1920's a juvenile court consisted of the juvenile and one adult. There were no lawyers prosecutors, witnesses, or anyone else. One of the juveniles she mentions later is of Gerald Galt, a 15 year old who was charged with making a prank phone call to his neighbor. And for making that phone call he was sent to a training school for SIX YEARS. For one phone call. Galt was punished too harshly because of a prank. Earlier on Marsha talks about "justice for juveniles" however this idea was not shown in the case of Gerald Galt. There were over 200,000 children a years being charged as adults in the 90's with the same punishments that adults get such as the death penalty and mandatory life without parole. Throwing 8, 9, and 10 year olds into prison can be traumatic for them and kids that young should not have to be exposed to it. Children are people too and they have rights. Just taking them to a jail or prison cell will not help the child but instead could influence them more into a life of crime as they get older. -Ram001
I agree that locking up children will not help them. Putting a child in prison or jail could be extremely harmful to them since they're still developing. They could develop psychological trauma and be physically harmed. It is incredibly terrible that putting them in the adult system was ever a thing and I hope juveniles are properly cared for and are provided everything they need such as lawyers and proper hearings. -arm002
So I found this video interesting, I am always the one to play devil's advocate. So what I found interesting was that when she spoke of the phone call she only defined what the phone call was by saying that it was a “lewd” phone call. So I didn’t know the definition of “lewd” So I googled it. The definition of lewd is crude and offensive in a sexual way. So, I also researched and looked for what was said in the phone call. I fell short of there was no record of the court hearing. This also gave me the question of did Levick know the contents of the phone call. I have made prank calls but never in a crude or sexual manner. I do agree that the justice system more than failed him, but I do believe in justice for juveniles. I believe in justice and rehabilitation in teenage kids. I believe though it is extremely hard if not impossible to reform or rehabilitate adults of more serious crimes. Another piece I found interesting was that the supreme court decided to add a few factors in a case where the ideal sentence was life without parole, they factored in familial experiences, social experiences, immaturity, and development as some guidelines as to whether they get life without parole. It’s interesting, because I wonder if they do it or would they do this same thing with adults. A lot of what shapes psychopathy in adults, starts early in their childhood so couldn’t the crime they committed be a link to familial problems from childhood, or their experiences from the past when they were younger. Jorg002
I thought the same. I looked up lewd because I didn't know the definition of that word. She did a great explanation about how justice got back into the juvenile justice system. I like how she showed the first juvenile court in Cook County Chicago Illinois. I thought it was weird that the doors were closed to the public. I thought it would of been opened to the public. Softball002
Miss Marsha Levick had good points on American’s Juvenile Injustice System. In the beginning of her TED talk she was explaining about the Pledge of Allegiance. She was saying that schools across America is making kids recite the Pledge of Allegiance. She thought it was incongruous that the Pledge of Allegiance was created for school children. In her TED talk she wanted to talk about justice for children. She said justice for children is one of America’s great disappointed promises. We have been failing children in America. She showed a picture of the first juvenile court in Chicago. In 1899 the building was created seven years later after the Pledge of Allegiance. According to Miss Levick “ the juvenile court was created by reform minded citizens in Chicago.” They thought we should treat kids like kids. This means that there were no prisons, no criminal records, and no punishment. We would use rehabilitations and treatments over punishment. She said by the 1920s, every state in America had chosen to adopt a separate Juvenile Court. She showed a picture that was taken in 1920s in Denver Colorado. She wanted us to think about the picture because it looks pretty weird. She explained how the original juvenile court had no other people in the court, no lawyers, no benches, and the judge was the only person in the court. The court was behind closed doors so the public was kept out. In the 1960s, the juvenile court had their doors open. The reasons was the case of Gerald Gault. His court case reached the Supreme court in the United States. The fifteen year old boy did something offensive to his elderly neighbor. Law enforcement officers had arrested him. He stayed at an overnight detention center but his parents didn’t know that he was there. Under the Constitution kids are people too. Children got the worst of two worlds. They are that the kids didn’t get the treatment and the process. Now they finally put justice back into the juvenile justice system by fixing the juvenile court. Softball002
I agree with what you pointed out, children should not have to recite something they cannot comprehend. It is extremely sad that people care less about these children in these systems but most of them are just confused children. Kids have continuously been treated unfair and we need to come together and find our justice. -KF002
After listening to speaker, Marsha Levick, I realized how much the juvenile justice system has changed and how different it can be compared to the adult justice system. It seems the juvenile justice system is filled with people who either do not care or do not have the knowledge or information to properly handle the issues presented to them. Back when the juvenile court was first introduced it was extremely informal with no punishment at all. People working within the system realized that and tried to change it, but it turned out to be unfair to the children and at one point people within the system were pushing children towards the adult courts with adult sentences. It is amazing that all of that was allowed to happen and that so many children were sent there to eventually die. As Levick had said, children had viewed the word justice as just ice because of how cold and unforgiving it is. I agree with her statement saying the justice system has turned to focus on punishing instead of rehabilitating. The stories she had provided of children who had gone through the system were incredibly sad. Thankfully, Hillary was able to get help and be free of the system within a month, but Charlie wasn't so lucky. I cannot believe he was arrested and held in a juvenile corrections facility for almost five years for receiving a scooter from his parents that happened to be stolen. Knowing that there was someone that felt it was right to arrest a child for having a scooter is sickening. He had five years of his life stolen from him and his family over something as small as that. I hope the juvenile justice system is able to improve to prevent such harsh punishments from happening in the future. -arm002
I really liked how you covered the most important topics of what was talked about. When Miss Levick talked about the boy who was arrested who the scooter accident, she really made the topic important, because it shows just how messed up the system is and how they ruined this boy’s life based on his parents choices and now this boy will have to live with this for the rest of his life. SH002
I wanted to focus on what she said about children stating allegiance in schools. Marsha Levick states in the beginning of her speech that in the past, kids of all ages were taught the Pledge of Allegiance, and were expected to recite it each day. She continues by stating that most young children do not understand the meaning behind the words they are reciting. In America, one of the key cornerstones of an educational day can be saying the pledge of allegiance in school. For many, it is one of the main tasks which is completed at the beginning of the day. However, despite this element being so integral, many students do not understand what the purpose of this is - and indeed, why they might be pledging allegiance to the flag. And now a days there are school taking this pledge out of the days agenda. Miss Marsha Levick definitely has a lot more good points within this article, but I really enjoyed this topic. -PB008
In this video about justice for juveniles, one part I thought was fascinating was how Marsha Levick opened the speech with talking about the pledge of allegiance. She stated how kids all around the United States recite it everyday in school but most probably don’t even know what some of the words mean. I agree with her on that statement because it’s absolutely true, children reciting this pledge do not know the concept of what they are saying. One of the examples she gives in her presentation about a young boy who was 15 years old, he made a prank call to his elderly neighbor then he was arrested, held overnight without his parents knowledge. Then the boy was labeled as an adjudicated delinquent which means he was convicted and then sent off to a training school for boys for 6 years. The part that blew my mind was when she said that if he was an adult, just a few years older all he would have had been convicted of was a 50 dollar fine and then like 30 days in a detention facility. Basically, throughout the video she is trying to get to the point that juveniles are somehow getting more punishment but without the correct rehabilitation. Another part of the video I thought was interesting was her examples with the kids for cash clips because it’s sad to see children and teens go through something like that and then not being able to get their childhood back. -HL001
I agree with your first statement of how Marsha started her presentation about our Pledge of Allegiance, as it really challenges you to think on a much deeper level. I also believe it is sickening hearing that inside the juvenile system in PA there was corruption involving how many juveniles were incarcerated, which would lead to bigger paychecks to those who controlled those facilities. -Blues001
I agree that the Kids For Cash videos were very sad. We must focus on reform, rather than punishment for children because they are in their developmental years and reforming them could completely change who they turn out to be as adults. Punishment without rehabilitation could very easily lead to resentment of authority for the rest of their lives, and then there would be an even bigger issue. -Smallz001
This was interesting to watch and to hear about the different phases the Juvenile courts have gone through. What caught my attention in the beginning was the picture from Chicago and the original place for juveniles to go when they got in trouble. The picture showed one man talking to a child a eye level. This is very different from the Juvenile detention center here in Peoria. The sharp rise in crime in the eighties and early nineties during the crack epidemic sparked a reform movement that spread the mantra of adult time for adult crime. This mind set changed the way juveniles are treated and many sought out to prove this point through harsh and unnecessary punishments. 200,000 children a year were introduced into the adult justice system which exposed them to things such as the death penalty. For the youth of America who are still developing and, in many cases, already exposed to very real harsh lives, this move was not a good move nor has it proved to be. Although as the speaker put it the pendulum swung in the opposite direction, there are still many things in the juvenile justice system that are interesting and unnecessary to say the least. The bribes for the for-profit Juvenile detention centers to keep the youth of that county in was just one of those horrible things. Kids for cash as it became known is one of the most corrupt things I have heard of. It is not just a stain when you take the years away from someone, especially a kid, It’s a disgrace. ~PJWB001
During the War on Drugs, politicians all hopped on the "get tough on crime" trend in order to receive more votes. They never considered the human lives that they were destroying by sentencing so many people to such stiff sentences. People lost their childhood and the division between the African American community and the rest of society grew even wider because of it. Too often do people in power forget how their decisions effect those they have control over. ENFJA001
Hello PJW001, The image of the Juvenile court that your mentioned was extremely interesting. The judge was eye level as you said. It seemed like he was trying to talk them in parent to child or what I like to call safe to child. I personally was uncomfortable with it because these kids do not know what they did wrong and they probably were/are intimidated to talk to a person that they did no know. I feel like that now a court room is still a tense setting but I feel like the original was trying to hit "Treat kids like Kids" too closely and there is a need for distance and special care when talking to children in new environments. -TanLionNala
part 1: My post is long because I was typing as she was speaking. This first half is not opinion but the things that are in all caps show my frustration or shock in learning new things. The second half is a strong opinion on a specific story.
Maverick starts out by talking about how children have to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day at school but they don’t understand the concepts of liberty and justice. Justice for ALL is the topic of discussion and right after she tells us that justice for children is one of the toughest things in America. “We have continuously failed children in America,” she states. The first Juvenile Court was made in Cook County, Chicago, IL. It was created by reform minded people and they wanted to treat kids like kids. But because there was no punishment, it was informal. After bringing up that point she shows a picture from that court. She says it looks pretty strange, and I would agree because the courts that I see today look completely different. This image showed kids sitting at a table right in front of the judge rather than having the benches we are use to seeing today. In the original juvenile courts there were NO LAWYERS or prosecutors. There were also no witnesses. There were also no court reporters. These court sessions were done behind closed doors and in secret. There was no public involved. She tells the story of Gerald B. a 15 year old. He was charged for making a prank phone call. He was held overnight in a detention center over night without his parents even knowing. Within a week he was convicted of a crime and was sent away to a training school for boys. JUST FOR MAKING THAT PHONE CALL. This case reached the Supreme Court and there were other cases that were also done unfairly. In 1957 the court said that “Kids are people too.” The supreme court constitutionalized the Juvenile Court. Adult time for Adult Crime started to drive policy. It was like a competition to see who could be the toughest on kids. 200,000 children a year being treated like adults. It meant that a 9-11 year could be taken to adult jails. The Supreme Court had to intervene again on how the Justice system takes care of kids. It issued four decisions. The court banned the juvenile death penalty, life without parole for children that commit non-homocide crimes, banned life without parole sentencing to homocide crimes, children must have a right to have their individual characteristics of youth to be considered and factored into what type of sentence they would recieve, in the context of the children youth matters (look back at miranda). Later, in 2007 a girl made a fake website and made snarky comments about her vice president. She was charged with harassment, she got a 90 second hearing, she was adjudicated delinquent, led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, and sent away to a juvenile correctional facility. 40 years after the Supreme Court said juveniles had the right to counsel. She was not the only one, HUNDREDS of kids had the same thing happen with hardly any process. This led to the KIDS FOR CASH scandal. -TanLionNala001
part 2: The Charlie story she told upset me, as well as Marcus. With Charlie his parents bought him a bike from a neighborhood kid. Later on they found that the bike was actually stolen property. Charlie was arrested for possession of stolen property. He did not know the bike was stolen AND it was a GIFT from his parents. Whether his parents really new or not is unknown to me BUT this should not have fallen on Charlie. Charlie had his life taken away from him due to an unfair and biased system. With Marcus it was the case of Maverick asking him what Justice meant to him. All he wrote was Justice/Just ICE. They system cold and unfair. Rather than hearing him out and trying him fairly. Rather than seeing who he really is...they just look at the crime. She made a point that the Juvenile Justice System has been going back and forth. Justice and Injustice. The system is there to help ALL children included to be treated fairly, equally, and safely. This can’t happen if people are finding the smallest cracks in the system to make a case go their way and warehouse these children like they do adults rather than trying to help them. We need to find a way to put Just and ICE back together. “Systems don’t break promises people do.” “Justice is what we make it” “Let’s make justice a reality for all children in america.”
I agree with what you are saying. We need to treat people as why they did the crime not the crime that was committed. It should have always been that way so everyone can be treated fairly. I get some crimes can’t be justified but I can understand others. Just like Geralds he was a teenage boy, he was playing a prank. Batman002
The speaker in this TED talk had a lot of interesting things to say. I never really knew much about the juvenile side of the justice system (thus I’m taking this class) and I found her speech to be very informative. Through her speech we were able to see the changes in the juvenile justice system over the course of the century. I found it disturbing that just by making a prank phone call, 15-year-old Gerald received none of his constitutional rights and was forced to live at a boarding school for 6 years. He received no lawyer, no due process, and his parents weren’t even informed until he was locked away in jail that night. As stated in the video, had he been just three years older, he would have received a fine and 30 days in county jail for his crime. The justice system at this time didn’t have a good grasp on equal treatment for all people and would treat offenders unfairly. This includes African Americans and women as well. At the time, the justice system looked to deliver harsh punishment to make lessons out of people rather than to rehabilitate them. During the War on Drugs in the U.S, the creation of mandatory minimums did more harm than good. We saw this in the African American community, but I was surprised at the “adult crime, adult time” mentality that the system had. Young men were being put to death for crimes they committed when they were kids. Nobody took maturity into consideration when making these laws. Luckily, the supreme court ruled that children being sentenced to death was unconstitutional, and the system began to look at ways to rehabilitate juvenile delinquents. However, corruption still exists among those who carry out justice. In the case of Hilary back in 2007, she received none of her constitutional rights so that she would be sentenced to stay at a private correctional facility. Facilities like these see human beings as nothing more than property. The more inmates the facility has, the more money is being made. Juveniles are immature and will act accordingly. While punishment is appropriate for many of these cases, the maturity of the child should also be considered. ENFJA001
Did you know that the Pledge of Allegiance was created for students to recite in schools. Marsha Levick said that these students don't even understand what they are reciting. I agree with her when she said that we are failing students. We should treat kids like kids, not adults who committed crimes. Basically saying the Juvenile court wanting to protect children. In the original juvenile court there weren't any lawyers, prosecutors, or any outside people. The public was kept in secret. In the 1960's, everything changed when a 15 year old boy named jerell reached the supreme court. He made a prank phone call to an older person, and was arrested, and was convicted. One thing she said that stood out to me was that kids are people too under the constitution. Juveniles did not get rehabilitation before the 1960s. Justice was back into the court system until violent crimes poured into the juvenile courts. What caught me by surprise was when she stated that they are sending kids with minor crimes. ⅔ of juveniles are being convicted and being sent away for petty crimes. For example charlie was a kid who accepted a gift from his parents. His parents bought a scooter from a kid in the neighborhood. Charlie and his parents did not know the scooter was stolen and was charged with possession of stolen property. It is a shame because the juvenile system is failing young people. Young adults between the age of 10 and 18 should not be tried as adults, they are heard in different courts. Mrs. Levick did a wonderful job with this ted talk.
I agree with a lot of the things that you said and I like that you pointed out the Pledge of Allegiance. I will be honest and speaking for a lot of us. All they did in school was tell us to recite and memorize the pledge but never told us what we were actually saying. As a kid we see justice as helping others how we see officers or people in tv shows until we get more educated on it. I am sure that when kids got arrested they did not expect the treatment that they received. That caused them to lose hope in the system when in all reality they were actually losing hope in the people. It is the people's fault for screwing up a system that was already set not to fail and the Supreme Court should have never had to step in. TWICE. -TanLionNala001
This presentation, like many others I have watched, tends to make you think of day to day actions that we all do and question some of their meaning. In this presentation Marsha Levick asks us to think about the phrase "justice for all" from our Pledge of Allegiance. That term is collective, encompassing all of the citizens of the United States, including our juveniles. In this current time I believe our juvenile justice system has advanced and grown with much better rules and regulations regarding younger children who commit offenses. With reform occurring in the adult justice system as well as the juvenile system, incarceration rates have been steadily declining, especially after the war on drugs era. If a young juvenile was to commit an offense that was a nonviolent minor crime and get sent to JDC, or even jail for it, the recidivism rate increases drastically throughput the remainder of their lives. Hearing the stories of these young individuals who had years of their lives taken away due to a minor offense is sickening because of the future impact this will cause in their lives. While sometimes children need more than a slap on the wrist to punish them for something they have done wrong, we need to ensure that we are not inhibiting future growth as citizens because the juveniles are the future of our country. -Blues001
During Marsha's speech you begin to visualize how much the juvenile justice system has change and started to distance itself from the adult system. The juvenile justice system was much more harsh twenty years ago compared to what we see today. We have become more focused rehabilitation for the children compared to punishing them like we used to. Thankfully who worked and participated in the juvenile system recognized what needed to be done to make it what it needed to be, if not the kids would be lost to the system. One of the facts that I found interesting was that 2/3 of the kids arrested were being convicted of petty crimes. I liked the point Marsha made on how the kids also would act on instinct instead of knowledge. I also found it interesting that in the court with the kids the judge would sit eye level with them rather than from an elevated position looking down on them like we would find in an adult court. I found this talk very interesting and helpful. Marsha's talk was was very knowledgable and challenged you to see the perspectives and the changed made throughout the century.-Purdue001
When a child would get in trouble for something the parents or parent wouldn’t be notified. Which is sad because u would think that your child is missing or that he or she is dead. Just like this kid Gerald Gault. He was arrested and charged because of making a prank phone call at the age of fifteen. And was sent to a state training school for boys in Arizona for six years. His parents were never told that he was being shipped to Arizona. How could someone not think what if that was my kid? Im sure a parent would want to know where there kids are even if they did break the law. Also in the video she said that if he was three years older he would have had a small fine and thirty days in the county jail. I never thought that juveniles would be charged harsher than an adult would be. This video talks about the injustices of juvenile court system. Back when the first juvenile court system was created in Chicago, there were no attorneys, no people, and no witnesses. There was only a judge and the juvenile that would be charged with a crime. Batman002
This video talks about the injustices of juvenile court system. Back when the first juvenile court system was created in Chicago, there were no attorneys, no people, and no witnesses. There was only a judge and the juvenile that would be charged with a crime. When a child would get in trouble for something the parents or parent wouldn’t be notified. Which is sad because u would think that your child is missing or that he or she is dead. Just like this kid Gerald Gault. He was arrested and charged because of making a prank phone call at the age of fifteen. And was sent to a state training school for boys in Arizona for six years. His parents were never told that he was being shipped to Arizona. How could someone not think what if that was my kid? Im sure a parent would want to know where there kids are even if they did break the law. Also in the video she said that if he was three years older he would have had a small fine and thirty days in the county jail. I never thought that juveniles would be charged harsher than an adult would be. Batman001
I agree with you it is entirely unfair how children are treated in the justice system. Children are not fully developed enough to understand the harm of something they have done. We need to treat kids as kids and help better then while they are young. Together we need to make justice for all. -KF001
Miss Marsha Levick was talking in her TED talk about the Pledge of Allegiance, and how all the schools in America would recite it. she really focused her TED talk about the children, and how she wants to keep them safe. Children are falling and becoming disappointment in society’s eyes, however, sometimes it is not all the children’s fault, it’s the community around them. Our society is failing children and then turn around and blame it on the children. Now, yes sometimes it really is the child’s fault but where do you think the child learns it? Where do you think the child gets the urge or even think that it’s cool? Miss Levick said, “the juvenile court was created by reform minded citizens in Chicago.” Everything thinks that kids will treat kids like kids, just like the saying that mothers say, “boys will be boys”. In a slight way, yes, but it’s your actions that matter. Therefore, that there are no prisons, no criminal records, and no punishment that could stop it. according to the Constitution, kids are human. Children get the worst of both worlds, meaning that they don’t get the treatment and process needed. Now when they put the justice back into the juvenile justice system, will be fixed by the juvenile court. The juvenile justice system has changed in so many ways and how different it is from the adult justice system. One of the examples she gives in her presentation about a young boy who was 15 years old, he made a prank call to his elderly neighbor then he was arrested, held overnight without his parent’s knowledge. Then the boy was labeled as an adjudicated delinquent which means he was convicted and then sent off to a training school for boys for 6 years. However, things would be so different if the boy was a bit older, the charges would be different, the punishment, the boy’s life would have been a little different. SH002
Justice is for all, Marsha Levick informs us of this in her TED talk. The Pledge of Allegiance is recited more by children, those who do not understand the words such as: liberty, allegiance, or justice, than anyone else. The end of the pledge states; “in justice for all”, but justice has continuously failed for children over the last century, but not due to the lack of trying. In the year 1899, seven years after the Pledge of Allegiance was introduced into schools, the first juvenile court opened, Cook County, Chicago, IL. This resulted in no prison, no criminal record, and no punishment. By the year 1920 nearly every state had a juvenile court. They were treated like children, they had no lawyers or prosecutors in the original courts and were held behind closed doors. Several kids went through unnecessary punishment or away for unnecessary amounts of time just because they were not tried as adults for very minor crimes. We need to work together to make these promises because we are failing our system and our youth. Children do not have the same capacity to understand the law as an adult and should be sentenced based on their maturity and understanding of the law. -KF001
Children repeat and recite the Pledge of Allegiance more than any adult ever. Marsha Levick informs us about injustice for children in her TED talk. Justice has continuously failed for children. Not till 1899 a juvenile court was established in Chicago, Il.. Then others opened by 1920. These juvenile courts were meant to help kids, we may have tried but we have failed and failed our children once again. From 2005 to 2012, the United States Supreme Court made four ground breaking decisions. The Supreme Court banned the juvinile death penalty; banned life without parole for children with non homocidal crimes; child homopcide crimes ban life without parole crimes; and declared right to immaturity to go into sentencing. Kids do not have the same perception as adults and we need to consider this when sentencing. The justice we are showing our kids feels much more like injustice. Judges have been caught for using kids for cash, sending them to private institutions to make money off of them. We need to break the cycle and make a collective promise to find justice for all, kids included. Our people are breaking promises. Together we must find a way to recognize the meaning of justice and let people put faith back into it. -KF002
It's really sad that a child could get a more serious sentence than an adult would for the same offense. Children are still developing and punishment is not the answer: reform is. We should have never gone from a reform-focused juvenile justice system to a punishment-based one. When Levick said that the group of people who recite the pledge of allegiance the most are the ones who least understand it, I was shocked. I'd never thought of it that way, but it is so true. How can we expect children to understand such complex ideas when we don't even practice them and show them what they mean? It seems hypocritical. The stories of injustice that Levick shared were heartbreaking and a perfect example of why we need criminal justice reform, especially when it comes to juvenile offenders. Although there are mostly good people in the criminal justice system who want to do the right thing and help children with stories like Hilary's have a happy ending, not all do and that is where the problem lies. We must root out the injustices that are being served to our juveniles if we want a secure future because children *are* the future. -Smallz001
What got my attention the most is when she mentioned the last line of the pledge of allegiance when they stated “justice for all” not many people think there really justice for all due to what has been happening over the last few years. Being young and repeating that at school you never really knew what it meant but you knew you had to cite it because that was the rules unless you had a religious reason as to why you couldn’t do it and even then you still had to stand up. If we knew what we know no i’m pretty sure majority of the school wouldn’t say it because time has changed and it seems like as the years past us by things are getting worse and worse from white privilege to black lives matter. Kids for cash has changed the game and is probably known as the largest judicial corruption scandal in American Legal History. It’s actually really sad to me how people think and go about things now a days.-KenzieLand001
Ms. Marsha Levick started off strong in her Ted Talk. She brought up the fact that in most elementary schools around America, children are made to recite the pledge of allegiance every day. Why that was a strong start is because she brought up the idea that not many children between the ages of 5 and 10 can actually conceptualize the ideas of liberty, justice, allegiance and more. She brought up the last line of the pledge of allegiance which says, "and justice for all." Is it really justice for all? Miss Marsha believes that our American children are the least fulfilled when it comes to justice for them. Our juvenile courts have gone through quite the evolution. From being treated as adult criminals, to suspending all punishment and criminal records for children, we have been through it all at this point. After 1967 is when juveniles were given the right to court appointed counsel, cross-examination, the right to have a prosecutor prove that the charges against them are beyond a reasonable doubt, and they are protected against double jeopardy. In the eighties and the early nineties, when violent crimes sky rocketed across America, juvenile justice shifted again. The belief that a child should serve, "adult time for an adult crime," became rather popular. When a child is tried as an adult they are exposed to the same kind of punishments as adults as well. Those punishments include life in prison without parole, the death penalty, and a variety of other extreme forms of punishment. One of the most interesting parts about this Ted Talk is when the, "kids for cash," scheme was brought up. I remember reading up on these scandals a few years back and thinking how crazy the whole situation was. If you don't know what the idea behind these schemes were it is pretty simple. Judges were being bribed by private companies that were opening juvenile detention centers. The deal was like this, if the judge kept sending kids to detention, the company would keep giving that judge cash in return. A judge in Pennsylvania had made over three million dollars off of these bribes alone. He was selling these people's childhoods to private owners of detention centers. There were a number of other judges involved in similar schemes, but the idea alone disgusts me. We fight so hard to get justice for juveniles, and this is what they get? The people of our future, the children we bare and raise are not being given the opportunities they should be. Instead of giving them the proper equipment to better themselves, those that are given authority over them are selling their innocence, their childhoods and their lives for a quick buck. We do not live in a perfect world, and things like this will inevitably continue to happen until it is drilled into the minds of our criminal justice system that justice is for everyone, including children. -psych001
ReplyDeleteMarsha Levick stats that kids in school say the pledge of allegiance but they are to young to know what it really means or what it stands for. She also goes on to talk about justice for kids and how they were mistreated back when the juvenile court first started out. There was only one person or judge their people in the community were not informed of what were going on and there were no news reporters there to tell people what was going on and in some cases the kid’s parents didn’t even know that their kid was being held by the court because they committed a crime that was against the law. In one case a kid made a prank call to his neighbor and he was arrested by the police and was sent to a dention center then a week later he was sent to a boys training school for six years for making that phone call, because of this they took his case to the supreme court because it was wrong and the court said that was wrong and they said that juveniles should have the same rights as and adult within the criminal justice system. This got better as the years went on, but they were sometime given sentences as adults until they changed the law, they helped them and said that they could not be tried as an adult and they could not be interrogated without a lawyer. It got better for juveniles over the years finally once they changed the law and police officer finally follow the laws on how they are to deal with a juvenile when they are arresting them. -vossie001
ReplyDeleteI completely agree, the past Juvenile Justice system was completely unfair to children that committed petty crimes for fun or just to fit in. I believe in child punishment but not to the extent they took it. I very pleased to hear they the Juvenile Justice System began cleaning up their act, even though it just started as equal sentences with adults. Thankfully over the years law enforcement improved the laws concerning juvenile delinquents. -LW001
DeleteIn the beginning of Marsha Levicks ted talk about the pledge of allegiance, and how more than most children under the age of 10 can not properly understand the true meaning and purpose of it. She then states that out of Americans that out children do not get the upper hand when it comes to out court system. Through the years juvenile courts in America have had its highs and lows, but it wasn't until 1967 when children were finally given the right to a lawyer. After some time, around the 90's there was a huge spike in juvenile crimes in America, and not too long after people brought back, "adult time for adult crime" but its almost insane to think of a 15 year old to get the death penalty or life in prison. Initially i agree with everything Ms. Levick has stated in this video. Iv'e worked first hand with children who have gotten themselves in misfortunate situations. Luckily in the state of Kentucky we have a diversion court called "Teen Court." In that program kids were able to get a "second chance" if you will, and are given a defense attorney as well as prosecution team for the commonwealth. With that being said, if the kids finish their sentence in the amount of time given, their record would be expunged. So watching this video hit home because i really couldn't imaging seeing those kids in prison or jail for small petty crimes. -arii001
ReplyDeleteI agree with you, I think it's crazy that young children can be given a life sentence. I also think it's very interesting that you have had the opportunity to work with children that have gotten themselves into some trouble. I think that the state of Kentucky is doing a good job by having these programs like the Teen Court to help these troubled children.-CRJB002
DeleteI agree it is insane to think that someone so young who is still maturing can be sentenced to the death penalty. It is tough to think about kids being sent to Jail and then to a juvenile detention center for petty crimes. Its interesting to hear about Teen Court. Its nice that they get that chance and get to have their record expunged. ~PJWB001
DeleteI agree with you when you said that young people getting charged with the death penalty is insane. Teen court is great because you will get a second chance at life. The term you mentioned “adult time for an adult crime” is ridiculous becuase the childs mind is not fully developed, so they often make stupid mistakes. Everyone deserves a second chance. -Jas002
DeleteMarsha Levick states in the beginning of her speech that in the past kids of all ages were taught the pledge of allegiance, and were expected to recite it each day. She continues by stating that most young children do not understand the meaning behind the words they are reciting. She then goes on talking about how it is unfair that children are being punished more harshly then adults. I understand where Marsha is coming from, but on the other hand these children need to understand that there are severe repercussions for their actions. Punishing these children as harshly as they are is not right, but I believe there should still be repercussions to their wrong doings. Marsha’s main argument here is how according the pledge of allegiance, that these children were expected to recite every day, “justice of all” should be for everyone. Children deserve to be punished for their crimes, but depending on the crime there should be some lenience. Children should be punished for their petty crimes so they understand that there are consequences for their actions, but I do not agree with keeping these children from their families because of a possible mistake. I agree with the punishment of children for their actions, but I do not agree with children being punished much more harshly than adults. I hope the Juvenile Justice System begins to clean up their wrong doings and unfairness. -LW001
ReplyDeleteI agree with most of what you said but repercussions and rehabilitation are two completely different things. I believe rehabilitating children is far more superior than just throwing the book at them. I know when I was a kid, I learned a whole lot better when i got told why something is wrong and the effect it has on other people, rather than just getting my butt whooped. FIRE 002
DeleteI agree with your statement, mostly because I like that you looked at it in a different concept. I like that you agreed and disagreed with what the speaker was saying because everyone should be punished for their actions. In some examples she gives I do see where you would think that children are not punished more harshly than adults but in others it shows how some adults get the easy way out while kids their whole childhood or teen years taken away for small things like prank call to a neighbor.-HL001
DeleteYou know, I never really thought about her first point until i heard her say it the way she did. Ever since kindergarten, we have recited something every single day, until adulthood. That's a long time to be saying something and most of us didn't even know what it meant. America was built on the right of every citizen to have liberty as well as justice, but why was it only the kids who were reciting this everyday. Why weren't the people making the laws and putting people, sometimes children, away for the rest of their earthly lives reciting them too? I ask that question because she made points in her speech that makes me think that America has forgotten what it was founded for when it comes to juvenile delinquency and even adult criminals. I was just watching a documentary the other day about kids behind bars. This one kid had murdered his best friend simply because she got him in trouble for wearing shoes in her house. Her parents scolded him so he left crying and came back when they were gone and shot the girl who ratted on him in the head. He was 12 at the time and he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. At 12 years old, I was petrified to go anywhere without my mom, and this kid went to prison. He is 22 years old now and he has a chance at getting out. The reason he has a chance is that a claim was made to a higher court that a child under the age of 18 should be eligible for parole once their prefrontal cortex is fully developed. I somewhat agree with this because i did some stupid stuff at that age, but i also think that once you murder somneone, you are going to be mentally unstable the rest of your life and you have a lot higher chance of killing again. FIRE002
ReplyDeleteI understand where you are coming from with the child that murdered his best friend at the age of 12. Once a juvenile murders someone it is a different story. I also think that at that young of an age you don't really grasp the concept of what you are really doing. I do think he should spend many years behind bars but life without the possibility of parole seems ridiculous to me. Yes he killed someone, which is the worst thing you can do, but he was also 12 and spending the rest of his life behind bars does not seem fair to me. You should not be 80 years old paying for your 12 year old self crime. I think committed that type of a crime at that young of an age you should be given a second chance at life. -wb002
DeleteI also understand the severity of the 12-year-old committing murder and that punishment is necessary; however, I do agree, as well, that life without any possibility of parole is extreme for a child. It is very possible that the child did not think the murder through and acted on impulse alone because of his underdeveloped prefrontal cortex. A rehabilitation program should have been presented to him to help him understand what he had done and to work through any possible mental issues. -Gamma002
DeleteI enjoyed parts of the Tedx Talk given by Marsha Levick yet I found myself becoming bored when all she presented were problems without any actual solutions of her own. I understand that the Juvenile Justice system has often throughout its history treated children unfairly, yet in the broader scale of things the entire Criminal Justice System has treated huge swaths of people unfairly for centuries leaving me to feel this discovery is not that compelling or surprising. Yet the biggest outrage I felt was the story of bribery relating to sending kids to fill beds in private prisons. This is an issue that is much more far reaching than a tiny Pennsylvanian county and a corrupt judge. Millions of people of all ages get convicted on petty crimes or drug charges to fill private prison beds, especially those from low socioeconomic backgrounds. While I know this talk was specifically focused around injustices suffered by children throughout history, it was in this example I felt the most upset. -CamSlifton002
ReplyDeleteI kinda agree with what you had to say because there is so much more than just a small town getting injustice. So many injustices have happened and I think what would make her point stronger is that she shows more examples in more states to show its truly a worldwide situation that must be dealt with. Youre also right when you say its nothing new or compelling because its been an ongoing issue for a long time. It seems that things have gotten better however since there is always going to be people committing crimes we should try and improve the system more.
DeleteI absolutely loved how she started off the talk with talking about the pledge of allegiance. I had never really thought about what those words meant when I had to recite them every morning before school started. All I knew was that I had to know then because we recited it together every morning and thats all. I had never thought about what the words like "justice for all" meant nor meant to me at those times. Knowing that, like she said how many kids didnt think about it just like I didnt. I had no idea how much went into those few words. As criminal justice being my major I do understand the justice and injustices that a lot of people get. I believe that everyone who goes through this system whether that be juveniles or adults they should be allowed to get fair justice. The examples she used for her talk really gave me mixed feelings. The first case was the one where the boy made the prank call, I dont agree with the sentence he got however he should get the right punishment to ensure that he understands that is wrong and shouldn't do it again. Same with the girl who wrote nasty things about her assistant principal, the sentence she got was way worse than the crime but we need a system that shows you there is certain consequences for each criminal action even if that is as simple as a nasty comment about someone. Morally that is wrong and needs to be dealt with or else people are going to continue to do things like that. Now, with the young man who spent about 5 years of his life locked up for receiving stolen property, that just astounded me that the system didnt investigate enough to show that there was no intent or knowledge of it being stolen. I dont believe he should have gotten punished because he did nothing wrong, now if the parents knew the scooter was stolen then that would be a different story. However that is a serious case of a messed up system, a lot of systems around the world are messed up but we need to fix that. We have taken the right steps in trying to rehabilitate more juveniles and take away the juvenile death penalty and all but we have to look at each person who committed the crime and investigate enough to make the right punishment. I do believe in that juveniles should have to right to lawyers and cross examination etc, because everyone deserves a fair chance however again the courts need to really understand the whole story before making a decision that could ultimately change a juveniles life forever. -wags002
ReplyDeleteI completely disagree that these children should have had any form of judicial punishment at all. From the examples given venting about your vice principle on a website is not punishable or harassment. I don't believe a nasty comment should land you in jail and it should be protected by the first amendment as long as it's not libel, hate speech or of a threatening manner. Prank calls, unless they are threatening violence against the person receiving them, while deviant should not be criminal. Perhaps I just don't see childish antics as attacks against morality, yet I also don't believe we should be wasting our time policing morality in the first place. I agree that the case of the child unwittingly purchasing the stolen property and receiving a five year sentence was astounding and a complete lapse of justice. I feel that, although she didn't touch on it as much, the biggest problems with these juvenile court cases is a lack of due diligence on part of district attorneys and judge oversight. Too often veteran judges still line their pockets while systematically throwing the book at children today for the exact same reasons brought against the kids we heard about in that Pennsylvanian county -CamSlifton002
DeleteI agree with wags002 on when they stated that the boy should have not of gotten sent to jail. I will have to agree when this person said that they should have gotten some sort of punishment, and I also agree with this person because I hardly think about the pledge I just say it because I have always had to say it in school every single day since I was little. It has just become a habit to just stand up every day and recite the pledge without ever thinking as to what it meant. = Beretta001
DeleteMarsha Levick begins her Ted Talk with the hypothesis that children in America are continuously failed. Before listening to her speech I didn’t realize how much of a problem the juvenile courts were on children. I was very shocked listening to some of these childrens cases. The first case that really caught my attention was the fifteen year old boy who prank called his neighbor. Because of this minor prank that cost him to be arrested and sent to away to a detention center for six years. If this boy was eighteen years old he would have only been charged with a small fine or small amount of time in jail. To be sent away for six years because of a prank call seems absolutely absurd to me, considering the fact that most children in today's era have pranked called someone before. Another case I found sad was the boy who spent five years of his life locked up because he was arrested for receiving a stolen object. This is another case where you almost can’t believe it actually happened. Marsha Levick continues to say that children get treated worse than adults in the legal system. To support this claim she explains some compelling evidence. Every year around 200,000 children are being tried as adults, rather than getting them help through rehabilitation. To think that kids as young as 9 being tried as adults is insane. 2500 children passed before the juvenile judge and of these kids a half didn’t have a lawyer. Of these 2500 children two thirds of them were sent away to juvenile facilities. I feel bad for these children, because most of them didn’t have a chance going in with no lawyer. After watching this Ted Talk I realized how big of a deal the justice system actually is on children. I think this is something that can be fixed overtime, especially by getting this kind of information out to the public. -CRJB002
ReplyDeleteI do agree with you about the punishment those two boys receive, and if that boy who pranks called the neighbor is eighteen, he will only get a warning, small fine or just a few days in jail — not six years in detention. I cannot believe that the boy lost five years of his life because he did not know that the gift he receives is stolen or something, that punishment was unbelievable. -Cancun001
DeleteI find Mrs. Levicks point about how the pledge of allegiance is directed towards young children that really don't know what it means. She talks about the original juvenile courts and how there was no lawyers, prosecutors and no other adults really besides the judge. It looks as if the judge is just having a simple conversation with the juveniles because they had a very simple idea to treat children like children. The public was not allowed to be in the court and it was held in private. Gerald was 15 years old when he made a prank phone call, within a week he was sentenced to 6 years to an Arizona State training School for boys. If he had been 3 years older making him legally an adult he would have had a fine and maybe 2 months in jail. The idea of treated children like children was way different now. That amazes me that at such a young age he was punished like that for making a prank phone call. If he had been an adult he would have gotten a lesser sentence. After cocaine and gun violence soared in the 1980’s, states competed with each other to see who could punish juveniles worse. Juveniles were soon being prosecuted as adults which means facing the harsh penalties adults can face. Juveniles were starting to get executed like adults who commit horrendous crimes. The Supreme court finally banned the death penalty, life without parole, and other serious sentences. They also implemented Miranda rights to juveniles which it seemed that the US was making progress on Juveniles crimes and their punishments. Kids for cash has changed the game and is probably known as the largest judicial corruption scandal in American Legal History. The Juvenile Justice System shows time and time again that they don't care about juveniles as people but the crime they committed. I think the Juvenile Justice System is getting more and more attention which is a very good thing. -wb002
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point about treating children like children. I still do not really understand where the disconnect is for people. How can you treat some children like children and others like full grown adults? The idea reminds me of race associated with treatment. How are you going to punish a white man for a crime one way and a hispanic man completely differently for the same crime? We need to set a standard for criminal punishment of children and stick to it. -psych001
DeleteIt is crazy how the pledge of allegiance has been with us ever since kindergarten and we said it everyday at school. Mrs. Marsha Levick gave some very well given points and when she began to talk about the prank call with the 15 year old. I remembered back to when I used to always prank call people for fun but, the people I called did not know my number because there was a certain way to block your number from the person that was receiving the call. Then the boy spoken about by Marsha was sent off to jail and that the parents did not even know about their child being arrested really surprised me because I feel like the parents should always be informed that the child is being detained but if he was only 3 years older and been 18 that he would not have had to spend as much time but to be given a 50 dollar fine and maybe 15 days top in a jail. Dhifting gears to the 1980-90s, crack cocaine and gun violence sky rocketed, therefore raising the question "do we charge juveniles who commit these crimes, as adults?" I believe that a juvenile who committed an adult crime should be sent to a juvenile detention center, and once they turn 18, are sent to a prison to finish out the rest of their sentence as an adult. I agree with Marsha when she states that if a juvenile has committed an adult crime, they should not be treated as if they are an adult. It is morally wrong for someone under the age of 18 to be put into a prison where they will run the risk of being put in harms way by adult criminals. I do believe reform is needed for The Juvenile Justice System, and within time, juveniles will be prosecuted appropriately without the fear of an 11 year old child could "wake up in the morning in their bed holding a teddy bear under their arm, and go to sleep at night on a thin mattress, in an adult county jail." Juvenile Justice reform will take lots of time but, with people like Marsha bringing juvenile injustice to everyone's attention, we may be able to reach justice sooner then later.
ReplyDeleteBeretta001
I agree that it is a bit much to have children in grade school recite a pledge that they do not fully understand and are forced to participate in. It wasn't until I was older that I realized that you are not required, by law, to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. This begs the question, why should children who do not understand the meaning of the pledge be forced to participate in it. This goes into how children have been wrongly treated by our judicial system over the years and have not been provided with proper rehabilitation, when most of the time, depending on the age of the juvenile, do not fully understand the severity of the crimes they commit. Until certain parts of the brain are developed, the human body reacts on instinct and impulse, not common sense. The fact that children were put in institutions like that for years in hard to believe because, as stated, children are people too and are represented in the Constitution; therefore, they should have had access to a court system similar to an adult one but modified for juveniles. The fact that children were not given attorneys until fairly recently is an a sad example that our judicial system has been failing our youth for years. If we make our children pledge to something they can barely understand, why have we not been providing them with "justice for all"? -Gamma002
ReplyDeleteI agree that the judicial system has been wronging children for many many years, and it is only getting worse for them. Also, putting them in institutions is a very hard thing to picture especially considering what was classified as a crime for them, locking them up in there would probably drive most sane people crazy! JU002
DeleteI don't believe that having children recite the pledge in school is crossing any kind of line, yes they may not understand exactly what they are reciting but most of the music they hear on the radio and sing would be categorized as the same thing. As for the judicial system I do believe that it has failed children. At an age under much younger than 17 I don't think they understand that their actions have consequences which should be kept in mind when considering what the proper punishment would be. Sending them to any kind of rehabilitation facility is a very far-fetched idea as, in my opinion, they don't have the mental nor emotional capacity to be separated from their parents or legal guardian. As a whole I believe that there are many steps that need to be taken as far as legal punishment for children. Throwing them in a jail cell or rehabilitation facility could lead to them doing many worse things in the future from the possible mental and emotional scarring that could occur in either of the before mentioned places. JU002
ReplyDeleteSo I found this video interesting, I am always the one to play devil's advocate. So what I found interesting was that when she spoke of the phone call she only defined what the phone call was by saying that it was a “lewd” phone call. So I didn’t know the definition of “lewd” So I googled it. The definition of lewd is crude and offensive in a sexual way. So, I also researched and looked for what was said in the phone call. I fell short of there was no record of the court hearing. This also gave me the question of did Levick know the contents of the phone call. I have made prank calls but never in a crude or sexual manner. I do agree that the justice system more than failed him, but I do believe in justice for juveniles. I believe in justice and rehabilitation in teenage kids. I believe though it is extremely hard if not impossible to reform or rehabilitate adults of more serious crimes. Another piece I found interesting was that the supreme court decided to add a few factors in a case where the ideal sentence was life without parole, they factored in familial experiences, social experiences, immaturity, and development as some guidelines as to whether they get life without parole. It’s interesting, because I wonder if they do it or would they do this same thing with adults. A lot of what shapes psychopathy in adults, starts early in their childhood so couldn’t the crime they committed be a link to familial problems from childhood, or their experiences from the past when they were younger. Jorg002
DeleteI like your take on this. I do agree that the pledge of allegiance is not the only thing children are regularly exposed to without their understanding. I also believe though that that does not make it right. Nor do I think that subliminal messages in music and media are right. I think people just focus more on things like the pledge of allegiance because it's the idea that our government is trying to control the minds of our youth in a way. I don't know about you but that concerns me a little bit more than a young kid inadvertently singing about smoking weed or drinking. I think you make a good point though, I am just here to play the devil's advocate.
Delete^^-psych001
DeleteMs. Levick starts with the school children, recites the Pledge of Allegiance every day. The question is, does those children who recite them know what it means? What the Liberty and justice for all? I don’t think those five, seven, or ten years old know what it means. She states that justice for children been unfulfilled by America. I do agree with her on that because, in reality, our government put more money on military defense and less on education. Through the years, the juvenile court in America has had its highs and lows. But not until 1967, where kids have given the rights to a lawyer. I cannot believe that States competed to pass legislation that will punish juvenile as an adult. Instead of helping them, they prosecute them as an adult with sentences like the death penalty or mandatory life without parole. She states that 2,500 children passed the juvenile court judge, and around half of them does not have a lawyer present. I cannot believe that the juvenile court of County of Luzerne makes the children as a business to pocket money. The main thing that Ted Talk attracts me the most is when the US Supreme Court decided that juvenile cannot have the death penalty. They banned mandatory life without parole, and give children the same right as an adult like Miranda rights. As a criminal justice major, I believe in a word that “justice for all” because it is for all. I think that the juvenile justice system still needs more improvement to be done. -Cancun001
ReplyDeleteI agree and disagree. Those five, seven or ten may know the pledge means. When I was those ages I did. But I was also told what it meant. Children may be young and may not fully understand certain things but they can have their own opinion. They can decide what they want to do or believe. -PB008
DeleteOne of the topics Marsha Levick discussed in this Ted Talk was the first juvenile court made in Chicago, IL. Back in the 1920's a juvenile court consisted of the juvenile and one adult. There were no lawyers prosecutors, witnesses, or anyone else. One of the juveniles she mentions later is of Gerald Galt, a 15 year old who was charged with making a prank phone call to his neighbor. And for making that phone call he was sent to a training school for SIX YEARS. For one phone call. Galt was punished too harshly because of a prank. Earlier on Marsha talks about "justice for juveniles" however this idea was not shown in the case of Gerald Galt. There were over 200,000 children a years being charged as adults in the 90's with the same punishments that adults get such as the death penalty and mandatory life without parole. Throwing 8, 9, and 10 year olds into prison can be traumatic for them and kids that young should not have to be exposed to it. Children are people too and they have rights. Just taking them to a jail or prison cell will not help the child but instead could influence them more into a life of crime as they get older.
ReplyDelete-Ram001
I agree that locking up children will not help them. Putting a child in prison or jail could be extremely harmful to them since they're still developing. They could develop psychological trauma and be physically harmed. It is incredibly terrible that putting them in the adult system was ever a thing and I hope juveniles are properly cared for and are provided everything they need such as lawyers and proper hearings. -arm002
DeleteSo I found this video interesting, I am always the one to play devil's advocate. So what I found interesting was that when she spoke of the phone call she only defined what the phone call was by saying that it was a “lewd” phone call. So I didn’t know the definition of “lewd” So I googled it. The definition of lewd is crude and offensive in a sexual way. So, I also researched and looked for what was said in the phone call. I fell short of there was no record of the court hearing. This also gave me the question of did Levick know the contents of the phone call. I have made prank calls but never in a crude or sexual manner. I do agree that the justice system more than failed him, but I do believe in justice for juveniles. I believe in justice and rehabilitation in teenage kids. I believe though it is extremely hard if not impossible to reform or rehabilitate adults of more serious crimes. Another piece I found interesting was that the supreme court decided to add a few factors in a case where the ideal sentence was life without parole, they factored in familial experiences, social experiences, immaturity, and development as some guidelines as to whether they get life without parole. It’s interesting, because I wonder if they do it or would they do this same thing with adults. A lot of what shapes psychopathy in adults, starts early in their childhood so couldn’t the crime they committed be a link to familial problems from childhood, or their experiences from the past when they were younger. Jorg002
ReplyDeleteI thought the same. I looked up lewd because I didn't know the definition of that word. She did a great explanation about how justice got back into the juvenile justice system. I like how she showed the first juvenile court in Cook County Chicago Illinois. I thought it was weird that the doors were closed to the public. I thought it would of been opened to the public. Softball002
DeleteMiss Marsha Levick had good points on American’s Juvenile Injustice System. In the beginning of her TED talk she was explaining about the Pledge of Allegiance. She was saying that schools across America is making kids recite the Pledge of Allegiance. She thought it was incongruous that the Pledge of Allegiance was created for school children. In her TED talk she wanted to talk about justice for children. She said justice for children is one of America’s great disappointed promises. We have been failing children in America. She showed a picture of the first juvenile court in Chicago. In 1899 the building was created seven years later after the Pledge of Allegiance. According to Miss Levick “ the juvenile court was created by reform minded citizens in Chicago.” They thought we should treat kids like kids. This means that there were no prisons, no criminal records, and no punishment. We would use rehabilitations and treatments over punishment. She said by the 1920s, every state in America had chosen to adopt a separate Juvenile Court. She showed a picture that was taken in 1920s in Denver Colorado. She wanted us to think about the picture because it looks pretty weird. She explained how the original juvenile court had no other people in the court, no lawyers, no benches, and the judge was the only person in the court. The court was behind closed doors so the public was kept out. In the 1960s, the juvenile court had their doors open. The reasons was the case of Gerald Gault. His court case reached the Supreme court in the United States. The fifteen year old boy did something offensive to his elderly neighbor. Law enforcement officers had arrested him. He stayed at an overnight detention center but his parents didn’t know that he was there. Under the Constitution kids are people too. Children got the worst of two worlds. They are that the kids didn’t get the treatment and the process. Now they finally put justice back into the juvenile justice system by fixing the juvenile court. Softball002
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you pointed out, children should not have to recite something they cannot comprehend. It is extremely sad that people care less about these children in these systems but most of them are just confused children. Kids have continuously been treated unfair and we need to come together and find our justice.
Delete-KF002
After listening to speaker, Marsha Levick, I realized how much the juvenile justice system has changed and how different it can be compared to the adult justice system. It seems the juvenile justice system is filled with people who either do not care or do not have the knowledge or information to properly handle the issues presented to them. Back when the juvenile court was first introduced it was extremely informal with no punishment at all. People working within the system realized that and tried to change it, but it turned out to be unfair to the children and at one point people within the system were pushing children towards the adult courts with adult sentences. It is amazing that all of that was allowed to happen and that so many children were sent there to eventually die. As Levick had said, children had viewed the word justice as just ice because of how cold and unforgiving it is. I agree with her statement saying the justice system has turned to focus on punishing instead of rehabilitating. The stories she had provided of children who had gone through the system were incredibly sad. Thankfully, Hillary was able to get help and be free of the system within a month, but Charlie wasn't so lucky. I cannot believe he was arrested and held in a juvenile corrections facility for almost five years for receiving a scooter from his parents that happened to be stolen. Knowing that there was someone that felt it was right to arrest a child for having a scooter is sickening. He had five years of his life stolen from him and his family over something as small as that. I hope the juvenile justice system is able to improve to prevent such harsh punishments from happening in the future. -arm002
ReplyDeleteI really liked how you covered the most important topics of what was talked about. When Miss Levick talked about the boy who was arrested who the scooter accident, she really made the topic important, because it shows just how messed up the system is and how they ruined this boy’s life based on his parents choices and now this boy will have to live with this for the rest of his life. SH002
DeleteI wanted to focus on what she said about children stating allegiance in schools. Marsha Levick states in the beginning of her speech that in the past, kids of all ages were taught the Pledge of Allegiance, and were expected to recite it each day. She continues by stating that most young children do not understand the meaning behind the words they are reciting. In America, one of the key cornerstones of an educational day can be saying the pledge of allegiance in school. For many, it is one of the main tasks which is completed at the beginning of the day. However, despite this element being so integral, many students do not understand what the purpose of this is - and indeed, why they might be pledging allegiance to the flag. And now a days there are school taking this pledge out of the days agenda. Miss Marsha Levick definitely has a lot more good points within this article, but I really enjoyed this topic. -PB008
ReplyDeleteIn this video about justice for juveniles, one part I thought was fascinating was how Marsha Levick opened the speech with talking about the pledge of allegiance. She stated how kids all around the United States recite it everyday in school but most probably don’t even know what some of the words mean. I agree with her on that statement because it’s absolutely true, children reciting this pledge do not know the concept of what they are saying. One of the examples she gives in her presentation about a young boy who was 15 years old, he made a prank call to his elderly neighbor then he was arrested, held overnight without his parents knowledge. Then the boy was labeled as an adjudicated delinquent which means he was convicted and then sent off to a training school for boys for 6 years. The part that blew my mind was when she said that if he was an adult, just a few years older all he would have had been convicted of was a 50 dollar fine and then like 30 days in a detention facility. Basically, throughout the video she is trying to get to the point that juveniles are somehow getting more punishment but without the correct rehabilitation. Another part of the video I thought was interesting was her examples with the kids for cash clips because it’s sad to see children and teens go through something like that and then not being able to get their childhood back. -HL001
ReplyDeleteI agree with your first statement of how Marsha started her presentation about our Pledge of Allegiance, as it really challenges you to think on a much deeper level. I also believe it is sickening hearing that inside the juvenile system in PA there was corruption involving how many juveniles were incarcerated, which would lead to bigger paychecks to those who controlled those facilities. -Blues001
DeleteI agree that the Kids For Cash videos were very sad. We must focus on reform, rather than punishment for children because they are in their developmental years and reforming them could completely change who they turn out to be as adults. Punishment without rehabilitation could very easily lead to resentment of authority for the rest of their lives, and then there would be an even bigger issue.
Delete-Smallz001
This was interesting to watch and to hear about the different phases the Juvenile courts have gone through. What caught my attention in the beginning was the picture from Chicago and the original place for juveniles to go when they got in trouble. The picture showed one man talking to a child a eye level. This is very different from the Juvenile detention center here in Peoria. The sharp rise in crime in the eighties and early nineties during the crack epidemic sparked a reform movement that spread the mantra of adult time for adult crime. This mind set changed the way juveniles are treated and many sought out to prove this point through harsh and unnecessary punishments. 200,000 children a year were introduced into the adult justice system which exposed them to things such as the death penalty. For the youth of America who are still developing and, in many cases, already exposed to very real harsh lives, this move was not a good move nor has it proved to be. Although as the speaker put it the pendulum swung in the opposite direction, there are still many things in the juvenile justice system that are interesting and unnecessary to say the least. The bribes for the for-profit Juvenile detention centers to keep the youth of that county in was just one of those horrible things. Kids for cash as it became known is one of the most corrupt things I have heard of. It is not just a stain when you take the years away from someone, especially a kid, It’s a disgrace. ~PJWB001
ReplyDeleteDuring the War on Drugs, politicians all hopped on the "get tough on crime" trend in order to receive more votes. They never considered the human lives that they were destroying by sentencing so many people to such stiff sentences. People lost their childhood and the division between the African American community and the rest of society grew even wider because of it. Too often do people in power forget how their decisions effect those they have control over. ENFJA001
DeleteHello PJW001,
DeleteThe image of the Juvenile court that your mentioned was extremely interesting. The judge was eye level as you said. It seemed like he was trying to talk them in parent to child or what I like to call safe to child. I personally was uncomfortable with it because these kids do not know what they did wrong and they probably were/are intimidated to talk to a person that they did no know. I feel like that now a court room is still a tense setting but I feel like the original was trying to hit "Treat kids like Kids" too closely and there is a need for distance and special care when talking to children in new environments.
-TanLionNala
part 1: My post is long because I was typing as she was speaking. This first half is not opinion but the things that are in all caps show my frustration or shock in learning new things. The second half is a strong opinion on a specific story.
ReplyDeleteMaverick starts out by talking about how children have to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every day at school but they don’t understand the concepts of liberty and justice. Justice for ALL is the topic of discussion and right after she tells us that justice for children is one of the toughest things in America. “We have continuously failed children in America,” she states. The first Juvenile Court was made in Cook County, Chicago, IL. It was created by reform minded people and they wanted to treat kids like kids. But because there was no punishment, it was informal. After bringing up that point she shows a picture from that court. She says it looks pretty strange, and I would agree because the courts that I see today look completely different. This image showed kids sitting at a table right in front of the judge rather than having the benches we are use to seeing today. In the original juvenile courts there were NO LAWYERS or prosecutors. There were also no witnesses. There were also no court reporters. These court sessions were done behind closed doors and in secret. There was no public involved. She tells the story of Gerald B. a 15 year old. He was charged for making a prank phone call. He was held overnight in a detention center over night without his parents even knowing. Within a week he was convicted of a crime and was sent away to a training school for boys. JUST FOR MAKING THAT PHONE CALL. This case reached the Supreme Court and there were other cases that were also done unfairly. In 1957 the court said that “Kids are people too.” The supreme court constitutionalized the Juvenile Court. Adult time for Adult Crime started to drive policy. It was like a competition to see who could be the toughest on kids. 200,000 children a year being treated like adults. It meant that a 9-11 year could be taken to adult jails. The Supreme Court had to intervene again on how the Justice system takes care of kids. It issued four decisions. The court banned the juvenile death penalty, life without parole for children that commit non-homocide crimes, banned life without parole sentencing to homocide crimes, children must have a right to have their individual characteristics of youth to be considered and factored into what type of sentence they would recieve, in the context of the children youth matters (look back at miranda). Later, in 2007 a girl made a fake website and made snarky comments about her vice president. She was charged with harassment, she got a 90 second hearing, she was adjudicated delinquent, led out of the courtroom in handcuffs, and sent away to a juvenile correctional facility. 40 years after the Supreme Court said juveniles had the right to counsel. She was not the only one, HUNDREDS of kids had the same thing happen with hardly any process. This led to the KIDS FOR CASH scandal.
-TanLionNala001
part 2: The Charlie story she told upset me, as well as Marcus. With Charlie his parents bought him a bike from a neighborhood kid. Later on they found that the bike was actually stolen property. Charlie was arrested for possession of stolen property. He did not know the bike was stolen AND it was a GIFT from his parents. Whether his parents really new or not is unknown to me BUT this should not have fallen on Charlie. Charlie had his life taken away from him due to an unfair and biased system.
DeleteWith Marcus it was the case of Maverick asking him what Justice meant to him. All he wrote was Justice/Just ICE. They system cold and unfair. Rather than hearing him out and trying him fairly. Rather than seeing who he really is...they just look at the crime.
She made a point that the Juvenile Justice System has been going back and forth. Justice and Injustice. The system is there to help ALL children included to be treated fairly, equally, and safely. This can’t happen if people are finding the smallest cracks in the system to make a case go their way and warehouse these children like they do adults rather than trying to help them.
We need to find a way to put Just and ICE back together. “Systems don’t break promises people do.” “Justice is what we make it” “Let’s make justice a reality for all children in america.”
I agree with what you are saying. We need to treat people as why they did the crime not the crime that was committed. It should have always been that way so everyone can be treated fairly. I get some crimes can’t be justified but I can understand others. Just like Geralds he was a teenage boy, he was playing a prank. Batman002
DeleteThe speaker in this TED talk had a lot of interesting things to say. I never really knew much about the juvenile side of the justice system (thus I’m taking this class) and I found her speech to be very informative. Through her speech we were able to see the changes in the juvenile justice system over the course of the century. I found it disturbing that just by making a prank phone call, 15-year-old Gerald received none of his constitutional rights and was forced to live at a boarding school for 6 years. He received no lawyer, no due process, and his parents weren’t even informed until he was locked away in jail that night. As stated in the video, had he been just three years older, he would have received a fine and 30 days in county jail for his crime. The justice system at this time didn’t have a good grasp on equal treatment for all people and would treat offenders unfairly. This includes African Americans and women as well. At the time, the justice system looked to deliver harsh punishment to make lessons out of people rather than to rehabilitate them.
ReplyDeleteDuring the War on Drugs in the U.S, the creation of mandatory minimums did more harm than good. We saw this in the African American community, but I was surprised at the “adult crime, adult time” mentality that the system had. Young men were being put to death for crimes they committed when they were kids. Nobody took maturity into consideration when making these laws. Luckily, the supreme court ruled that children being sentenced to death was unconstitutional, and the system began to look at ways to rehabilitate juvenile delinquents. However, corruption still exists among those who carry out justice. In the case of Hilary back in 2007, she received none of her constitutional rights so that she would be sentenced to stay at a private correctional facility. Facilities like these see human beings as nothing more than property. The more inmates the facility has, the more money is being made. Juveniles are immature and will act accordingly. While punishment is appropriate for many of these cases, the maturity of the child should also be considered. ENFJA001
Did you know that the Pledge of Allegiance was created for students to recite in schools. Marsha Levick said that these students don't even understand what they are reciting. I agree with her when she said that we are failing students. We should treat kids like kids, not adults who committed crimes. Basically saying the Juvenile court wanting to protect children. In the original juvenile court there weren't any lawyers, prosecutors, or any outside people. The public was kept in secret. In the 1960's, everything changed when a 15 year old boy named jerell reached the supreme court. He made a prank phone call to an older person, and was arrested, and was convicted. One thing she said that stood out to me was that kids are people too under the constitution. Juveniles did not get rehabilitation before the 1960s. Justice was back into the court system until violent crimes poured into the juvenile courts. What caught me by surprise was when she stated that they are sending kids with minor crimes. ⅔ of juveniles are being convicted and being sent away for petty crimes. For example charlie was a kid who accepted a gift from his parents. His parents bought a scooter from a kid in the neighborhood. Charlie and his parents did not know the scooter was stolen and was charged with possession of stolen property. It is a shame because the juvenile system is failing young people. Young adults between the age of 10 and 18 should not be tried as adults, they are heard in different courts. Mrs. Levick did a wonderful job with this ted talk.
ReplyDelete-Jas002
DeleteHello Jas002,
DeleteI agree with a lot of the things that you said and I like that you pointed out the Pledge of Allegiance. I will be honest and speaking for a lot of us. All they did in school was tell us to recite and memorize the pledge but never told us what we were actually saying. As a kid we see justice as helping others how we see officers or people in tv shows until we get more educated on it. I am sure that when kids got arrested they did not expect the treatment that they received. That caused them to lose hope in the system when in all reality they were actually losing hope in the people. It is the people's fault for screwing up a system that was already set not to fail and the Supreme Court should have never had to step in. TWICE.
-TanLionNala001
This presentation, like many others I have watched, tends to make you think of day to day actions that we all do and question some of their meaning. In this presentation Marsha Levick asks us to think about the phrase "justice for all" from our Pledge of Allegiance. That term is collective, encompassing all of the citizens of the United States, including our juveniles. In this current time I believe our juvenile justice system has advanced and grown with much better rules and regulations regarding younger children who commit offenses. With reform occurring in the adult justice system as well as the juvenile system, incarceration rates have been steadily declining, especially after the war on drugs era. If a young juvenile was to commit an offense that was a nonviolent minor crime and get sent to JDC, or even jail for it, the recidivism rate increases drastically throughput the remainder of their lives. Hearing the stories of these young individuals who had years of their lives taken away due to a minor offense is sickening because of the future impact this will cause in their lives. While sometimes children need more than a slap on the wrist to punish them for something they have done wrong, we need to ensure that we are not inhibiting future growth as citizens because the juveniles are the future of our country. -Blues001
ReplyDeleteDuring Marsha's speech you begin to visualize how much the juvenile justice system has change and started to distance itself from the adult system. The juvenile justice system was much more harsh twenty years ago compared to what we see today. We have become more focused rehabilitation for the children compared to punishing them like we used to. Thankfully who worked and participated in the juvenile system recognized what needed to be done to make it what it needed to be, if not the kids would be lost to the system. One of the facts that I found interesting was that 2/3 of the kids arrested were being convicted of petty crimes. I liked the point Marsha made on how the kids also would act on instinct instead of knowledge. I also found it interesting that in the court with the kids the judge would sit eye level with them rather than from an elevated position looking down on them like we would find in an adult court. I found this talk very interesting and helpful. Marsha's talk was was very knowledgable and challenged you to see the perspectives and the changed made throughout the century.-Purdue001
ReplyDeleteWhen a child would get in trouble for something the parents or parent wouldn’t be notified. Which is sad because u would think that your child is missing or that he or she is dead. Just like this kid Gerald Gault. He was arrested and charged because of making a prank phone call at the age of fifteen. And was sent to a state training school for boys in Arizona for six years. His parents were never told that he was being shipped to Arizona. How could someone not think what if that was my kid? Im sure a parent would want to know where there kids are even if they did break the law. Also in the video she said that if he was three years older he would have had a small fine and thirty days in the county jail. I never thought that juveniles would be charged harsher than an adult would be. This video talks about the injustices of juvenile court system. Back when the first juvenile court system was created in Chicago, there were no attorneys, no people, and no witnesses. There was only a judge and the juvenile that would be charged with a crime. Batman002
ReplyDeleteThis video talks about the injustices of juvenile court system. Back when the first juvenile court system was created in Chicago, there were no attorneys, no people, and no witnesses. There was only a judge and the juvenile that would be charged with a crime. When a child would get in trouble for something the parents or parent wouldn’t be notified. Which is sad because u would think that your child is missing or that he or she is dead. Just like this kid Gerald Gault. He was arrested and charged because of making a prank phone call at the age of fifteen. And was sent to a state training school for boys in Arizona for six years. His parents were never told that he was being shipped to Arizona. How could someone not think what if that was my kid? Im sure a parent would want to know where there kids are even if they did break the law. Also in the video she said that if he was three years older he would have had a small fine and thirty days in the county jail. I never thought that juveniles would be charged harsher than an adult would be. Batman001
ReplyDeleteI agree with you it is entirely unfair how children are treated in the justice system. Children are not fully developed enough to understand the harm of something they have done. We need to treat kids as kids and help better then while they are young. Together we need to make justice for all.
Delete-KF001
Miss Marsha Levick was talking in her TED talk about the Pledge of Allegiance, and how all the schools in America would recite it. she really focused her TED talk about the children, and how she wants to keep them safe. Children are falling and becoming disappointment in society’s eyes, however, sometimes it is not all the children’s fault, it’s the community around them. Our society is failing children and then turn around and blame it on the children. Now, yes sometimes it really is the child’s fault but where do you think the child learns it? Where do you think the child gets the urge or even think that it’s cool? Miss Levick said, “the juvenile court was created by reform minded citizens in Chicago.” Everything thinks that kids will treat kids like kids, just like the saying that mothers say, “boys will be boys”. In a slight way, yes, but it’s your actions that matter. Therefore, that there are no prisons, no criminal records, and no punishment that could stop it. according to the Constitution, kids are human. Children get the worst of both worlds, meaning that they don’t get the treatment and process needed. Now when they put the justice back into the juvenile justice system, will be fixed by the juvenile court. The juvenile justice system has changed in so many ways and how different it is from the adult justice system. One of the examples she gives in her presentation about a young boy who was 15 years old, he made a prank call to his elderly neighbor then he was arrested, held overnight without his parent’s knowledge. Then the boy was labeled as an adjudicated delinquent which means he was convicted and then sent off to a training school for boys for 6 years. However, things would be so different if the boy was a bit older, the charges would be different, the punishment, the boy’s life would have been a little different. SH002
ReplyDeleteJustice is for all, Marsha Levick informs us of this in her TED talk. The Pledge of Allegiance is recited more by children, those who do not understand the words such as: liberty, allegiance, or justice, than anyone else. The end of the pledge states; “in justice for all”, but justice has continuously failed for children over the last century, but not due to the lack of trying. In the year 1899, seven years after the Pledge of Allegiance was introduced into schools, the first juvenile court opened, Cook County, Chicago, IL. This resulted in no prison, no criminal record, and no punishment. By the year 1920 nearly every state had a juvenile court. They were treated like children, they had no lawyers or prosecutors in the original courts and were held behind closed doors. Several kids went through unnecessary punishment or away for unnecessary amounts of time just because they were not tried as adults for very minor crimes. We need to work together to make these promises because we are failing our system and our youth. Children do not have the same capacity to understand the law as an adult and should be sentenced based on their maturity and understanding of the law.
ReplyDelete-KF001
Children repeat and recite the Pledge of Allegiance more than any adult ever. Marsha Levick informs us about injustice for children in her TED talk. Justice has continuously failed for children. Not till 1899 a juvenile court was established in Chicago, Il.. Then others opened by 1920. These juvenile courts were meant to help kids, we may have tried but we have failed and failed our children once again. From 2005 to 2012, the United States Supreme Court made four ground breaking decisions. The Supreme Court banned the juvinile death penalty; banned life without parole for children with non homocidal crimes; child homopcide crimes ban life without parole crimes; and declared right to immaturity to go into sentencing. Kids do not have the same perception as adults and we need to consider this when sentencing. The justice we are showing our kids feels much more like injustice. Judges have been caught for using kids for cash, sending them to private institutions to make money off of them. We need to break the cycle and make a collective promise to find justice for all, kids included. Our people are breaking promises. Together we must find a way to recognize the meaning of justice and let people put faith back into it.
ReplyDelete-KF002
It's really sad that a child could get a more serious sentence than an adult would for the same offense. Children are still developing and punishment is not the answer: reform is. We should have never gone from a reform-focused juvenile justice system to a punishment-based one. When Levick said that the group of people who recite the pledge of allegiance the most are the ones who least understand it, I was shocked. I'd never thought of it that way, but it is so true. How can we expect children to understand such complex ideas when we don't even practice them and show them what they mean? It seems hypocritical. The stories of injustice that Levick shared were heartbreaking and a perfect example of why we need criminal justice reform, especially when it comes to juvenile offenders. Although there are mostly good people in the criminal justice system who want to do the right thing and help children with stories like Hilary's have a happy ending, not all do and that is where the problem lies. We must root out the injustices that are being served to our juveniles if we want a secure future because children *are* the future.
ReplyDelete-Smallz001
What got my attention the most is when she mentioned the last line of the pledge of allegiance when they stated “justice for all” not many people think there really justice for all due to what has been happening over the last few years. Being young and repeating that at school you never really knew what it meant but you knew you had to cite it because that was the rules unless you had a religious reason as to why you couldn’t do it and even then you still had to stand up. If we knew what we know no i’m pretty sure majority of the school wouldn’t say it because time has changed and it seems like as the years past us by things are getting worse and worse from white privilege to black lives matter. Kids for cash has changed the game and is probably known as the largest judicial corruption scandal in American Legal History. It’s actually really sad to me how people think and go about things now a days.-KenzieLand001
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