Purpose: To Read Critically

To use Coding the Text efficiently during nonfiction reading

Name:_____________________________________________
Date:_____________________________

Juvenile super-predators?

Teenagers head toward the gym at Caddo Juvenile Detention Center in Shreveport, La. Three years ago the facility
housed, on average, 45 to 50 juveniles per day. Since juvenile officials began their detention reform, they have
managed to keep the number down to around 23 per day. Val Horvath/The Times/AP

Directions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Number the paragraphs.

Code the text. A minimum of 1 code per paragraph
Comment on 3 of the paragraphs in the margin.
Answer the questions on the back
Do the vocabulary.

Elmer Heichel was an elderly neighbor of Jennifers who would occasionally hire
her to rake his leaves or run his errands. Jennifer knew that on Saturday nights
Heichel and his buddies would go to the bar and come home intoxicated. So
Donnell and Jennifer hatched a plan to go to his house and rob him; Donnell
would distract him in conversation while Jennifer went inside, ostensibly
(supposedly) to use the bathroom. Instead, she would take whatever cash she
could find in the bedroom, and the two women would leave. Jennifer figured
Heichel would be so drunk that he wouldnt even remember the interaction in
the morning. I thought it was so simple, Jennifer says. It couldnt go wrong.

Purpose: To Read Critically

To use Coding the Text efficiently during nonfiction reading
Name:_____________________________________________
Date:_____________________________

And at first, it didnt. After taking the cash from Heichels wallet, Jennifer snuck
back into the bathroom to complete the charade flush the toilet, run the
faucet. But she came out to discover Heichel lying on the living room floor while
Donnell stabbed the old man again and again. He looked at Jennifer, asked her
for help. "Jennifer," he said, "I've known you for a long time." She panicked,
froze, went back into the bathroom to throw water on her face.
Jennifer was just a few days shy of her 18th birthday when she stood before the
Honorable Judge Fred Mester as he weighed his options: sentence her as a
juvenile, which would have required the state to release her in three years, on
her 21st birthday, or sentence her as an adult, which, under mandatory
sentencing laws, meant life without parole.

When she committed her crime, Jennifer Pruitt was 16: too young, under
Michigan law, to be declared independent from her parents, to serve on a jury, to
drive a car without restrictions even to attend an R-rated movie alone. And yet,
on November 15, 1993, Judge Mester sentenced Jennifer to grow up, grow old
and die in prison.
In the early 90s, the nation was experiencing a steep increase in violent crime,
and this trend was nowhere more troubling than among adolescents: Between
the mid-80s and the mid-90s, the number of homicides committed by teenagers
with guns climbed steadily each year, peaking in 1993 at more than 3,000
roughly three times what the yearly rate had been from the mid-70s to the
mid-80s. High-profile crimes, like the Central Park jogger case in 1989 lent

Purpose: To Read Critically

To use Coding the Text efficiently during nonfiction reading
Name:_____________________________________________
Date:_____________________________

urgency to the sentiment that something had to be done with these kids, and
soon.
Until the early 90s, most children accused of a crime were handled by the
juvenile justice system; to try or sentence children as adults, most states required

a hearing in which a judge took into consideration their age and their capacity
for rehabilitation. Today, all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., and the federal
government, allow kids under age 18 to be tried as adults, sometimes
automatically given certain crimes, or by the decision of the prosecutor alone. As
of 2005, in a majority of states, the minimum age is 13; several states set no
minimum age at all.

But these laws fly in the face of what we know about kids. When youre an
adult, you can get a job, you can drive a car, you can leave your environment.
You can make certain choices, says LaBelle. A child cannot just walk away.
Cant get in a car and say, This neighborhood sucks. Im going to go and get
a job somewhere else.
Elizabeth Cauffman, a leading researcher on the relationship between
adolescent development and juvenile justice policy, says, Adolescents and
adults are cognitively equivalent adolescents are as smart as adults at
about the age of 16. Whats different is the emotional regulation. That ability
to control, that ability to plan. That part continues to develop well up into the 20s
and beyond.
Beginning around puberty, says Thomas Grisso of the University of
Massachusetts Medical School, in the brain studies, they see a higher level of

Purpose: To Read Critically

To use Coding the Text efficiently during nonfiction reading
Name:_____________________________________________
Date:_____________________________

activation in (the limbic) area, and greater responsiveness to external stimulation,

to rewards, to things that might excite one. The overactive limbic system and the
underdeveloped prefrontal cortex make for a potentially dangerous combination
in adolescents: The limbic area, explains Grisso, says, That would be fun! In a
healthy adult, the frontal lobe says, Wait, will there be consequences for that?
But in teenagers, Theres this surge in responsiveness to stimulation before the
frontal lobe has developed the ability to inhibit that most efficiently, he says.

Thus, the 15-year-old brain does not have the biological machinery to inhibit
impulses in the service of long-range planning, Weinberger wrote. This is why it
is important for adults to help children make plans and set rules.
________________________________________________________________
What are 2 main points the author is trying to make?
The authors two main points that he is trying to make are

Purpose: To Read Critically

To use Coding the Text efficiently during nonfiction reading
Name:_____________________________________________
Date:_____________________________

What new information did we learn about Jennifer?

We learned.

Choose 4 new vocabulary words. Write the definitions and

then use them in an appropriate sentence
1._________________
means________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________.
Meaningful sentence:
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
___

2._________________
means________________________________________ _________
_________________________________________________________.

Purpose: To Read Critically

To use Coding the Text efficiently during nonfiction reading
Name:_____________________________________________
Date:_____________________________

Meaningful sentence:
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
___
3._________________
means________________________________________ _________
_________________________________________________________.
Meaningful sentence:
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
___
4._________________
means________________________________________ _________
_________________________________________________________.
Meaningful sentence:
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
____
Extra Credit:

Purpose: To Read Critically

To use Coding the Text efficiently during nonfiction reading
Name:_____________________________________________
Date:_____________________________

5._________________
means________________________________________ _________
_________________________________________________________.
Meaningful sentence:
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
____

6._________________
means________________________________________ _________
_________________________________________________________.
Meaningful sentence:
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
____