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IACHR Presentation of The Report On Children and Adolescents in The United States
IACHR Presentation of The Report On Children and Adolescents in The United States
sessions at the University of Colorado Law School from September 29 to October 5, marking the
first time the commission has held public hearings in the United States outside of its Washington,
D.C. offices, and the first time that hearings have been held at an American law school. Amongst Commented [bS1]: Nice intro
nearly forty sessions regarding alleged human rights violations throughout the Western
Hemisphere, topics included: “Reports of Harassment and Violence against Female Social Formatted: Font: Italic
Leaders in Bolivia”, “Rights of Indigenous Qéqchi Maya Families Affected by Forced Evictions Formatted: Font: Italic
in Guatemala”, and “Rights of Persons with Disabilities in El Salvador”. AndOon the evening of Formatted: Font: Italic
Thursday, October 4, the presentation topicwas of particular interest to juvenile defenders and
advocates for child welfare—the IACHR made the official presentation of the Report “Children Formatted: Font: Italic
Jefa de Gabinete (Chief of the Cabinet) Marisol Blanchard, President of the IACHR
Margarette May Macaulay, and the First Vice-President of IACHR, Commissioner Esmeralda A.
De Troitoño presented the report, which was prepared following a March 2013 hearing during
the 144th period of IACHR sessions, where the Commission addressed the impact of
incarcerating persons younger than eighteen in adult facilities. The resulting report addresses the
very high number of children who enter the criminal justice system for adults in the United Commented [bS2]: For adults or AS adults?
States, and the additional violations that transpire as they are confined in adult prisons. The
recommendation of IACHR was reiterated again at this giving of the report: that the states
strengthen efforts to respect and ensure rights of children who come into contact with the
criminal justice system. Juveniles within American borders are theoretically guaranteed special
protections, in addition to those of life, liberty, and due process, but once they are determined to
be treated as an adult, they lose these special protections. The report is concerned with children
stripped of rights following a subjective legal determination and the implications of that process
The United States is one of only two countries who that has not ratified the Convention
on the Rights of Children, has failed to adopt the internationally recognized definition of juvenile
status—any person under age eighteen—within its laws, and has not recognized the rights and
discrimination, to be heard, and to full development. The Convention on Rights of Children Commented [bS3]: Maybe break this into 2 separate
sentences.
establishes that justice must specialize on rights of children, and the Universal Declaration on
Human Rights itself recognizes the need for special protections for children and adolescents.
The adult criminal justice system is not prepared to serve this population of juveniles; the
system will not provide the care these juveniles need while the juvenilesthey are locked up with
adults. Beyond the adult system’s inability to assist in their rehabilitation, it perpetrates active
harm upon them: jJuveniles incarcerated in adult facilities are five times more likely to
experience rape and/or abuse and two times more likely to experience abusive treatment by
adults are four to five times more likely to commit suicide than those in the juvenile system, and
children who enter the adult system demonstrate higher recidivism rates than those adjudicated
as juveniles.
How a child may enter the adult system differs on a state-by-state basis: direct file
jurisdiction allows criminal charges against children to be filed immediately into adult court at
the prosecutor’s discretion; transfer jurisdiction allows the matter to be filed into juvenile court
and sent to adult court by the judge’s discretion; and “once adult, always adult” statutory
schemes provide that a child who is tried in adult court once always remains an adult in the eyes
of the law. These mechanisms, which as turningtransform a child into an adult by way of a mere
legal fiction, are applied inequitably: bBlack children represent 16% of the total youth population
in the U.S., yet they comprise 28% of all youth arrested, 35% of youth transferred to adult courts,
n were Civil Society RepresentativesBrian Evans, the State Campaigns Director at the
Campaign for Youth Justice, present as a Civil Society Representative, compared methods of
filing children into adult court: transfer jurisdiction, at least allows an hearing opportunity for a
hearing, unlike direct file. In the absence of a state that doesn’t transfer juveniles, states that only
use judicial transfer represent best practices: California, Hawaii, Kansas, Missouri, and
Tennessee. Thirteen states once tried all sixteen and seventeens-year-olds as adults, but that
practice now only occurs in four, and Vermont has raised juvenile court jurisdiction for
misdemeanors to age twenty. Pursuant to New York’s theirRaise the Age law, as of October 1,
2018, the state no longer automatically charges all sixteen-year-olds as adults, and in October
2019, will do the same for seventeen-year-olds. He cautioned that while amongst states, juvenile
State, expressed his support for the Commission. Thomas Weatherall, an Alternate
Representative from the U.S. Mission to the OAS communicated the National District Attorneys
Association’s concern that focusing on the human rights of these juvenile leaves behind their
victims and threatens public safety. While some adolescents commit serious crimes, the
prosecution of children as adults occurs for lower crimes, such as property crimes. Weatherall
claimed that statistics regarding youth incarceration in adult facilities should clarify that less than
one hundred children are incarcerated in prisons, while about three thousand children are in jails.
The government attempts to address racial and ethnic disparities through The Office of Juvenile
Justice and Delinquency Prevention, which promulgates four core requirements for eligibility for
secure facilities; and removal of juveniles from adult jails and lockups.
Finally, the IACHR welcomed two youth speakers who brought a unique based on their
direct lived experiences. Anlyn Addis, who works with ACLU of Michigan's Juvenile Life
Without Parole Initiative, brought these youth to speak in collaborationive with her organization,
the Youth Justice Fund. Elvir Purovic was incarcerated in prison at the age of fifteen and told the
audience that “prison at fifteen means I had no human rights. I couldn’t get my GED until
sixteen but could be locked up with adults at fifteen. I lost my childhood at fifteen, I lost my
piece of mind, my serenity.” Dominic Passmore was fourteen when he was tried as adult for
armed robbery. He was sentenced to nine to fifteen years in adult prison, where he obtained his
GED, left prison on earliest release, and is now certified as a personal trainer. Dominic shared “I
used to stand inside my room, my cell, and see guys in suits. I used to think ‘maybe this guy is
important and we’re going to get some kind of change.’ But help never came.” Dominic said that
regardless of advances mitigating the conditions of juvenile confinement in adult facilities, “[i]t’s
still kids in prison—no matter what the stats say, the number of children in prison is ridiculous.”
Both Elvir and Dominic shared powerful spoken word poetry, speaking power to
struggles they’d overcome. Tearfully, the Commissioner Esmeralda A. De Troitoño asked if both
young men would provide their poems to put on the IACHR website, and concluded, “This
meeting was not just about the report; as members of society, we need to recognize the value of
all human beings…We must work to ensure that all souls together, regardless of race or color,