Colorado is not alone
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It is shallow comfort to children already suffering from Direct File, but the realization that our current approach to juvenile justice is flawed, is slowly spreading. According to this article from Michigan, other states that have Direct File laws are rethinking the wisdom of those laws. Hopefully this realization cannot be long in coming to Colorado as well. Let’s hope so. Far too many children have had their lives sacrificed on the alters of political expediency and faulty logic.
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Well I don’t think that children should be sent to jail for the rest of there lives and i am not saying this because i am still under 20 but i do think that children do diserve a second chance to live the life of what they were ment to live. So all I am saying is that all kids that make mistakes do diserve the chance to try agine but if they do mess up all of chances that they get then ya let them suffer the conciquince.
SD,
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. You are absolutely right on. Kids deserve a second chance. The purpose of our judicial system is not to punish people, but to rehabilitate them. DAs have made the discussion about vengeance, not justice. There’s a big difference and the State of Colorado should recognize it.
Seth
Children absolutely deserve a second chance…especially when they have been abused their whole life and never given the chance to grow into normal, healthy people. A justice system that only focus on punitive justice is not in any way shape or form capable of dealing with children. How can DA’s not recognize that fact?
Since when is it the purpose of the justice system to rehabilitate and not punish? Some things, like child molesters, cannot be rehabilitated.
Louise,
You might be surprised to find that I don’t personally believe that we should let child molesters go…ever. That’s probably why I’m not a judge. Judges are charged with serving justice, not satisfying our personal desire for vengeance. All we’re saying is that it is a judge’s duty to balance public safety against a criminal defendants’ rights. If a child can be rehabilitated as a child, they should be. If they can’t, it should be up to a judge (not a District Attorney) to make that determination. In Colorado, children are being prosecuted in adult courts at the DA’s discretion with no determination by a juvenile judge as to whether they can be rehabilitated as a youth offender. That violates childrens’ rights. And its wrong.
…As a society we have as much of an obligation to protect children from the government as we do to protect them from someone like a child molester. District Attorneys are abusing children by trying them as adults in order to demonstrate that they are “tough on crime.” Those kids end up in adult prisons where they might be sexually abused. So, in some ways, trying a child as an adult is as bad and as abusive as molesting a child. DAs call kids monsters all the time in the press. Look at what a lot of DAs do to kids who don’t necessarily deserve it and ask yourself: “Is the DA any less of a monster?”
Louise,
The purpose of our Justice System, as the name implies, is to dispense “JUSTICE.” Now the debate over what justice is will never be settled, and people as far back as Socrates were wondering about that. However, it is safe to say what justice is not: Justice is NOT allowing a 15 year old who has lived a life of abuse and anguish to be thrown into the adult prison system to get more of the same.
I agree that you cannot rehabilitate some people, but the ones that can be rehabilitated deserve the chance at a full and happy life. The ones who cannot be rehabilitated should be dealt with as public safety dictates. At least that is my opinion.