It’s been four months now since I started learning what I have about the criminal justice system in Alabama. These are the issues I want to look at more closely — someday.
1. Recognition of serious and protracted psychological suffering as comparable to serious bodily injury. Why do assault statutes deal only with bodily injury? Why does the Alabama Code (and that of other states — maybe most) continue, well into the 21st century, to be based on mind-body dualism?
2. Rethinking of the prohibition on publicly naming juvenile offenders. It’s lovely to think that after a juvenile domestic violence offender sees the inside of a courtroom he will go and sin no more and that by protecting his identity he will have a chance to put the past behind him and go onto a brilliant law-abiding future. In the meantime, the rest of us can only keep our fingers crossed.
I suggest instead that embarrassment can be a strong deterrent, and that the internet has provided an underused means of helping the rest of us keep safe. In other words, the names of violent juvenile offenders who are found delinquent or who enter consent agreements should be easily accessible on a website publicized by schools for the period of their probation or until they reach adulthood. If a guy knows all the mothers of all the girls he might want to date can check a database and see if he had ever beat up another girl, he might learn to control his anger really really quickly. Then, fine, seal the records. Start over. Give him another chance — but also give his potential victims a chance to stay clear of him while he is working on his issues.
3. Refinement of Levels of Assault Charges. When one person beats up another, these are the two most likely charges: 1. Assault in the second degree, which is a Class C felony defined as “With intent to cause serious physical injury to another person, he or she causes serious physical injury to any person.” or 2. Assault in the third degree, which is a Class A misdemeanor defined as “With intent to cause physical injury to another person, he causes physical injury to any person.” As it stands, if I punch you in the nose, it’s a third degree misdemeanor. If I bang your head repeatedly on a hard surface and cause you to lose vision in an eye (but only for a few weeks), and shake you silly, strangle you til you nearly lose consciousness, and give you a concussion, it is also a third degree misdemeanor.
4. Designation in larger counties of a specially trained Victim’s Advocate for crimes adjudicated in the juvenile system. There are so many layers of secrecy that getting consistently correct information is far too difficult.
5. More aggressive prosecution of violent juvenile offenders. VOICES for Alabama’s Children 2008 reported that in Madison County, 215 (83%) kids were locked up for non-violent crimes. This is appalling. I think as a society we would agree that a violent crime against a person is more serious than one against property, and that a violent crime against a person is more serious than one that is victimless or that hurts only the perpetrator himself. Consider too the message sent to the offender when violent crimes are not aggressively prosecuted.
Aggressive YES!