A tough opinion to hold

James O. Born
I thought long and hard about this post before I wrote it. I tend to keep things light and easy to balance out the tougher days I have at work. Even my novels reflect things that I would like to be able to do as a police officer as opposed to things that really happen. Jim Grippando's post last Friday talked about a horrible event that had occurred down here in South Florida where one teenager was set on fire by a group of other teenagers. I look at crime trends across the country and realize things like this can happen virtually anywhere. It doesn't change the fact that crazy and nasty things happen in South Florida all the time.

I rarely take specific law enforcement positions on the blog because, frankly, I don't like debating people on opinions which took me years to reach based on actual contact with criminals and victims. Too often I’ve had people tell me what's wrong with police work or the criminal justice system when their only experience is reading newspapers or watching TV shows. I'm not saying police departments or the criminal justice system are perfect, clearly they are not. But contrary to what some people might think, everyone involved in that system from the cop on the beat to the underpaid public defender to the judge who could make more money in private practice, generally try to do their very best.

The reason I bring this up is that I saw a short news story on the same incident that Jim reported on last Friday. The young men who assaulted and burned the victim were going to be charged as adults. It is not uncommon for teenagers to be charged as adults in particularly heinous crimes. This occurred up here in Palm Beach County last year when a gang of youths broke into a woman's apartment, raped her and terrorized her and her young son for an entire night.

Anyone who's read this blog for any amount of time would probably not call me an extremist on either side (although I do admit to watching Chris Matthews every night) but this is an issue which my experience has taught me to be just as hard-core as possible. This is an opinion born of sorrow, fear and all the other base emotions which legislative powers have attempted to keep out of the courtroom since the country was founded.

I am in favor of charging teenagers as adults in vicious, violent crimes. That's it. I have no real flexibility in this personally. People will often try to talk me out of this position and, as I stated earlier, I'm not interested in a debate. Since this is a blog and not a debate I can state my reasons and you can accept them or ignore them as you please.

Advocates talk about charging teenagers as adults affecting their lives in a negative way. I do not deny that. But the second half of that equation is the need to protect citizens who are not prepared for the violence that some of these criminals are capable of. By letting teenagers slide for violent crime that shocks us and goes far outside the normal boundaries of society we are allowing them to return to walk among our own children who have not made the same choices they have. In my experience I have found that there is very little that can be done to turn around young people who have found it in themselves to use violence on a level that gets them charged as an adult. I would greatly prefer to protect young people who are working hard in school and trying to make a life for themselves than to release vicious criminals back into society prematurely.
Before I start getting e-mails I want to say that I am in no way infringing on a person's rights. I do not condone arresting the wrong people, though it happens, manufacturing evidence or forcing witnesses to make untrue statements. I am simply saying that charging young people as adults is more beneficial than it is detrimental to society in certain cases. Everyone knows an exception. An ambitious prosecutor who wants TV time. I’m talking about cases like the burning down here in Florida. There are a lot of instances where teenagers should be charged as adults. Society is changing and we need to stay ahead of the curve whether it’s intervention before they go off track so wildly or insuring that they don’t go it a second time..

I am not happy that I've been forced to take a position like this. I've been involved with young people in sports, our church, schools and in writing programs. I like being around young people and appreciate their views and optimism. It distresses me that depriving a young person of their freedom is ever necessary. But based on what I have experienced, it is.

Let the rancor fly.