It takes a village

There is nothing else in this world that could make one’s heart bleed than that of reading about those who have fallen victim to crimes committed by juvenile delinquents. Most of these are children themselves whose innocence made them too vulnerable to an unexpected danger. Anyone who has counseled troubled children can relate to the frustration and anger one feels upon seeing their lack of remorse. When confronted, they respond merely with a blank stare, or worse with a chuckle or by mouthing distorted, smart-alecky logic that they hear from adults. What we must realize though is that it is this lack of appropriate responses that tells us these children do not understand the gravity of what they had just done.

Let us close our eyes and unclench our fists for a moment to understand the stories of juvenile delinquents. Forget for a second the crimes they committed and make sense of the situations that led them to commit such deplorable acts. To begin with, many of them were unwanted by their parents. As a result, they found their need for belongingness in the shared friendship of deviants — a peer of young minds defiled at an early age by images and experiences of violence, sex, drugs, and other situations that deprive them of dignity. When these children violate laws due to lack of adult supervision and nurturing, will they be helped by locking them up in prisons with hardened criminals and ingraining in their psyche that they are doomed to a life of crime?

It is natural for growing children and young adolescents to be self-centered. The primary role of parents and adults is to guide the immature minds of the youth. Psych 101 taught us that adolescents are by nature impulsive, daring, and deluded by feelings of invulnerability. These, of course, do not lead to criminal behavior, thanks to the accumulated effects of having a nurturing family, of learning rules and consequences from a good school, and of socializing with well-mannered members of our community. All of these institutions painstakingly teach the child to differentiate what is right from wrong. But that is not true for children who go home and are greeted by the curses of people forced to take care of them. That is not the case for students who are kicked out of school because of improper conduct and failing grades. That is not the story for youths who feel that society is not mindful of their existence.

A couple of years ago, a study was released during the American Psychological Association Convention revealing that maturation in the adolescent brain takes place far later in development.  Using MRI, psychology professor Laurence Steinberg, Ph.D. found out that “heightened sensitivity to anticipated rewards motivates adolescents to engage in risky acts when the potential for pleasure is high. This hypersensitivity to reward is particularly pronounced when they are with their friends.”

Dr. Steinberg explains the implications of his study in simple English, “Adolescents mature intellectually before they mature socially or emotionally, a fact that helps explain why teen-agers who are so smart in some respects sometimes do surprisingly dumb things.” Policemen and other law enforcers claim that apprehended children brag that they do not fear the law because they know they cannot be put in jail. Other people then rush to interpret these words as signs of early maturity. Dr. Steinberg’s study enlightens us with another explanation.

While not part of the study, we can add that if the adolescent brain is to mature, it necessitates the element of nurture, which means having enough experiences of guidance and discipline coming from adults in their immediate community. Without this crucial factor, maturity would surely be drastically delayed.

The study cited above may thus provide the neuro-scientific justification for downgrading juvenile accountability. We should laud our government officials who have rejected the initiative to amend RA 9344 and have called instead for the government to invest more in rehabilitation programs for Children In Conflict with the Law (CICL). Some concerned citizens have launched a Twitter campaign using #SayNoto12 to educate the public about the wisdom behind the law that seeks to correct and not merely punish the behavior of CICLs. There is also the story of Chief Inspector Michael Bastes featured in The Freeman.  Despite his meager salary as a policeman, he finds time to involve street children in sports, fitness, spiritual activities, and feeding programs. All of these are illustrations of what society should do for children who grew up deprived of their right to have a normal family. Such acts are born of the realization that it is adults, not children, who are responsible for creating a safe and secure environment for all children. When grown-ups like us fail to create that kind of humane society, please let us not shift the blame away from ourselves by jailing our children.