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The overarching question of your book is philosophical: are some people inherently bad, and if so, can society correct their moral failings? Has working on this project changed the way you think about human nature?
In the book, we do not so much philosophize or ponder whether people are inherently bad. Instead of asking why juvenile offenders initially get involved in serious and violent behavior, we are more interested in questions about “what to do with them” once they do.
Through Determinate Sentencing (broadly called Blended Sentencing in the book), the State of Texas has opted to give some of the most extreme serious and violent offenders one more chance to remain in the more protective and rehabilitative juvenile justice system, instead of being ushered to the adult justice system. In providing that opportunity, Texas, and really all juvenile justice systems, operate on the assumption that people are not inherently bad and that they can change. Our book starts at the point change “can” begin for the offenders—the process of sentencing the serious and violent offenders and how they progress through the facilities and programs of the Texas Youth Commission (TYC) in the search for change. The book then moves to an examination of the process of determining who has demonstrated enough change while incarcerated to be released back into the community after the TYC, and who has not demonstrated enough change and, instead, are transferred to the Texas prison system to continue serving their sentence. Next, the core of our book is an examination of the recidivism outcomes and factors related to recidivism among those deemed worthy of release instead of prison transfer. It is following this chapter on recidivism that our book is most philosophical. It is here where we ask the broader question of how many chances to change should we give to serious and violent juvenile offenders before they should essentially be considered "lost causes"?
This book has been the accumulation of more than a decade of research on juvenile offenders in the State of Texas. Working on this book has not really changed our view of human nature, or the ability of people to change. What has changed has been the realization that sometimes, even the best efforts and the best intentions may not be enough to change the trajectories of some individuals. Although juvenile delinquents are generally viewed as more amenable to treatment and more malleable than adult criminals, the reality is that despite their young age, there are powerful reasons why some juveniles engage in serious and violent behavior including murders, rapes, and destructive assaults. Sometimes, even the young are too far gone and too far broken to take another chance on them. It is sobering to acknowledge this, but the empirical evidence and data presented in our book confirm this reality.
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| Aftermath of youth riot, Mountain View State School for Boys, ca. 1975. Courtesy of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. |
Can you attribute high rates of recidivism to deficiencies in other institutions like the foster care system or job training programs?
I believe most individuals attribute recidivism and other negative outcomes to larger institutions such as juvenile correctional facilities and so on. But, to a large degree those individuals are wrong. One must realize that state institutions, like the Texas Youth Commission, are charged with changing more than a decade of behavior in a few short years. To expect major change is unrealistic, and to be frank, unfair to those who run and operate these agencies, and the youth they serve.
