Youthful Offenders and Proposition 21

Re the passage of Proposition 21.

Young people are not adults and do not think like adults. They commit violent crimes; they are bitter and filled with hatred; they use drugs and sell them. Who gives them the drugs to sell? They vandalize and murder but their immaturity, their lifestyle, their lack of basic skills, their failures, their guilt makes them vulnerable.

I worked with the California Youth Authority as a volunteer teacher one day a week for four years. I found that most of these delinquents are not hardened criminals but survivors and imitators. The gang becomes their family, their support, their security. One girl with whom I worked was given drugs and made a prostitute when she was 12 so her mother could buy drugs. Where would you be if this happened to you? When they are paroled with few skills, what do many do to survive? Sell drugs, steal and commit other crimes!

We try youthful offenders as adults because they commit adult crimes. We give them the death penalty or life in prison. Put them away! Turn a cold shoulder on life’s losers. Is this the solution?

Rehabilitation is the only answer. Their prison term must become a life-giving experience, with tough but compassionate officers and counselors, with good teachers, strict discipline and relevant courses to give them at least the basic skills to cope in today’s world. Instead of lockups, give them jobs. Don’t let them become couch potatoes.

Above all give them a God to whom they can turn in trial and loneliness. Not easy, and sometimes unrewarding, but far, far better then sending them into adult prisons or condemning them to death.

SISTER MARY LOUISE WANAMAKER

Thousand Oaks