April 2006

Message from the Executive Director

Opening Minds: Applying What We Know About Adolescent Brain Development to Treatment of Juvenile Offenders

by Charity Eleson

Intuitively, we know that teenagers are different. As parents, we sit at dinner tables with them, listening to their plans, their reasoning, their understanding of right and wrong, and we feel that maybe, just maybe, they're making progress. Then we're pulled into a different reality altogether when we find out that they've been kicked off the track team for underage drinking. How, we wonder, can this seemingly grown up individual display such sound reasoning in one setting and such flawed decision-making in another?

This is what Ronald Dahl, M.D. a well-known researcher of adolescent brain development calls "the paradox of adolescence," and it is at the heart of what the Council is looking at in its current work on adolescent brain development and the juvenile justice system. (See Wendy Henderson's article in this issue about our recently released report on the topic.)

We are interested in applying what we know about the latest research on adolescent brain development to the creation of better policies and practices governing the treatment and prosecution of adolescents who break the law. Judging by the attendance of 462 social workers, attorneys, psychotherapists, educators and state and county administrators at our recent Open Minds conference in Madison, there's a healthy interest in this emergent area of research, and in how we can use it to produce better results for kids.

The research tells us what we've known and what, in some areas, our laws reflect: that teenagers are not yet fully developed. For so many purposes under the law, we put into practice our assumptions that teens are different: They can't vote until they're 18. They are considered children for purposes of child protective services up to the age of 18. They can't legally purchase cigarettes until the age of 18 and can't buy alcohol until they're 21. And they can't apply for Wisconsin Works (W-2) prior to the age of 18. The underlying premise in all these laws is that individuals through the age of 17 are considered children, dependent and still developing. Yet when it comes to the commission of a crime, our laws take an abrupt shift and hold all 17-year-olds fully responsible.

This was not always the case. In the mid-1990s, in the midst of a spike in violent juvenile crime across the nation, Wisconsin joined many other states in changing laws to lower the age of jurisdiction, make it easier to waive teens into adult court and more difficult to prove that they should be waived back. These changes were made with the endorsement of juvenile judges, prosecutors, and some counties, who were struggling with increasing costs associated with a spike in crime, and saw this as a means to unload the costs of incarcerating 17-year-olds in juvenile corrections. Unfortunately, none of us had the benefit of more recent research on adolescent brain development to inform the public and policy debates about these decisions.

We now know more. We know that the area of the brain responsible for impulse control and reasoning is the last to develop. This means that adolescents, while appearing fully developed in other areas, are simply less biologically able to control certain behaviors. This doesn't mean that they can't or aren't learning to develop more impulse control during this important stage of development. But it means that this learning will be progressive as they go through the incremental stages of development, which is why we expect that they aren't ready to assume adult responsibilities in so many different areas of their lives.

Also critical during this stage of development is the adult support that surrounds them. Kids incarcerated in adult facilities, surrounded by adult criminals, supported with services designed for adults and not the developmental needs of children, will not progress. In fact, national research has shown that kids who are incarcerated in adult facilities are more likely to recidivate and more likely to commit more serious crimes than those treated in juvenile facilities. A second study shows that kids committed to adult facilities-jails or prisons-were 81 percent more likely to have a technical violation or a new case against them than those receiving a juvenile sanction.

Add to that the fact that there are lifelong consequences to a criminal conviction. All kids who are tried as adults will be listed on CCAP, a state website that lists felony and misdemeanor convictions. Further, for some felony convictions, kids can be barred from receiving federal financial aid for college, barred from receiving food stamps and barred from public housing assistance. Additionally, some kids lose their driver's licenses. Given the fact that kids who are convicted and incarcerated are far more likely to be kids of color, you've got the makings for a lifetime of repeated failures for a segment of kids who will struggle to succeed academically, financially and legally.

We need to rethink what we're doing and roll back laws that treat all kids unfairly and disproportionately affect children of color in our state. The Council and our board of directors have committed to these changes as one of our top strategic priorities. Our first step is to return 17-year-olds to the juvenile justice system.

We have 50 volunteers from around the state who have committed to helping us organize support for this change, including organizing community forums and getting signatures on a petition to the Governor and Legislature calling for 17 year olds to be returned to the juvenile justice system. Jill Jacklitz and Wendy Henderson of the Council staff are coordinating this effort, called "Justice for Wisconsin Youth". If you're interested in getting involved, please contact them at jilljacklitz@wccf.org or whenderson@wccf.org. They will give you options for involvement-big or small-that will fit the time you have available to commit in order to help make a difference for Wisconsin's kids.