Three main elements that surfaced for me when observing the viewpoint of age were in regards to gender, ethnicity, and culture. Dave Chappelle discusses the judicial system giving a 15 year old African American teenager a life sentence for involuntary manslaughter. The idea was discussed that the sentence would cause one to believe that the court felt he was aware of the consequences and understood his actions, as opposed to the 15 year old African American female teenager that R. Kelly allegedly urinated on during a sexual act.
It appears in Dave Chappelle’s view that the African American youth are exposed to life in a grittier and perhaps more adult definition. He described growing up and at 15 smoking reefer, starting his career and watching those around him at that age also display what would be considered adult behavior. When he describes 15 year old Elizabeth Smart being held captive by “Hillbillies” in Utah he makes an inference of naiveté that would be attributed by the writer to a rural Caucasian upbringing.
I do agree that based upon a youth’s experience and taking a person-in-environment view point that there are certain levels of maturation that may not exist in every 15 year old teenager. With that being said, I have observed a cultural bias in the level of autonomy that is attributed to particular youths within the judicial system.
At 15, legally you cannot obtain your driver’s license, or gain employment by a major corporation. In my opinion that is because the insurance risk would be too high, the risk of litigation isn’t worth it and that’s because a 15 year generally is incapable of assessing the full consequences of their choices. At 15 I made some amazing, could have been, life altering choices. I did not have fear of consequences nor did I feel any hesitation in regards to the unknown. I don’t think my upbringing was incredibly different from what today’s youths face and for that reason it’s a lot easier to relate to what the average child has to make choices for and against.
I don’t believe there is an easy resolution in the perception of one culture’s youth as opposed to another’s. To a certain degree it is evolutionary for a certain aspect of the population to have a broader definition and understanding of what being 15 means. Life can dictate to you what expectations of your age have been determined.
Wow, this is a really well-designed blog! I love the background -really excellent!
ReplyDeleteYou brought up some excellent points in your first posting - indeed, there are so many factors that influence individual maturity levels, decision-making ability, and the capacity to determine the consequences of an action that are really variable in youth depending on their age, social status, upbringing, economic class, neighborhood, family, etc. The list is very broad. And this causes a host of difficulties for law enforcement, parents, schools and other folks who work with youth on a regular basis. Law enforcement in particular is particularly difficult when it comes to juvenile crime because of these differences as you pointed out with you very thorough examples from the piece comparing and contrasting the Elizabeth Smart case. Yet the system is set up to try to be fair and equitable about punishment in the wake of these discrepancies in development. It's a tough situation with few clear answers.
Hopefully through exploring the class materials and examples, we can see some perspectives on how various groups from law enforcement, to schools, parents, communities, and even the youth themselves are dealing with the factors that influence justice issues pertaining to youth.
Excellent first post, I look forward to reading more from you!