Study denounces waiver of juveniles to adult court

The Attica prison rebellion remembered

and an essay by Mumia Abu Jamal

As the U.$. Congress hammers out the final wording of the youth
crime bill it has considered since April, a new study released by
the Justice Policy Institute denounces one of the gross
practices heralded by the pending legislation -- the ability of
prosecutors to decide whether to try juveniles in adult or
juvenile court.

In most states, this power resides with the judge. In some, laws spell 
out which crimes get waived to adult court.
But in 15 states, prosecutors can make this decision on a case-by-case 
basis. The Justice Policy Institute study was based on Florida, the 
leading state in this practice. In 1998, Florida prosecutors sent 4,660 
children to adult court.(1) 

In thirty six states, judges make the decision. In 1995, judges sent 
less than ten thousand juveniles to adult court. But Florida's 
prosecutors transferred 7,000 in that same year. (2)

By a variety of emperical measures, allowing prosecutors to decide 
Juvenile crime rates are higher, not lower, in
states with this practice. And at the same time that the waivers
are increasing, the number of cases going through the juvenile
justice system continues to soar. Florida has the 6th highest
juvenile incarceration rate per 100,000.(3) Finally, the Justice Policy 
Institute cites
other studies showing that juveniles sent to adult prison are more
likely to be arrested again than those sent to juvenile
facilities.

And Justice Policy Institute conclude the policy's failure based on 
moral/ethical
grounds: The practice disproportionately targets oppressed nation
youth -- with Blacks 2.3 times more likely than whites to be
transferred to adult court.(4) The majority of cases transferred
are for non-violent property crimes, not the violent cases for
which the practice was supposedly created.(5) And the study
reports that the suicide rate for youths is 7.7% higher when they
are in adult instead of juvenile prisons.(6)

Childhood and adulthood are socially defined categories, policed
in the U.$. by a patriarchal and white supremacist state. Some
acts are criminal only by virtue of the age of the "offender" --
running away, breaking a curfew, having sex. It is bad enough that
this legal system decides who is and who is not a child, as in
statutory rape laws. When they are considered youth, people are
not permitted to control their own lives. So the laws exist to
control all children. When they are no longer considered youth,
they are oppressed or repressed in this country based primarily on
national origin. So all children are paternalistically
"protected," which really means their parents and relatives are
protected from others having access to abuse them. But oppressed
nation young people are more likely to be considered adults at an
earlier age -- they are out of the frying pan and into the fire.

When prosecutors are given the authority to determine who is a
child and who is an adult, the system is exposed for its
vengefulness, irrationality, and national oppression. For example,
in cases where the legal system allows discretion, there is
usually a bias against people convicted of committing crimes
against those who are most protected by the system -- as in death
penalties being most likely when the victims are white.

While we believe the JPI study ends up painting too rosy a picture
of the juvenile justice system by comparison, it is true that by
mission and orientation the juvenile justice system claims to
rehabilitate where the adult system exists -- by its own admission
-- only to repress. When prosecutors decide to try children as
adults in court, they are deciding against even the pretense of
rehabilitation. And they are empowered to make that decision based
on the supposed character of the individual or his/her crime.

We also reports on this study to expose the ever-growing trend
toward longer, worse sentences and increasing repression of youth
and oppressed nations in general. In addition to pending federal
law, "a ballot initiative which will go before California voters
in March, 2000 would also grant prosecutors
discretion to decide whether a juvenile should be tried in adult
court."(7) Our criticisms of the criminal/juvenile injustice
system are thorough and across the board. No one practice, if
eliminated, would rehabilitate this vicious system. But studying
the specific practices can expose the system's nature. Join MIM
and RAIL's efforts to struggle against the injustice system.

Notes:
1. "The Florida Experiment: An Analysis of the Impact of Granting
Prosecutors Discretion to try Juveniles as Adults," Justice Policy
Institute. Page 1. http://www.cjcj. org/jpi/florida.html.
2. Miami Herald, 28 Sept. 1999.
3. "The Florida Experiment," page 5.
4. "The Florida Experiment," page 3 5. "The Florida Experiment,"
p. 2
6. "The Florida Experiment," page 9
7. "New Study finds 'prosecutorial discretion waiver,' which is
currently under consideration by Congress, disparately applied,
ineffective at curbing crime," JPI Press Release,
http://www.cjcj.org/jpi/floridapr.html



Remember the Attica rebellion

This is a statement from the Maoist Internationalist Movement released 
on the 28th anniversary of the Attica prison rebellion.

September 9 marks the 28th anniversary of the Attica prisoners' 
rebellion against both inhumane conditions within the New York State 
prison system, and against the repression of political struggle 
throughout Amerika. The rebellion occurred in the context of increasing 
anti-imperialist organizing and brought Amerika's attention to the needs 
of prisoners. The struggle at Attica Prison in upstate New York also led 
radicals outside Amerika's gulags to examine the treatment of prisoners 
within the anti-imperialist movement.

In remembering Attica, MIM honors the masses murdered by Amerika. We 
take this opportunity to build upon historical revolutionary lessons, 
and to continue the struggle against Amerikan imperialism entire and its 
internal domination through police occupation and the prison system. We 
urge prisoners to join United Struggle from Within, study Maoist 
political economy and philosophy and develop an historical materialist 
analysis. Such study will give prisoners the best tools to build anti-
imperialist revolution toward socialism.

Prisoner members of the Black Panther Party, Young Lords Party, 
Weatherman and other groups organized within Attica, and some prisoners 
participated in Maoist study groups. Prisoners formed the Attica 
Liberation Front and presented a list of demands to New York State 
Commissioner of Correction Services Russell Oswald in May 1971. The 
prisoners wrote: 

"We are firm in our resolve and we demand as human beings the dignity 
and justice that is due to us by right of our birth. We do not know how 
the present system of brutality and dehumanization and injustice has 
been allowed to be perpetuated in this day of enlightenment, but we are 
living proof of its existence, and we cannot allow it to continue."(1)

The prisoners' demands included an end to prison slave labor, freedom to 
be politically active, uncensored access to publications and mail, open 
communications with the outside world, a healthy diet, freedom to 
practice religion, modernized education, adequate medical attention and 
genuinely rehabilitative programs within the prisons.

MIM and prisoner activists continue to fight for such basic demands in 
Amerika. But the idea of prisoners as humyn beings who deserve "dignity 
and justice by right of [their] birth" as the Attica prisoners wrote is 
distasteful to imperialism. Prisons are a vital component of this stage 
of Amerikan capitalism. The gulags restrain independent activism of the 
internal semi-colonies by splitting up families and communities, and by 
wrecking the continuity of social life that can nourish political 
dissent. We must recognize the level of repression directed at would-be 
revolutionary groups. Organizing at this time must build foundations for 
revolution. We can build on the gains in education around Attica and 
similar movements by building independent institutions of the oppressed. 
Reforms within the system will be bundled up and burned by the 
imperialists at the next opportunity.

In the wake of the Attica rebellion, prisoners promised nearly all their 
28 demands except amnesty and repatriation to a Third World country.(2) 
In 1991 Akil Aljundi, a prisoner injured during the Attica massacre, 
told MIM "in a lot of ways, [prison conditions have] gotten worse. What 
has happened is the state has had an opportunity to learn off of Attica, 
so they've adopted measures that are more repressive. In a lot of cases, 
they've given prisoners things that look like panaceas, you know, quick-
solution stuff which basically is to keep people from stating what the 
problems really are."(3)

During the year from August 1970 to August 1971, there were nine 
rebellions and strikes at other New York State jails and prisons. 
Beginning with the Tombs (Metropolitan Corrections Center, renamed by 
the prisoners in recognition of the many men killed there), uprisings 
over brutal conditions and treatment spread throughout the state.(1) At 
Attica, prisoners were allowed only one shower per week. They were 
allowed visits only through wire mesh, and interception and censorship 
of mail was the norm. In the metal shop, prisoners worked for 
$.29/day.(2) That prisoner warehousing and conditions under the Amerikan 
lockdown have worsened since.

MIM remembers the brothers who were murdered by New York State Troopers 
and vindictive prison guards on September 13th, 1971 when the prison was 
retaken.  Ten hostages and 29 prisoners were murdered in the assault by 
New York State Troopers. The premeditated murders took place with the 
knowledge and explicit non-interference of Governor Nelson Rockefeller. 
This was the same Rockefeller who passed New York State's infamous 
mandatory minimum drug laws in 1973 and moved from the Governorship to 
the u.$. Vice Presidential campaign.

Outside observers sequestered from the yard where the massacre took 
place reported being incapacitated by CS gas that was thrown down in the 
yard. The observers believed there was no way the prisoners - the direct 
targets of the gas - could have been a threat to anyone. Yet the only 
rationale the state ever offered for shooting so many people dead was 
that these prisoners were aiming to hurt their hostages.(2)

MIM argues that the massacre was not necessary to the prison retaking, 
only to the prison's function of social control. Like the brutality of 
imprisonment itself, this type of retribution against protest is the 
state's method of deterring future organization and rebellion.

Before any autopsies were done, the state announced that prisoners had 
killed the hostages with spears, and attempted to bury the hostages' 
bodies. The coroner came out with the truth about their deaths 
independently.(2) The state's mercenaries also planted weapons next to 
prisoners to create the myth that prisoners were armed. Such myths serve 
to put finishing touches on Amerika's justifications for treating 
prisoners as animals.

MIM has organized talks by former Attica prisoner, Frank "Big Black" 
Smith. He describes how even after the massacre, Attica prisoners were 
tortured and threatened with mutilation and death. To get back to their 
cell wing, the prisoners were run between two rows of baton swinging 
correctional officers, barefoot and naked over broken glass. National 
Guardmen reported that wounded prisoners were beaten as the guards 
carried them to the infirmary or ambulances.(2) 

In MIM's 1991 commemorative Attica coverage, a Washington prisoner 
wrote: "To appreciate the events at Attica, it is first necessary to put 
them in proper political and historical context. Today many prisoners 
view justice as nothing more than a cop's bullet in the back or as 
endless years of meaningless confinement. That's bourgeois justice. What 
the brothers at Attica were fighting for is proletarian justice, which 
is an end to the system that perpetuates the destructive cycle that 
imprisonment represents. They wanted us to see their rebellion as one 
battle in a continuous struggle waged on an international level, not 
just one isolated incident."(4)

VOICE

This is an essay by Mumia Abu Jamal entitled "Clinton's Poverty Tour". 
with Mumia's access to the media limited, this essay is read by the 
Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League. See for yourself why the United 
Snakes wants to silence revolutionary leader Mumia Abu Jamal.

[Mumia Essays CD, Vol 1, Track 1 4:16]