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March 3, 2005
Associated Press Writer Gary Tanner is reporting that a 14-year-old male high school freshman has been charged with shooting his womyn school bus driver in Tennessee.(1) Already, a "public defender" Jack Lockert is attributing the act to mental illness: "We obviously feel like he has severe mental issues. He's an A and B student and had never been in trouble before."
The idea here is that a student who gets good grades should be well-adjusted, and if they so defy the stereotype of the well-behaved, studious student, then they must be mentally ill. Typically, children's good behavior is not put in the context of their being disciplined under the patriarchy, and deviations from good behavior are viewed as manifestations of psychological, individual problems, rather than the group oppression of children and their gender socialization, for instance. For this increasingly popular view, we can thank folks like DemoKKKrat Tipper Gore, who chaired the June 1999 White House Conference on Mental Health, which promoted the products of the psychopharmaceutical industry. Gore opposed the stigma against "mentally ill" individuals, but did nothing to challenge the pro-psychiatry and pro-therapy notion of mental illness itself. Gore has gone as far as comparing children's "mental illness" symptoms to broken arms, which surely need medical attention.(2)
In Tennessee, "Community members" are shocked at the alleged "murderer," who apparently has "mental issues."(3) Supposedly, the only thing the bus driver did was "discipline" the student for using some tobacco--and profanity. We at MIM Notes could likewise make assumptions about the driver--that she was a serial rapist of children for example. This would give adults a taste of their own medicine--what it's like to make assumptions. One thing for sure, we do not believe the media selling newspapers on this story when it says that the suspect is just crazy. We also have no respect for defense attorneys leaping up to pin the crazy label without investigation.
If the story about tobacco and profanity is true, then it is true that imperialist decadence has found its way into Amerikan children. The callous murder would be an example of a system's problem, not occasional "craziness," as if this were an individual problem, when not all countries have nearly the problem with street crime murder and state-organized mass murder known as war.
The School Bus Information Council, in a press release, says that the killing was, while maybe a response to disciplining, still a "senseless end to a life marked by caring for others."(4) The School Bus Information Council has taken advantage of the incident in order to uphold Joyce Gregory as a "responsible adult" who was just doing a laudable job--driving children to school.
All children should be grateful. Out of the goodness of their hearts, responsible adults drive you "kids" to school for only $10-$20 an hour plus benefits to do so in 2002 (School Bus Fleet Magazine). They're not as parasitic as millionaires. So, just sit your asses down on those seats and shut up. Oh yeah, and school is good for you, so just take it.
"The big yellow school bus is emblematic of our freedom, mobility and confidence that our children are safe and secure."(4)
Since oh-so-oppressed Amerikan school bus drivers everywhere have so conspicuously raised the issue of mobility, let's not forget that busing is one of the most obvious manifestations of the control of children's mobility. In fact, "the big yellow school bus" is emblematic of adults' mobility and children's relative immobility.
In January 2002, a Pennsylvania Christian school bus driver Otto Nuss, armed with a rifle, drove his passengers against their will to Washington, D.C.: a freak manifestation of children's differential mobility in patriarchal society.
The Supreme Court abolishes the juvenile death penalty
The fourteen-year-old Tennessee school bus shooting suspect would not have been eligible for the death penalty anyway, in Tennessee or elsewhere in the united $tates, but there is an interesting confluence between the representation of the suspect as a mentally ill individual and the representation of juveniles on death row as being mentally inferior.
On Tuesday, March 1, 2005, the Supreme Court banned the death penalty for juveniles throughout the united $tates. This moves more than seventy people off of death row, most of whom are Black or Latino. In principle, MIM favors the death penalty until the distant day of communism when everyone will be a pacifist. However, in practice in the capitalist countries, we favor a moratorium on the death penalty, because we have seen that for example the united $tates cannot apply it without racism.
Since 1988, the death penalty had already been prohibited for individuals younger than sixteen, but now the Supreme Court has banned the death penalty for persyns convicted for crimes that they allegedly committed when they were younger than eighteen. In MIM Notes 294, we reported that the United $tates executed six juveniles in the 1990s, compared with 0 for Saddam Hussein. We have no doubt that such unfavorable comparisons were a factor in the Supreme Court's decision. The average persyn in Amerika has tolerated the death penalty for juveniles just fine for decades, but a more progressive influence on the united $tates than its own alleged working class is international public opinion.
MIM would applaud the Supreme Court decision as a belated matter of opposing the repression of youth in patriarchal society, as well as the repression of oppressed nationalities, and oppressed people in general. In June 2000, the 74 offenders on death row, convicted for crimes committed when juveniles, were 63% oppressed nationalities (roughly).(6) 80% of their "victims" were adults. 64% of their victims were white. Disturbingly when mitigating evidence is so important in death penalty sentencing, "in most cases, Lewis and colleagues found that the inmates and their families did not want to acknowledge past abuse [by their family and others in this patriarchal society] or mental illness."(6) The Supreme Court's decision is especially crucial after some, such as former California Governor Pete Wilson and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, have supported the death penalty for offenders as young as fourteen and younger.
So, it is strategically useful to encourage and pressure the oppressors to be consistent with their view that children are inherently incompetent and vulnerable. At the same time, however, resisting repression under the imperialist-patriarchy does not mean accepting the oppressors' reasons for abolishing death penalty sentences for juveniles. Notably, the reasons have nothing to do with national oppression or the patriarchal oppression of children. On the contrary, the Supreme Court's distinctions between adults and children reinforce patriarchal ideology, and the Supreme Court also reinforces psychology (see MIM Theory , no. 9, Psychology and Imperialism , http://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/etext/mt/mt9.html ).
In the slip opinion of the Court and after noting a tendency of individual states to either abolish or otherwise refrain from using the death penalty, the Court says that juveniles, like the mentally retarded, are "categorically less culpable than the average criminal" ("Syllabus," p. 3). They follow this up with:
Juveniles' susceptibility to immature and irresponsible behavior means "their irresponsible conduct is not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult." Their own vulnerability and comparative lack of control over their immediate surroundings mean juveniles have a greater claim than adults to be forgiven for failing to escape negative influences in their whole environment. ("Syllabus," p. 3)
Yet, a December 14, 2003, ABC News telephone poll shows that 56% of AmeriKKKans supported "the death penalty for [Washington Sniper Lee] Malvo if he is convicted of murder." Only 30% said "oppose." 7% said "depends."
A 1998 500-persyn telephone poll by the Sam Houston State University College of Criminal Justice Survey Research Program showed that 6.3% of Amerikans in Texas felt that a juvenile should be at least twelve "before they can be given the death penalty." 8.9% indicated "age 13." 5.6% said age 14. 12.6% said age 15. 25.6% said age 16. 7.8% said age 17. 25.9% indicated "don't know." In total, 33.4% said less than fifteen.
Another example of the same argument that minors are categorically incompetent:
In recognition of the comparative immaturity and irresponsibility of juveniles, almost every State prohibits those under 18 years of age from voting, serving on juries, or marrying without parental consent. . . . The second area of difference is that juveniles are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure. ("Opinion of the Court," p. 15)
The Court makes another, strange argument, and one that has a direct bearing on mental illness. They say that the death penalty sentencing "system is designed to consider both aggravating and mitigating circumstances" ("Opinion of the Court," p. 18). Then, they say that it is difficult to determine mitigating circumstances (making sentences less severe) because of psychiatrists' self-imposed rule (the Court appears to be referring to APA's DSM-IV-TR, but this isn't clear in the slip opinion) "forbidding psychiatrists from diagnosing any patient under 18 as having antisocial personality disorder, a disorder also referred to as psychopathy or sociopathy, and which is characterized by callousness, cynicism, and contempt for the feelings, rights, and suffering of others" ("Opinion of the Court," p. 19). Let's be clear about this: the Court is implying that some juveniles on death row may have (had) "antisocial personality disorder" even though the great bastion of psychology the American Psychiatry Association itself says that no such thing exists for children. This is how badly the Court wants to defend psychology; it pretends like it knows better than the quacks at the APA.
The twisted thing about this is that Antonin Scalia's dissenting opinion, supporting the continuance of the juvenile death penalty, is the only one that acknowledges the competence of many children:
The APA brief [in Hodgson v. Minnesota ], citing psychology treatises and studies too numerous to list here, asserted: "By middle adolescence (age 14–15) young people develop abilities similar to adults in reasoning about moral dilemmas, understanding social rules and laws, and reasoning about interpersonal relationships and interpersonal problems." ("Scalia, J., dissenting," pp. 11-12)
Whether children are categorically less competent than adults isn't really the issue for MIM's line. (Typically, it is only assumed, in a pre- or unscientific way, that children are categorically less competent than adults. But if it turned out that children were less competent than adults, that wouldn't justify the continuance of patriarchy or the forms and practices by which children are oppressed under patriarchy.)
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports Floridians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty Director Abraham J. Bonowitz as saying:
"Recent science has shown brain development continues into your 20s. We don't allow children to buy cigarettes, or buy alcohol or sign contracts. The only time we consider children to be adults is when they commit a horrible crime, then we want to punish them harshly."(7)
The Court has another reason, other than opposing repression, for banning the juvenile death penalty. They are embarrassed that the united $tates "now stands alone in a world that has turned its face against the juvenile death penalty" ("Opinion of the Court," p. 23). They fear for the united $tates' being associated with "Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and China" (ibid.), who have allegedly executed juvenile offenders since 1990. (China, for one, has officially banned the execution of people who were younger than eighteen when they committed their offenses, and China, unlike the united $tates, has ratified the limited United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.)
Only seven countries other than the United States have executed juvenile offenders since 1990: Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and China. Since then each of these countries has either abolished capital punishment for juveniles or made public disavowal of the practice. In sum, it is fair to say that the United States now stands alone in a world that has turned its face against the juvenile death penalty. ("Opinion of the Court," p. 23)
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote the majority opinion, expands on these ideas and says that international opinion is a guide for deciding what constitutes "cruel and unusual punishments." In a dissenting opinion smacking of typical imperialist arrogance, Justice Scalia disagrees, pointing to examples of where foreign criminal justice practices disagree with Amerikan practices, and saying that "the Court should either profess its willingness to reconsider all these matters in light of the views of foreigners, or else it should cease putting forth foreigners' views as part of the reasoned basis of its decisions" ("Scalia, J., dissenting," p. 21).
But BBC News has reported Amnesty International USA Executive Director William Schulz as saying: "Now the US can proudly remove its name from the embarrassing list of human rights violators--that includes China, Iran, and Pakistan--that still execute juvenile offenders."(8)
Other news reports focus on the Supreme Court's decision's boost to the united $tates' image in the "international community":
The US has stood almost alone in the world in officially sanctioning juvenile executions, a "stark reality" that can't be ignored, Kennedy wrote.(9)
The Galveston County Daily News emphasizes that the united $tates now joins other "civilized" countries which have banned the death penalty for juveniles.(10) So now the united $tates has covered its ass and given itself better moral credentials to wage imperialist war against the exploited and oppressed of the Third World.
Children are (mis)represented in an inconsistent, moral way
In the contemporary united $tates and several other English-speaking countries, such as the United Kingdom, the public typically views children in a contradictory, seemingly incoherent way. They view children as either dangerous, vulnerable, or both. Connected with this is the notion that children are categorically incompetent, which actually supports both views of children. Supposedly, children are dangerous because they are irresponsible, and they are vulnerable because they are inept and in eternal need of protection, which translates in most people's minds into protection in the patriarchal family. So, it's not at all surprising that the Tennessee school bus killing suspect has been described as a "murderer" who committed an "unprecedented" "chilling" "criminal" act and insolently attacked what the yellow school bus is said to symbolize ("freedom"), while at the same time, on the very same day, the media portrays various juvenile offenders as being either mentally ill or mentally inferior--or both.
This does not necessarily mean that individuals are that nuanced when dealing with student violence. While some will focus on whether the Tennessee suspect is mentally ill, others will already be calling for the suspect's transfer to the adult/criminal court as a show of being "tough on crime."(11) Both of these two poles have a wrong view of juvenile offenses and crime in general.
For several different reasons, the whole criminal injustice system is self-contradictory when it comes to children. For one, the basis for the juvenile court is what is called the "rehabilitative ideal" (reflecting the notion of children as a still-developing group, deserving of a 'second chance' to become 'productive members of society', and so on), but people are already presuming that the Tennessee suspect may be incorrigible.
Exactly a month after the Columbine High School killings, the united $nakes Senate passed by a large margin the Violent and Repeat Juvenile Offender Accountability and Rehabilitation Act in May 1999. A part of a larger pattern throughout the united $tates of "getting tough" on juvenile crime, the 1999 act contains, among other things, provisions making it easier to transfer children to criminal court and easier to house children with adults in facilities, provisions for mandatory jail sentences for recruiting for "gangs," and removes language from previous legislation in a way that encourages states to stop addressing the issue of disproportionate "racial" minority detention.
A supposed "copycat" in Florida (where the juvenile death penalty was permitted, unlike in Tennessee), where another high school student allegedly shot at another school bus driver with a pellet gun, raises the question what new forms of youth repression will arise. (12) The media's depiction of the demise of idyllic white(-bread) Amerika school buses has the prison industry and prison guard unions drooling.
The shock expressed at a white "A and B" student shooting a school bus driver is particularly disturbing. For the white oppressors' media, oppressed-nationality school violence, presumably involving 'C, D and F' students, is not worth reporting except when it disturbs "communities" in white neighborhoods. Now that even white "A and B" students can commit heinous, senseless murders, the Amerikans are in a frenzy with no logical outlet.
Commentators are now worrying that with the juvenile death penalty gone, there will be less deterrence to violent juvenile crime. For the public, drugging children to prevent them from developing into delinquents suggests itself as a way to avoid having to deter crime.(13) This may mean even more children on drugs, which are a form of social control, as well as a form of repression.
Drugs or more parental monitoring and control--a February 10, 2002, telephone poll by Parade Magazine shows that 89% felt that "lack of parental involvement" was a "leading cause of school violence." 82% felt that "unstable home environment" was a leading cause.
Notes:
1. Gary Tanner, "Tennessee school bus driver fatally shot en route by student," March 3, 2005, /templates/index.cfm?template=story_full&id=965C95B7-0712-4BFB-AEE3-965A93113736
2. Tipper Gore, "Mrs. Tipper Gore's acceptance of the New York University Child Study Center Second Annual Child Advocacy Award - November 30, 1999," http://www.aboutourkids.org/aboutour/articles/tipper.html
3. NewsChannel 5 Network (WTVF Nashville, TN), "Boy, 14, Under Arrest For Bus Driver's Murder," March 3, 2005, http://www.newschannel5.com/content/news/9649.asp
4. School Bus Information Council, "Statement on Shooting of School Bus Driver in Cumberland City, TN," http://press.arrivenet.com/edu/article.php/605240.html
re.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/03-03-2005/0003115262&EDATE=
5. Lynn Cothern, "Juveniles and the Death Penalty," 2000, http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles1/ojjdp/184748.pdf
6. 543 U. S. ____ (2005), Roper v. Simmons , March 1, 2005, ch.net/7/257/2422/01mar20051300/www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/04pdf/03-633.pdf
7. Peter Franceschina, "3 Fla. convicts spared death after high court ends juvenile executions," March 2, 2005, Sun-Sentinel.com, s/local/southflorida/sfl-pteenkillers02mar02,0,4639707.story?coll=sfla-news-sfla
8. " US court bans juvenile executions," March 1, 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4308881.stm
9. AP, "Supreme Court outlaws death penalty for kids," March 3, 2005, http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2005/03/03/2003225257
10. Heber Taylor, "It’s time jurors had a real choice," Galveston County Daily News, March 3, 2005, http://galvestondailynews.com/story.lasso?ewcd=95b111434401d8b8
11. Leon Alligood, "Bus driver slain : Stewart County student shoots woman on bus loaded with kids," Leaf Chronicle (Gannett News Service), March 3, 2005, w.theleafchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050303/NEWS01/503030306/1002
12. Associated Press, "Student charged with pointing gun at school bus driver," Tallahassee Democrat, March 3, 2005, http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/breaking_news/11044221.htm
13. Peter Roger Breggin and Ginger Ross Breggin, The War Against Children of Color : Psychiatry Targets Inner City Youth , Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 1998.