Kids in Prison
Tried as adults, they find trouble instead of help and rehabilitation
By Ronnie Greene and Geoff Dougherty
Originally published in The Miami Herald, March 18, 2001
Florida's get-tough campaign on violent teens is instead targeting young thieves and drug dealers, a Herald investigation has found. Many of them end up in prisons fraught with abuse, only to be released as more refined criminals.
The high-profile prosecutions of Lionel Tate and Nathaniel Brazill, 14-year-old South Florida boys facing life in prison for murder, have dramatized Florida's role in the national movement to punish juveniles as if they were adults.
Outraged by violent teen crime, Florida has some of the toughest laws in the nation. Sixteen-year-olds can be prosecuted as adults for any felony. Children as young as 14 can be sent to the adult prison system for smash-and-grab burglary, aggravated assault and robbery.
As a result, one in 13 Florida prison inmates are doing time for a crime committed as a youth.
But the crackdown has flaws at every step. A Herald review of millions of court and prison records dating to 1995 shows:
Tourist murders by young felons helped spur legislators to pass laws bumping juvenile crimes to adult courts. But homicides comprise just two of every 100 juvenile adult court convictions. Less-serious burglaries, drug charges and thefts account for the majority.
Florida's laws were created amid furor over a juvenile system that failed to control teens with long criminal pasts. But nearly half the juveniles prosecuted under Florida's crackdown had one or no prior felony conviction.
Forty percent of juveniles tried in adult court get probation. Critics say this leads to more problems. Lacking punishment or rehabilitation, juveniles on probation often get in trouble again. One in three break the rules of their release, landing them in prison for crimes the sentencing judge didn't initially think warranted time behind bars.
When juveniles do go to state prison, they are more likely to be assaulted than adult convicts , The Herald found. At Hillsborough Correctional Institution, a prison for juveniles and young adults, one teen was scalded in the face with boiling water. Another was blinded in one eye after a convict pummeled him with a lock stuffed in a sock. At Martin Correctional Institution, an adult prison in Indiantown, a seasoned convict choked the life from a Broward teen four years ago. After the murder of Michael Myers, an inmate told investigators how older convicts prey on the young: "Michael was young, and a lot of the other inmates … was trying to make him his boy."
Young convicts leaving adult prison are more likely to continue with crime than juveniles accused of similar crimes leaving juvenile programs, studies by The Herald and two sets of researchers found.
STUDIES DISPUTED
Prosecutors across Florida strongly challenge the studies, saying that, if anything, the results show they picked the children with the greatest penchant for trouble.
But for Florida's fight against teen crime, the studies carry significance. Each of them matched children in the two systems—adult court and juvenile court—by their current charges, prior records and key demographics: in other words, similar youngsters, charged with similar crimes and with similar criminal pasts, routed to different systems.
The conclusion: Children sent to juvenile programs are more likely to stay out of trouble than those routed to prison.
This all has big implications.
If Florida fails to turn around its most unruly children, that means more crime victims ahead.
"GIVING UP"
"We're giving up on too many of these kids who don't profile as the aggressive violent offender," said Shay Bilchik, director of the Child Welfare League of America, a children's advocacy group.
Prosecutors, criminal judges, police and crime victims view Florida's aggressive approach differently. They say last decade's runaway juvenile crime required serious action.
LEGISLATURE REACTS
New laws in 1970s responded to rampant juvenile crime
Florida's crusade began in 1978, when state legislators moved to stem raging juvenile crime with new laws that gave prosecutors power to try 16- and 17-year-olds in adult court. Previously, those cases stayed in the juvenile courts, where authorities had control over teens typically to 18, though longer in special cases.
"In a perfect world, we would not have to pass this legislation. But we no longer have the Ozzie and Harriett homes," said Sen. Ginny Brown-Waite, R-Brooksville, who last year sponsored another lockup law requiring hard time for juvenile gun crimes even as juvenile crime was dipping.
"We have such a group of hardened kids out there," she said. "We can't have little old ladies out there fearing the teenage kids…We're not going to just slap you on the wrist."
Legislators added muscle to the laws in the 1990s on the heels of notorious tourist killings.
In September 1993 came the "shots heard around the state," as a Herald headline described a tourist murder at a rest stop in the piney corridor of I-10 near Monticello. Four teens were held, in the ninth tourist slaying in Florida since the previous fall. One culprit had 30 prior arrests, another, 26. The teens had ambushed a couple napping in their rental car, killing the man and wounding his companion. After the next legislative session, prosecutors had the power to charge 14-year-olds in adult court for serious crimes—bypassing the juvenile court system.
It's called "direct file," a power that affords prosecutors wide discretion. The standard, under law: "In the state attorney's judgment and discretion the public interest requires that adult sanctions be considered."
Other times, prosecutors must file in adult court: 16- and 17-year-olds charged with their second violent crime against a person, children as young as 14 who have three prior felony adjudications, and all carjackings resulting in serious injury.
"Two months after we increased direct file, we started to see a drop" in juvenile crime, said Leon Botkin, Miami-Dade's juvenile division chief, whose office wall is covered with yellowed newspaper clippings of violent teen crimes.
Advocates say the laws deter would-be delinquents and scare others to go straight. They also say children in prison do have long records, that convictions alone don't reflect all their troubles.
Nine of 10 juveniles in prison had been arrested for violent crimes, and each averaged 16 total charges, the Department of Corrections said in a 1999 study. "This data clearly shows that the courts are sending juveniles to prison who have chronic and serious prior criminal records," Department of Corrections Secretary Michael Moore wrote to The Herald. He declined to be interviewed.
Significantly, however, the Corrections study looked at arrests, not convictions. It also examined counts, not cases—a key distinction. If a juvenile burglarized a home, mangling the front door on the way in, and then broke into a car on the way out, the Corrections study would log three crimes.
Backed by the expanded powers, Florida had locked up one of every nine juvenile inmates in prison in the United States by 1997, according to a survey of a majority of states. Prosecutions have dipped with teen crime since a peak in 1995, but Florida remains a national leader.
TEEN FITS STATE PROFILE
Prosecuted for burglary, he ended up in state prison
Miami's Joseph Tejera is one of Florida's teen inmates, and he fits the state profile perfectly.
Tejera was prosecuted for burglary, the most common juvenile adult court conviction, nearly one in four cases. Robberies comprise an additional 18 percent and drug charges, 17 percent.
His prior rap sheet included no violence, just misdemeanor shoplifting. That's also typical. A third of Florida teens prosecuted in adult court between 1995 and 1999 had no prior felony convictions. Nearly half had no more than one.
He was never sent to a juvenile program offering 24-hour supervision and therapy. Again, it's typical. In the majority of cases, teens were sent to adult court without a trip to the most intensive juvenile programs, such as locked facilities.
Like many peers, he landed in prison after violating the terms of his release. He was originally given community control, a type of supervision similar to house arrest, and probation. He went to prison after missing 8 p.m. curfews—twice.
Tejera grew up with a single mother working as a waitress to raise three boys. "I hate to ask my mom for money," he said from prison on a scorching day, explaining his motive to steal. "She had bills to pay."
At 16 in 1999, he took jewelry, Nintendo video equipment, an autographed football, cassettes and candy in a Miami home burglary.
"He finds himself in adult court because he and other kids made a stupid mistake and wanted to steal a Nintendo set. They saw the Dan Marino football; they thought that would be nice to have, too," said David Tarlow, his appointed lawyer.
"No employer wants to hire a young person who has adult criminal charges," he added. "I'm not trying to minimize what the kid did, but at the same point in time, why do we have a juvenile system? Do we want to rehabilitate them or make them part of the system?"
Tejera became part of the system largely because the burglary was at night with the victim asleep. "I consider a nighttime burglary to be much more serious. After 5 p.m., there's more chance to run into someone," Miami-Dade's Botkin said.
"When you violate somebody's home, you show them in a very emotional way how unsafe they really are," said Brad King, president of the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association.
Locked up, the five-foot-five, 135-pound inmate earned a sterling disciplinary record. But he's also been in five fights. "They'll come up to me and test me. And that's when you've got to fight. If you let them pick on you, that's when they really abuse you," he said, a cracked tooth the remnant of one scuffle. "In prison, it's all about pride."
Recently, he was transferred to a Miami-Dade work release prison, closer to family in Little Havana. Now 18, he'll be out this year, but his mother, Maria, fears for his future as an ex-convict.
GIRL ROAMED THE STREETS
'I was just taking stuff to help me eat,' she says
Born to a father now serving life in prison for sex crimes against minors, and a mother arrested for theft and drunk driving, Rebekah Homerston ran to the streets around Fort Lauderdale at 13. She found her own crimes: burglary, auto theft.
"I was just taking stuff to help me eat and find places to sleep," she said from her new home, Lowell Correctional Institution Women's Unit. She went to prison before serving time in the most intensive juvenile programs—programs that a counselor believes could have gotten her out of a bad home and turned her around.
The juvenile system operates like a ladder. Children with the most serious crimes climb to the most intensive programs.
Level 2 includes day treatment programs, runaway shelters, special schools. Level 4 is for "low-risk" teens who live at treatment centers for less than six months. Level 6 includes six- to nine-month stays at halfway houses and boot camps. At Levels 8 to 10, teens are locked up for one to three years.
Homerston had been in a Level 2 program— barely up the rungs—before her journey to state prison.
At 14, she went to PACE Center for Girls, a school for at-risk females in Fort Lauderdale. Suddenly, this runaway was scoring A's and B's on report cards. "She had an incredible amount of potential," said PACE program director Shelly Servidio.
PACE is a daytime school, not an overnight program that forces children off the streets. Soon, Homerston ran away from home again and into crime. In Wilton Manors in 1997, she was charged with criminal mischief and burglary after police said she and three others vandalized the city's recreation center, causing $4,200 in damage.
At 15, she was prosecuted as an adult and got a two-year prison term, part in boot camp. "I don't see how that's going to help Rebekah," Servidio said.
"She was really young at the time, and she had a lot of factors against her. Her dad was already in prison. She needed intervention in order to make better decisions. I don't think the prison system is set up to really try to accommodate that."
It didn't. Released from Lowell Correctional, she was caught snatching a shirt in the Keys when she was four months shy of 17. She's now back in prison for 3 1/2 years, again showing potential, earning her GED just before her 18th birthday, enrolling in computer courses and keeping a good disciplinary record.
She said she's also seen prison's rough side. "In our dorm, I've seen a lot of girls slit their wrists. All of the fighting and stuff, it really bothers me. Sometimes, I wish I could have my own cell or my own school. … It's hard to be good in there."
Prosecutors say her case posed difficult questions. She had six cases and ran with gang members, even if she wasn't one. Yet none of her crimes were violent, she had a troubled home life, and she showed promise.
"There's no crystal ball," said Maria Schneider, assistant state attorney in charge of Broward's juvenile unit, who did not personally handle the case but reviewed the file after a reporter's inquiries. "This young lady's priors involved basically the same type of behavior over and over again. I think someone down the line made the decision that there was nothing we were going to be able to do to dissuade this child from this behavior. Therefore, we went for punishment."
Said Schneider: "The toughest thing I do is to make that decision when it comes to a child. How do you know when enough is enough? I don't take that lightly. I have three of my own."
The office drew attention recently for prosecuting Lionel Tate, 12 at the time of the incident, for murder in the death of playmate Tiffany Eunick, 6. Tate's defense team said he was imitating TV wrestlers when he body-slammed the girl. A Broward judge sentenced the boy to life in prison, but Broward prosecutors said they'll ask the governor to reduce the term.
Another boy accused of murder, Nathaniel Brazill, has yet to go to trial in the shooting death of Lake Worth teacher Barry Grunow last year. On Thursday in Palatka, Fla., 15-year-old John Silva was sentenced to life in prison for strangling a younger playmate.
10 YEARS IN PRISON
Teen and an adult criminal committed an armed robbery
First-time felon Derrick Iverson is serving 10 years in adult prison on three counts of armed robbery after he and an adult criminal held up a Texaco gas station in Fort Lauderdale in 1999. He was 16, a new father and football player.
Imprisoned at 17, he now studies law books and takes adult education classes, trying to reform in a prison housing adult killers. "If you don't care about yourself, your life is just over in here," he tells his first visitors in three months.
He speaks from Madison Correctional, east of Tallahassee, where posters on the wall bear a message that rings true: Use a gun, and you're done. 10-20-LIFE. During a crime, pull a gun—10 years. It's another law aimed at putting away young felons, such as Iverson.
Authorities say the case was clear-cut. Both robbers had guns and were caught on tape in a crime that so shook the victims that the cashier cried afterward. Iverson confessed. He got $52.
"That's a grown-up decision, and I don't apologize at all for making the decision to send him to adult court," said Alex Urruela, senior supervisor in Broward's juvenile unit.
Yet cashier Paul Ridley believes Iverson's sentence is harsh. He said the adult, not the teen, was the aggressor, putting a gun to his head. Once a prison employee himself, Ridley fears that a long time behind bars may only train Iverson to be a better criminal. Prosecutors say other victims agreed with the sentence.
"He's going to have to be a man the first day," Ridley said. "He shouldn't be doing that much time. Give him house arrest. Send him to jail for two years. At least he can graduate from school and make himself better. At 27, he's going to be coming out a lot worse."
TROUBLE FOR YOUNG FELONS
Youth attacked by inmates, and it cost him an eye
Case studies show how young felons face trouble inside prison—and afterward.
Tampa's Sedrick Burden, victim of a brutal prison assault, is an example.
He came into the adult system at 17. He had been on juvenile probation for previous theft charges and was far from exhausting rehabilitation programs when he was charged as an adult for possession of marijuana and cocaine with intent to sell. When he violated probation at 18 with a new drug case, a judge sent him to prison.
At Hillsborough Correctional Institution in 1999, he was pummeled with a lock stuffed in a sock over a trifling turf dispute—because he's from Tampa, his assailants from across the state.
"They put his whole eye out," said his father, William Webb. "They're supposed to be able to watch them. How can they let this happen?"
Released at 19 last year, he finds everyday diversions difficult. "I can't catch a baseball, because it might hit me," he said from his family's working-class neighborhood. "I get real dizzy."
He can't hold jobs either. An ex-convict without prospects, he was arrested on marijuana charges again twice recently and may be headed back to prison.
His case is not unique.
The Herald conducted a computer analysis matching children sent to Florida's adult prison system with teens with similar records, age and race routed to juvenile programs. The result: Sending a juvenile to prison increases by 35 percent the odds he'll re-offend within a year of release.
The finding echoes an earlier Florida study looking at 2,738 pairs of juveniles in the 1980s with similar records, one sent to adult court, one not. Thirty percent in the adult system committed crimes after release, compared with 19 percent in the other group.
"When they come out, and they do come out, they may be more of a threat to society," said Donna Bishop, a Northeastern University criminal justice professor who coauthored the research.
A study of New York and New Jersey cases came to a similar result. "We took this as evidence that there was no payoff prosecuting adolescents as adults," said Columbia University professor Jeffrey Fagan, the author.
Prosecutors contend that totally different systems can't be compared, and they say the Florida study didn't capture nuances that make or break filing decisions. It looked at children charged with burglary, for instance, but wouldn't know whether one was at night with victims at home, the other in the day.
If anything, they say, the results show they picked the most troubled teens for prosecution.
Florida lawmakers show no sign of turning back.
"Do I think we're going to ratchet back what we passed in the Legislature as the result of these studies? I would say, very unlikely," said Sen. Brown-Waite. "The adult public, the senior citizens, are very happy overall with what we've done."
