A glimmer of hope in the American penal system

Penal systems around the world are not known for their deeply compassionate regimes. Whilst almost all may boast of their enlightened practices which stress redemption and rehabilitation of the offender, in practice most, like ours, simply lock people up in a place where they learn from others how to commit crime properly and then let them out to carry out what they have learned on the inside. Hence the "revolving door" where the majority of inmates are re-offenders.


America solves this problem partly by locking people up for so long they're too old and arthritic to be a threat when they are finally released. Or, for the most serious crimes, when they don't actually murder them judicially they simply keep them incarcerated until they die. Thousand upon thousand of criminals under the age of 25 are languishing under this "life means life" principle.


But as we saw last night in the Channel 4 programme Kid Criminals, there are some states which are trying something new. The programme looked at the new system in Indiana which attempts to rehabilitate young offenders (under 21) by addressing their impulsivity and anger management issues. And if the authorities are satisfied that they are making genuine progress then some of the most serious offenders may find their time in prison cut from many years to less than one. We saw how one young woman who had been convicted of arson at the tender age of ten (she set fire to a house knowing there were several people in there including a baby) making slow but steady progress in understanding herself. Another one aged twelve persuaded her friends to mount a home invasion and robbery at gunpoint of an old lady living just down the street. They took her flat screen TV but the police traced them quickly by the simple recourse of following their footsteps in the snow. In Texas she would have been put away for 400 years. Here, under this new and refreshingly enlightened scheme, she could be out in less than three.


It is good to see the most advanced country in the world finally coming up with  new and creative methods of dealing with their young offenders. They've still got a long way to go. But then so have we.