Young Offenders

Being the judge of a County Criminal Court at Law offers some great challenges, but also some great opportunities. Due to the nature of the types of cases handled, many charged with crimes are young and have not been in the criminal justice system before. If such a person is found to be guilty of the crime, by plea or otherwise, Judge Atkinson sees the mission that follows to be making this the young offender's last crime -- whatever it takes.

If the offender is a teenager living with parents, Judge Atkinson tries to involve the family in the sentencing process. Every parent who has raised children through the teen years knows that everything the young person does has an effect on the family at home.

A common situation involves a 17-19 year old of any race, ethnicity, or economic level, caught shoplifting from a store. The young person is often a student, living at home with parents, with no prior crimes committed. The parents are horrified and embarrassed. The young person has not only hurt the merchant and society, but the parents as well.

Most of such young folks will not re-offend--the night spent in jail after arrest, the appearance in court and the informing of the parents being enough to deter most from re-offending.

If appropriate based on the facts, a supervised sentence will often be negotiated between the prosecutor and the defense attorney, as long as the facts are not too egregious to merit it. Judge Atkinson will impose the sentence along the model of a continuum of sanctions.

The sentence will involve a number of sanctions possibly including restitution, community service, a fine, jail time if appropriate, letters of apology, a class discussing the effects of theft on society, and any other needed conditions.

Judge Atkinson often has the parents of the young offender at the Bench during sentencing. He inquires of the offender if he/she has any idea of how his/her actions have hurt the family. The offender is asked if apologies have been made to the parents, and then asked to do it right there, in court. A condition of the sentence will then be to write letters of apology not only to the merchant, but to the parents as well.

Judge Atkinson asks the offender what he or she hopes to be doing five years in the future, followed by the question, "Why would you want to jeopardize that by stealing?" In fact, if the sentence agreed to and imposed is a deferred adjudication, there is the chance of the offender having the record expunged in the future, leaving the record clean.

While the above scenario involves theft, the same approach can be used with other offenses, too. If it sounds soft, it is not. And, not every crime is appropriate for such sentencing. Some might merit as little punishment as a fine, only. Some are deserving of nothing less than jail time.

The overall goal is to stop the young person from continuing to commit crimes, and eventually ending up in felony court, facing much more serious charges.

See also: Judge Mark Atkinson and Judicial Education

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Creative Sentencing

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