Week 2 Youth Experiences of Incarceration in the US: A Case for Play

  

            Questions related to the subject of incarcerated youth are tough and complex ones. It seems incomprehensible to hear of children committing crimes of drug use, assault or murder. We can’t understand the issue, and most of the time we’d rather not discuss it; but youth crime and incarceration is, no doubt, something that must be confronted. One of the most prominent questions academics and social scientists raise today is: why? What causes a youth to commit his or her first crime? After viewing the films Juvenile Corrections Facilities and Stuart Brown Says Play is More Than Fun, it would seem that the correlation between play, deprivation and kids who have been incarcerated is profound, and needs to be explored a little more.

In his research, Stuart Brown places a great amount of importance on play. He even suggests, specifically from his work with mass murderer Charles Whitman, that play deprivation can lead to a greater vulnerability to commit crime (2008); and it would seem that his hypothesis has some truth to it. In the film Juvenile Corrections Facilities, a boy named Conrad is introduced. Conrad has a pretty lengthy rap sheet and has been barred from attending every public school in the state of Arizona (2005). When asked “why?”, Conrad responded:

“I got hooked on drugs. Doing drugs with my mom… I grew up being abused, physically and emotionally and mentally by my mom” (Juvenile Corrections Facilities, 2005).

Because Conrad grew up in such a tumultuous environment, where he was exposed to a great deal of abuse, and where he his life consisted mostly of drug use, he was unable to acquire the problem solving, social skills that are typical and necessary to a child’s development, which brings me to my next point: that aspect of play which includes curiosity and exploration.

            “Now, one of the things about play is that it is born by curiosity and exploration. But it has to be safe exploration” (Brown, 2008).

            When Stuart Brown mentions this, he seems to give ‘play’ a background, or a necessary setting in which it can occur. His specific remark about the little boy who is anatomically curious reminded me of a segment of the juvenile incarceration film where we are introduced to the girl’s juvenile corrections facility. For these girls, where the majority of them have been sexually abused, home life is anything but safe. Particularly, it seems to be unsafe in the sense that many of these girls have sustained sexual abuse—their emotional health is compromised, not only because they seem to grapple with ideas of unhealthy intimate relations, like Jerilyn, a perpetrator of child molestation and a victim of it herself, but also of a more generally wholesome enthusiasm to explore, to play. Jerilyn mentions: “I don’t want to grow up. I don’t want to become an adult. I want to stay home. I kind of missed out on three years of my teenage life, being locked up. And that sucks” (Juvenile Corrections Facilities, 2005).

            In further investigation of play, Brown interestingly mentions a type of play he calls ‘rough and tumble’ play. Brown expresses: “Rough and tumble play is a great learning medium for all of us. Pre-school kids, for example, should be allowed to dive, hit, whistle, scream, be chaotic; and develop, through that, a lot of emotional regulation…” (2008). Once again, we remember Conrad, who struggles with being hyperactive and needs medication to function healthily and normally. Part of the problem may be that Conrad was exposed to drugs at such an early age, but one might suspect that another cause of Conrad’s inability to function without medicinal treatment may have to do with the notion that he was unable to develop, as a child, those very essential regulatory behaviors that come about through play, or more specifically, through rough and tumble play.

            In sum, the points Brown makes are good ones, and they illustrate a strong correlation between play, play deprivation and juvenile incarceration. In many of the cases mentioned,  instances of juvenile incarceration arise from bad family life, which recognizably seemed to lead to play deprivation. So, with all this research evidence on play and play deprivation, there seems to be a little bit of disconnect between how juvenile incarceration facilities operate and how they should operate. In our peering into juvenile facilities, incarceration seems to be characterized mostly by isolation, and only some interaction; and even though we should harbor a good amount of healthy skepticism, especially since some of these youth are prone to violent crime—taking into account play is something that should be approached apprehensively, but not ignored.

Works Cited

Juvenile Correction Facilities. Films Media Group, 0. Films On Demand. Web. 31 January 2011. <http://digital.films.com/PortalPlaylists.aspx?aid=11717&xtid=>.

Schierlitz, T. (Photographer). (2008). Taking Play Seriously [Photograph], Accessed on January 31, 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/17/magazine/17play.html?_r=1>

TED Talks."Stuart Brown says play is more than fun." May 2008. Online Video Clip. Accessed on January 31, 2011. <http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/stuart_brown_says_play_is_more_than_fun_it_s_vital.html>

Week 1 Blog Post: "How old is 15?"

How old is fifteen really? Is it too young an age to make certain decisions, to act in certain ways? In a segment of his comedy act, Dave Chappelle discusses these questions with a mix of crude humor and candor—and even though some of his words are a little tough to digest, the subject is something that needs to be raised, needs to be investigated, needs to be resolved.

“But it keeps coming up. There’s a lot of confusion around that age. Anytime fifteen comes up, people freak out."

 —Dave Chappelle, "How Old is 15 Really?"

In his mention of Elizabeth Smart, who was kidnapped and held only eight miles from her home for an entire nine months, Chappelle actually derides Smart's capacity to escape from her kidnappers. He then posits the case of a seven year old African American girl who was kidnapped in Philadelphia and successfully escaped her kidnappers—bringing up the point of discrepancy in maturity and competency. Why is it that fifteen year old Elizabeth Smart could not escape her kidnappers while another child, who was only seven, could?

Such examples seem to call into question how children can seem different from each other: how fast they develop emotionally and mentally. I couldn’t help but notice that as Dave Chappelle discussed his own memories of being fifteen, how different they seemed from mine. While Chapelle mentioned smoking reefer and being out late doing stand-up comedy, I remember being yelled at for staying out past eight-thirty or for going to a movie on a school night. So, on one view the age of fifteen is old enough, and on another, it’s too young.

Subsequently, Chappelle brings up a case involving a fifteen year old African American boy in Florida who was tried and sentenced to life imprisonment for killing his neighbor by practicing wrestling moves that he saw on TV. In each case—that of Elizabeth Smart, the seven year old girl, and the fifteen year old boy, we see a different version of the capabilities possessed by a child. In Elizabeth Smart’s case, our belief that the age of fifteen characterizes naivety and innocence is confirmed. Most of us would not expect a fifteen year old girl to defend herself or escape from someone trying to hurt her; and when we hear of cases where a child is actually able to defend his/herself, we count it as extraordinary (as in the case of the seven year old African American girl in Philadelphia).

Keeping this in mind, how is it that we can straight facedly sentence a fifteen year old boy to life in prison? Should there exist a discrepancy between the fifteen year old who is considered ‘too young’ and ‘old enough’? And is that discrepancy, as Dave Chappelle suggests, not only a matter of competency and maturity, but also one of other factors—particularly race? In some cases, the discrepancy based on competency and maturity has been accepted because of the nature and details of a certain gruesome crime; but our justice system has allowed this discrepancy to become the rule rather than the exception to the rule. As Chappelle shamelessly expresses, the ambiguity of such a discrepancy is problematic: "If you think that it's okay to give him life in jail, then it should be legal to pee on them" (Dave Chappelle, "How Old is 15 Really?").

Works Cited

"How Old is 15 Really?." YouTube.com. Web. 24 Jan 2011. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym2wN6mqXoQ&feature=player_embedded.