14 year old Girl was Sentenced to Jail for Pushing a Teacher

The Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex

At least she's now released. More craziness from the USA. These things come in pairs; this story is a pretty good companion to the previous one. A Texas teenager, Shaquanda Cotton, was sentenced to an "indefinite" period (maximum of seven years) in a youth jail for shoving a teacher's aide at her high school. She was let go after serving one year, but only after massive protests prompted a review of the case.

Civil Rights groups, as well as the Rev. Al Sharpton got involved, and of course, they blamed the harsh sentence on racism, since Shaquanda is black (her name probably already tipped you off). Their primary evidence was that a short time before, a white girl was convicted of arson by the same judge and only got probation. Racism may or may not be the culprit; without more background I can't jump to that conclusion. But frankly, that's irrelevant, because even if there was no racism, the situation is still outrageous. And it seemed to stem not just from the judge, but from several levels of the process all compounding their errors one on top of the other.

Now I will say this, the first accounts of this story made my blood boil. "14 year old Texas girl gets 7 years in prison for shoving Hall Monitor" was a typical inaccurate headline on the case. After reading into the story, I found she did not get seven years, but a sentence of up to seven years, since she was sentenced to an "indefinite period, up to the age of 21". That "indefinite" part is the sinister lining in the fabric; juvenile prison authorities in Texas have wide latitude in deciding sentences, too wide in fact. For example, Shaquanda's sentence was extended for having contraband in her cell: an extra pair of socks and a foam cup. Quite the illicit stash she had there... In any case, aren't sentences supposed to be a judge's decision?

There were also several conflicting versions of what happened (The Wiki page on this incident gives a pretty balanced account, but that's as of this writing). Shaquanda was a good student, she was a disruptive student. She pushed the hall monitor first, or she was pushed first. Her mother said she would cooperate with terms of parole, she said she wouldn't cooperate.

But even if you believe every account where the girl was in the wrong, you still have a 14 year old girl, with no previous criminal convictions, sentenced to spend the rest of her childhood/young adult life in jail, on the whims of the Texas Youth Correction administration. All for a simple shove. The 58 year-old teacher's aide, was shaken and did go to the hospital, but there is no account that she suffered any actual injury.

The official charge was: "felony assault on a public servant". A felony? Ok, just like I said in the previous posting - didn't these things used to be handled in schools? What ever happened to simple suspension? Why, oh why do we need to involve the justice system on every small offense nowadays?

I can recall at least a dozen times I got in fights in school in the 1970s & early 80s, usually instigated by the other guy. At least once I got a black eye. Should I have called the police in each case and charged the boy with assault? Should I have filed lawsuits? Can we really afford to use the criminal justice system for each of these offenses, and even if the answer is yes, is it still desirable to do so?