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130 CHAPTER FIVE Managing Contradictions The kids in the Manhattan Youth Part were teenagers and as such did not pay rent or have full-time jobs, and most were dependent upon parents or guardians for food, shelter, clothing, transportation, and the like. As nonadults , they were expected to live by their parents’ or guardians’ rules and attend school and were, in fact, much less autonomous social actors than adults.1 This is a fundamental fact about the prosecution of youths as adults: young offenders don’t become older because they offend—they remain kids.2 The simple legal denial of youthfulness, even when mandated by law, cannot erase the reality of defendants’ social status as adolescents. This contradiction between kids’ legal and social status was the most fundamental contradiction at work in the Youth Part—and, indeed, is the most fundamental contradiction at work in the criminal prosecution of adolescents, wherever it is carried out. Thus, as Kupchik has argued, criminal court actors must find ways to “filter” transfer laws to accommodate their own understandings of defendants’ youthfulness.3 The contradictions between defendants’ legal and social status created many challenges in the Youth Part. First, the kids’ dependence upon adults often created difficulties during their attempts to earn YO. Second, issues arose about the appropriate role for parents in a court where kids are being prosecuted as adults. Parents, guardians, and families were an integral part of the work of the Manhattan Youth Part, but it wasn’t a juvenile court, where parents and family have a long tradition of participation , and where familial rights and roles are firmly established. Although family members frequently interacted with the judge and were an important factor in case processing, their role could be precarious at times. Further , direct clashes sometimes arose between the different legal statuses occupied by some of the kids in the court. This issue manifested in two basic ways: First, it was not uncommon for a defendant to have one case in the Family Court and another in the criminal Youth Part, resulting in his simultaneous prosecution both as a juvenile and as an adult. Second, sometimes kids in the part, legally constructed as adults for the purpose of prosecution, were also legally defined as children in need of the care and custody of the state through their involvement with child protective services. These kids encountered a paradoxical legal status wherein they were marked by the law as children in need of special care or protection and at the same time that they were constructed by the law as adults deserving of criminal court prosecution. Through the accounts of Alonzo, 131 Managing Contradictions Walter, Isaac, Jorge, Kendrick, and Dario below, we see how these contradictions played out in court, as well as the strategies created within the Youth Part for responding to these paradoxical situations regarding kids’ legal labeling. Non-Adult Social Actors The court understood well that its kids were largely dependent upon the adults in their lives to comply with court and ATI requirements. Kendrick and Randal both had situations arise during their case processing in which circumstances beyond their young control could have significantly impacted their attempts to earn YO. Kendrick, a 14-year-old black youth, was absent one Friday when his name was called, so the judge prepared to issue a bench warrant for him. Kendrick’s attorney informed the court that he had just received a call from the boy from a pay phone saying that his mother wasn’t letting him come to court. The attorney didn’t say why the boy’s mother wasn’t letting him come. The judge instructed the attorney to tell the mother that he would hold her in contempt of court if she held up the boy. The judge held the warrant, and before the day was over Kendrick showed up in the court; the judge did not hold the matter against him and proceeded with his case as if nothing had happened. Kendrick had been dependent upon his mother to provide him train fare to get to court. Had the judge not been understanding, Kendrick’s dependence upon an uncooperative adult might easily have left him remanded. However, because the court was cognizant of the reality of Kendrick’s social status as a dependent child, his initial noncompliance was not seen as a mark against him. In fact, the court may well have been impressed by Kendrick’s maturity and sense of responsibility in contacting his...

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