What strikes me about this case is how so many people have overlooked the striking similarity to the Allen Iverson case back in 1993. Iverson had a rough upbringing in Hampton, Virginia, and was known about town for his athletic talent, despite his desperate living conditions, as well as his rough streak.
Although still a juvenile, he was tried as an adult for a bar room brawl at a bowling alley and sentenced as an adult to prison, in a place known as "the jungle" for its violent and horrific atmosphere. He spent the better part of a year there before a Washington Post reporter revealed to the Inside the Beltway people just upstate that this talented young man had been involved in an altercation where only the African Americans were tried, despite what was overtly a mutual combat situation, and where the African Americans claimed that they were spurred on by racial insults.
I don't know that we will ever really know what happened there - Iverson claimed that he left before the physical violence. Some people testified otherwise. But we do know that the Commonwealth's prosecutor could easily have tried him as a juvenile and put Allen Iverson in anger management classes and support programs that might have made a serious difference in his life. By the time his sentence was commuted by Governor Wilder (and his conviction was overturned two years later) on the outrageous "attempted maiming by mob," charge, Iverson had learned plenty in the can.
Today, he is often condemned for his thuggishness, but I think that people need to understand the detrimental effects of taking a youth with promise, breaking his dream, shattering his hope, and throwing him into prison for a lengthy period of time. I often wonder about the man he might have been had he not spent that time in an adult institution designed to destroy his spirit, rather than rebuild his character. When people criticize him, I laud the fact that he survived the experience at all, and I am glad that he has managed to make a financial success of his life.
There are many successful programs in existence that change young people - whether they are black or white, but America still relies most heavily upon discredited and abusive prisons that are condemning a large number of young people to hopeless futures. During the past two decades, we have relied upon fake trend stories about juvenile delinquency to make it easier for politically-minded prosecutors to send children up to the state prisons to be used as rape fodder. We may think that this is helpful now, but it will come back to haunt us in the long run.
The Jena 6 really represent the ill-conceived notion that brutal punishment is the best way to react to youthful misconduct and mistakes. I knew plenty of kids who got beat up when I was a kid - and some looked a little worse for the wear than the one in this case.
But don't get me wrong - this sort of conduct should be punished - and it could have been handled with expulsion (which would have been a huge punishment for the athletes involved) as well as specialized classes, lengthy community service, public apologies to the victim and a short amount of time in juvenile dentention. It is not so much about racism, as classism - there are many white youths victimized by overzealous prosecutors as well - people who charge simple assault and battery as maiming or attempted murder in order to destroy the future of the young person involved. They call themselves "tough on crime" but what they are is "tough on America's future." Louisianna, sadly, is one of a handful of states that treats everyone over 16 as an adult, despite evidence that suggests that 17 year olds are better handled in the juvenile system. Mr. Bell, of course, was 16 at the time and like Iverson, entitled to juvenile treatment, but the prosecutors sought adult treatment to destroy the young people involved.
Young Mr. Bell may yet find that the strategy to try him as a juvenile will not relegate his punishment to a "slap on the wrist." The juvenile judge already has exercised his right to hold him in jail without bail - whereas he was entitled to bail in the adult system. And given that Mr. Bell has a juvenile record, he could easily spend two or three years in detention. What was the purpose, then, of trying him as an adult? Was it to destroy him? To deter others? How strange that it has had the unintended consequence of making him a national hero.
