Youth and Human Rights
Host Mike Males

Introduction by Richard Farson
It is a great pleasure to welcome Mike Males as our leader for the discussion on the question of human rights for youth. We are indeed lucky to have this leading advocate of human rights as our mentor. I have found him to be the most thoughtful, mature and balanced participant in this effort, and probably the most effective.

Long a social activist in the civil rights movements, he is now a Senior Researcher at the Center for Juvenile and Criminal Justice in San Francisco, and a faculty member in the sociology department at the University of California Santa Cruz. Currently preparing a text on adolescent sociology, he has authored several other books dealing with the subject of this conference, including Kids and Guns: How Politicians, Experts and the Press Fabricate Fear of Youth, Framing Youth: Ten Myths about the Next Generation, and The Scapegoat Generation: America's War on Adolescents.

Believe me, this conference will offer rich food for thought about the policies affecting youth (and therefore affecting all of us) currently in place in America and in other countries as well. It can make us think differently, not just about issues of criminal justice, but about everything from family life to democracy to America's position in the world community.

So, welcome, Mike. We look forward to your helping us think through these presently almost invisible, but extremely important, policy issues.

U.S. Policy Toward Adolescents: Human Rights Violation?

Mike Males
Greetings to all. Well, what I’d like to talk about, what concerns me the most: Does US treatments of its adolescents constitute a human rights violation?

Let's first approach this legalistically: the US refuses to sign the UN Covenant on the Rights of the Child precisely because there are a dozen of its provisions we refuse to meet, from the guarantee of adequate services, to corporal and capital punishment, to our court rulings that young people have no constitutional rights whatsoever. In terms of breaking this down, I feel US policy is perverse in at least three ways:

1. At once the most violent and punitive toward youth, as evidenced by legalized corporal punishment (even injurious) against youth by both public and private entities, up to more severe handling and sentencing by the justice system than adults receive, up to capital punishment for offenses committed as juveniles.

2. Also the most repressive in denying "negative rights" to youth (that is, the right to be free from unreasonable government control): freedom of speech, expression, press, assembly; security in person and possession, exemption from cruel or unusual punishment, right to bail, right to freedom from involuntary servitude, right to vote, right to equal protection of laws, even the right to be in public, etc. have all been expressly denied to youths by court decisions that require only minimal scrutiny (that is, whimsy) by authorities to justify.

3. The most barbaric (in comparison to our wealth) in denying youths "positive rights" -- that is, the right to a reasonable share of society’s resources, necessary to provide standards of income, health care, housing, food, education, cultural rights, and living in general. International covenants declare that these rights are fundamental duties of government and may not be denied because of poverty or private profit motive. Of course the USA harbors some of the world’s richest kids, but as a society, we restrict investment in youth to the point that Third World ills such as malnutrition, illiteracy, infant mortality, epidemic disease and violence, and complete isolation from economic and educational opportunity affect proportions of American children unheard-of in other First World, and even most Second World, countries.

I can think of 40 sub-questions, but the organizing one is--why is the USA so uniquely, so virulently, fearful and hostile toward its own young people?

Participant
Mike, this conference is already an eye-opener for me, just on the basis of your introduction. I plan to explore this subject further, here and through other channels, but for openers I'd like to hear your own answer to the question you put to us, since you have obviously thought long and hard on this subject.

Participant
I'm pleased to announce that Alex Koroknay-Palicz, president of the National Youth Rights Association, will be joining this discussion as a guest resource specialist. Welcome, Alex.

Participant
Mike, could you add to your list for discussion the sexual and reproductive rights of adolescents? I'd like to know your thoughts on what are appropriate freedoms and appropriate restrictions and how we stack up. The nation is experiencing an incredible onslaught of laws that I refer to as sex police laws. For example, a new one that assumes all sexually active minors to be victims of sexual abuse and therefore health care providers must report them to authorities. Thanks.

Mike Males
Greetings to all. Well, what I’d like to talk about, what concerns me the most: Does US treatments of its adolescents constitute a human rights violation?

Let's first approach this legalistically: the US refuses to sign the UN Covenant on the Rights of the Child precisely because there are a dozen of its provisions we refuse to meet, from the guarantee of adequate services, to corporal and capital punishment, to our court rulings that young people have no constitutional rights whatsoever. In terms of breaking this down, I feel US policy is perverse in at least three ways:

1. At once the most violent and punitive toward youth, as evidenced by legalized corporal punishment (even injurious) against youth by both public and private entities, up to more severe handling and sentencing by the justice system than adults receive, up to capital punishment for offenses committed as juveniles.

2. Also the most repressive in denying "negative rights" to youth (that is, the right to be free from unreasonable government control): freedom of speech, expression, press, assembly; security in person and possession, exemption from cruel or unusual punishment, right to bail, right to freedom from involuntary servitude, right to vote, right to equal protection of laws, even the right to be in public, etc. have all been expressly denied to youths by court decisions that require only minimal scrutiny (that is, whimsy) by authorities to justify.

3. The most barbaric (in comparison to our wealth) in denying youths "positive rights" -- that is, the right to a reasonable share of society’s resources, necessary to provide standards of income, health care, housing, food, education, cultural rights, and living in general. International covenants declare that these rights are fundamental duties of government and may not be denied because of poverty or private profit motive. Of course the USA harbors some of the world’s richest kids, but as a society, we restrict investment in youth to the point that Third World ills such as malnutrition, illiteracy, infant mortality, epidemic disease and violence, and complete isolation from economic and educational opportunity affect proportions of American children unheard-of in other First World, and even most Second World, countries.

I can think of 40 sub-questions, but the organizing one is--why is the USA so uniquely, so virulently, fearful and hostile toward its own young people?

Participant
Mike, this conference is already an eye-opener for me, just on the basis of your introduction. I plan to explore this subject further, here and through other channels, but for openers I'd like to hear your own answer to the question you put to us, since you have obviously thought long and hard on this subject.

Participant
I'm pleased to announce that Alex Koroknay-Palicz, president of the National Youth Rights Association, will be joining this discussion as a guest resource specialist. Welcome, Alex.

Participant
Mike, could you add to your list for discussion the sexual and reproductive rights of adolescents? I'd like to know your thoughts on what are appropriate freedoms and appropriate restrictions and how we stack up. The nation is experiencing an incredible onslaught of laws that I refer to as sex police laws. For example, a new one that assumes all sexually active minors to be victims of sexual abuse and therefore health care providers must report them to authorities. Thanks.

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