Literary Analysis Essay on No Matter How Loud I Shout

Introduction

Juvenile cases are always handled unfairly. In his writing, Humes was allowed into the juvenile court despite it being restricted from the public. Humes has earned the trust as he is a renown writer in documenting unjust cases. The juvenile court has proved to administer judgement in a way which does not give everybody equal chance in administering judges, such that children from the rich background are given lenient judgement and those from humble background treated harshly.

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Juvenile offenders have been treated differently from the adults who commit the same crime, and it is always the free will of the judge to determine the judgement he or she is going to pass to the offender, as a result of this, judge at Arizona passed a judgement to a juvenile to be imprisoned for six years despite having committed a simple crime of making a call (Humes 13). With this in place, we can depict how harsh the judgement can be to the juveniles despite having committed a minor crime. After the judgement, an appeal was made at the supreme court and judgement was overturned citing that juvenile cannot be given harsh judgment than adults.

The book brings out that, kids who indulge in criminal vices in the society have underlying reasons which compelled them to join the gangs. One of the contributing factors is poverty. In the book, many of the children who were involved in criminal cases stated how they had been subjected to poverty before indulging in uncalled activities. Another factor which has been cited is ethnicity and racism; this has made kids to join gang group as they sought security protection from the gangs. Furthermore, drugs and alcohol have also proved to be the contributing factor to kids joining the gangster groups hence ruining the morals.

With all these factors well known, arresting the juveniles deems not to be the right action to be taken. It will be a noble idea to handle the root cause of this vice rather than fighting the results. If the cause is not handled it will mean that the vices will continually be there always as its root cause is still there. Cutting factors which subjects kids to uncalled actions sounds a good way to tread.

In his writing, Humes brings out the theme of the dysfunctional juvenile system. At one time in the court, there are two judgements which have brought out clearly that the state of administering justice is not equal and there is unfair treatment in the court. The two cases of Geri Vance and Duncan brought out this vice vividly. Duncan committed the crime of killing an individual, and upon being taken to court when he was only a few days to turn 16 years, he was judged at juvenile court and sentenced, but he was to be released at the age of 25 years. This judgement was too fair comparing it with the crime he committed, and he should have been charged at adults court. Contrary to Duncan's judgement, Geri Vance was forced by drug dealers to take part in the motel robbery, and he was arrested when he took of the gang members who had been shot to the hospital. Geri was arrested and charged with murder even after proving that he didn't pull a trigger of the gun. The judgement he received was harsh as compared to Duncan who had been proved to be a perpetrator of killing. " I was forced to take part in that robbery. I didn't want to do it, but I gave in. I know I have to do some time for that, I understand that. But I'm not a killer." (Humes 13). Despite having tried to convince the judge that he did not kill and he was forced to take part in the robbery, he had to face life imprisonment as he was treated as an adult, though he had just turned 16 years. Comparing to the Duncan judgement which has been proven to shot two people intentionally, his was fiercer, though after pleading with the court, his sentence was later slashed to 12 years imprisonment.

In his book, Humes puts it that judges serving in the Juvenile system can determine the case of a juvenile by just looking at the size of the case file. With this system of determining the charges, a person is likely to receive the wrong judgement.

Due to the arising issues, the juvenile system has proved to be dysfunctional at some point, and all these have been caused by limited resource allocation, understaffing, and unsound infrastructure. The resources allocated to the juvenile facility seem to be insufficient, and this has led to the crowding of the juveniles prison thus making it a place not worth for juveniles to stay at. The writer displays the art of discontent with the existence of this system. There is a group of judges who believes that the juvenile system should be helping children in changing their unwanted morals before reaching a non-return point (Humes 25). Judge Don belonged to this segment as he proposes that the system should always show mercy to the those who commit juvenile crimes as he held that counselling children at a tender age could go hand in hand to help them reform rather than sending them to jail where they can turn out to gang when released from jail. The other segment held that severe punishment should be administered to those who indulge in crimes as they believe that this will shape their behaviours, Peggy belonged to this segment and held that some kids have morals which are extreme and can only be rectified by subjecting them to the severe system.

However, Humes holds that the system should be modified in such a way that it yearns to get offenders at a young age, that is when they commit their first crime, they should be taken to rehabilitation centres rather than giving them time to commit serious crimes for them to be taken to court. "And finally, when I was growing up, I learned how to load bullet." (Humes, 17). From this, we can predict that leaving kids to learn such vices and subjecting to such environments will make them get used to bad vices and they will end up developing bad characters. Despite the proposal for a rehabilitation, Humes put it that there is a lack of enough resources to sustain the rehabilitation services.

Conclusion

In summing up his writing, Humes puts it that there should be proper mechanisms to ensure that kids should be brought up in a manner which makes them less subjected to actions which can make them develop negative behaviours in the society. He puts that, kids should always go to school to avoid absenteeism as this will enable them to have engaged minds and avoid negative vices in society. He states that the law should be changed to ensure that both adults and juvenile should be treated in the same way about their crimes. With the enforcement of such laws, culprits like Duncan will get befitting judgement and have no chance of avoiding is as Duncan did it on the pretence of age. Even though this will ensure uniform judgment, it will look down upon kids who were capable of changing their lives upon subjection to a rehabilitation program.

Work Cited

Humes, Edward. No Matter How Loud I Shout.