No Justice for Juveniles

A now 15 year old boy is asked to decide if he wishes to plead guilty to criminal sexual assault and go home after being held in a juvenile detention facility for 5 months.  It is not explained to him that by pleading guilty for a crime you did not commit you will have to register as a sex-offender and answer “yes” to the question of being convicted of a felony on all employment and secondary education applications.  He is led to believe that this is his only way out and his court-appointed attorney has done very little to defend and protect his rights.  Their defense is that this may become a sealed file once he turns 18 years old but what they fail to see is the record may or may not be sealed but the experience and the nightmares could last forever. 

I believe I see now what happens with young kids now when it comes to getting justice.  It appears the State makes juveniles a Ward of the State so they do not have to conform to the requirement that any interrogations, interviews or information have to go through his adopted or biological parent and that they have full control over what happens to them.  Once they step in and destroy all that moms and dads have built with these children and damaged both of them to such a major degree, they then turn them back over to mom and dad looking for them to put the pieces back together.  No child should have ever been able to make such a huge decision on their own without first talking it over with a parent.  I wonder now just how many more juveniles have been treated in this manner.