Words matter. Especially in politics, legislation and policy, where interpretation is everything and rhetoric transforms by stages into reality. As I write, lawmakers in states across the nation are contemplating stiffening juvenile justice policies, including rolling back reforms enacted just a few years ago. In all their deliberations, one word keeps popping up, Zelig-like: “accountability.” And it is causing a lot of mischief.
In Maryland, where I have been following the debate most closely, Democratic lawmakers are advancing two bills, HB814 and SB744, that revisit reforms enacted in 2022. As currently written, these bills would, among other things, double probation lengths, make more kids eligible for detention, and expand the number of offenses that would see 10-, 11-, and 12-year-olds charged in the juvenile justice system.
Leading up to the debate, a steady stream of media reporting and opinion writing fanned fears that young people accused of crime were not being held accountable. States’ attorneys supporting this legislation continue to call for more accountability every chance they get. Legislators saying they want more services for system-involved kids insist this support must be balanced with accountability.
Even Governor Wes Moore, who campaigned on an “all-of-the-above” approach to public safety, has centered the word in his public comments: “Anything that makes it to my desk,” he recently told reporters, needs to “have accountability at its heart.”
Calls for accountability are common in other states, too. In Louisiana, where some lawmakers want to charge more kids as adults and publicize court records of youth accused of serious crimes, a parent grieving a child lost to gun violence lamented, “We must hold these juveniles accountable…We need to put the names out. We need the faces out.”
A Florida legislator’s recent press release on new legislation increasing penalties for youth who unlawfully possess handguns declared, “Florida is experiencing a 50-year low in crime, but there’s always more we can do…. One area we can work on is holding juveniles who commit gun crimes more accountable.”
The focus on accountability in juvenile justice is not new. In the late 1990s, for example, the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention launched the Juvenile Accountability Incentive Block Grants Program specifically in response to allegations that states’ juvenile justice systems had become too lax.
“If we are to hold juvenile offenders accountable for their delinquent acts,” a 1999 bulletin from the program intoned, “accountability must be integrated into every aspect of the juvenile court and probation processes.”
Clearly, “accountability” is a popular word. But what, exactly, does it mean — especially in the context of juvenile justice? What I have witnessed in Maryland persuades me that the word is deeply problematic and could be beneficially replaced by language that is more precise, more measurable, and more likely to deliver positive outcomes.
Merriam-Webster defines accountability as “an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions.” But more is at work here than just having kids own up to their unwanted behavior. The primary definition of “account”—the root of accountability—refers to “a record of debit and credit.” This suggests that there is an implied debt within “accountability,” and kids are expected to pay it.
Michelle Kim, of the Maryland Office of the Public Defender, shares my skepticism:
“My issue with the word is that on one hand it has this kind of deliberate vagueness that allows officials to pretend they’re doing something without actually having to do anything really concrete. ‘I’m going to make those kids accountable,’ says Governor Moore. We have no idea what that means in real life, but it sounds great. But that deliberate vagueness becomes very much more sinister when it’s applied, because the criminal court system is very concrete and very brutal in terms of what it actually means by accountability…So I think delving into what people actually mean concretely when they talk about accountability is something that we must require.”
A second problem with “accountability”: It is hard to measure. The juvenile justice system has multiple goals, says Jennifer Woolard, a developmental psychologist at Georgetown University who studies the juvenile justice system. “They often include protecting public safety, holding youth accountable, and some version of trying to keep things from happening again — whether it’s talking about rehabilitation or restoration or something like that.”
Researchers can track data about crime rates and recidivism. But there is no objective measure of accountability.
“The definition of success of ‘accountability’ would depend on who you’re talking to,” Woolard says. If so, then holding officials accountable for accountability is impossible.
When we allow “accountability” to frame discussions about youth and public safety, we are distracted from those things that can be measured and, like age-appropriate support and services, are effective at changing youthful behavior. Refocusing our language on “consequences that help kids learn to make better choices” could help. Talking about “consequences” invites us to be clear about what, specifically, we have in mind. In some cases, for example, a consequence could be diversion into a community-based program. On the other extreme, especially for older adolescents, they might include incapacitation (detention or placement) or an expectation that the youth will make up for the harm they committed.
Kim, of the Maryland public defenders, suggests using the word “incentives” as an alternative, allowing for both the positive variety (carrots) and the negative (sticks).
Some are sure to complain that changes such as these are little more than a game of semantics. But as noted earlier, word choice is a serious matter; people care about words because language shapes thinking, and thinking shapes action.
In the end, as I think about it, the most distressing thing about accountability as a watchword is you can never really get enough. For myriad reasons, if Maryland’s legislation passes as is, it is likely to have little to no positive effect on the behavior of kids in the community. Should that happen, though, don’t expect the bills’ proponents to admit they were wrong and change course. Instead, the advocates of accountability will be back at it, demanding even more.
