so, is the stranger ready to make a editorial shift away from the 'super predictor' approach to juvenile justice to something more based on 21st century values?

Under feudalism, the model used was based on theology, and the concept of purgatory. Prisoners were tortured in order to shorten the time they would have to spend before being admitted to the christian paradise.

A group of Quakers in Pennsylvania during the early colonial era had a different idea. The decided to put Jeremy Bentham's ideas into practice. Jails were now to be modeled on monastic cells. The terminology we still retain to this day reflects that attitude. Department of Corrections, where the intent is to correct he behavior. Penitentiary, where individuals would do penance. Solitary confinement, where prisoners were to be offered solitude to contemplate the nature of their offense, and ultimately arrive at a desire not to re-offend. Rehabilitation, being the state of mind just mentioned.

Every system is perfectly designed to achieve the ends it achieves. On the surface, we may tell ourselves that the prison system is still there to rehabilitate. The thing we don' want to admit to ourselves is, our baser instincts of cruelty and sadism have crept into our model of how a prison should operate. Prisons do not offer quiet contemplation. They are loud, dirty, violent places. How is one to meditate on becoming a getter person under such conditions? They aren't intended to. They may have once been an emetic to help the sickened soul spit out their sins, however, they are now more Hell than Purgatory. Once condemned, we do not as a society see the prisoner as One of Us. The prisoner becomes One of Them. An Other. Someone to be isolated from Us.

And not merely to be cut off, but to suffer. Prisons are intended to instill fear in the population, a symbol of just how bad life can get if you stray too far from the line you're supposed to march in. While the retain the language of those Pennsylvania Quakers, prison is nothing like a monastery.

Nor is the life afforded to a prisoner upon release. A criminal record condemns you to a lifetime of underemployment, long after you were supposedly "corrected" or "rehabilitated", or had done your penance in the penitentiary. One you become One of Them, you can never again be One of Us. You now bear the mark of Cain, in a record anyone is allowed to read, everywhere you go. Your movements are restricted. You must be regularly inspected at parole meetings and hearings. You are tagged with an anklet, the way we tag wild animals. And if you try to live as One of Us in spite of these measures, you will be hunted, the way those same animals are.

The Discipline and Punish model does what its intended to do. However, its intended purpose is not what you think it is. This isn't at all about reforming errant youth. This is about sadistic cruelty aimed at your fellow human beings.

How does the death penalty reform anyone? You cant reform someone after they're dead. Prisons do not reform anyone. Nor do any ADJ structures currently extant.

So lets be honest here. You want this prison not because you want to 'save' youth from themselves. This has nothing to do with 'reforming' them. This is about damning them, and scaring the shit out of other kids you're afraid might behave in ways you disapprove of. You have no desire to help anyone here. Just to dominate, and to be cruel toward.

Who's the real monsters here? They criminal youth? Or us?

How do we keep shitty people from procreating? The real question that is not being asked.