The Louisiana legislature is poised to cross Senate Invoice 3, which might decrease the age to criminally prosecute youngsters as adults to seventeen. This transfer will exclude all 17-year-olds from the juvenile justice system, it doesn’t matter what they’re accused of. Points corresponding to a school-yard combat or shoplifting — whereas under no circumstances trivial  —  are sometimes part of regular transient adolescent conduct, or at the least they had been. 

Louisiana already has a mechanism to switch youngsters accused of  severe crimes into the grownup criminal-justice system. Reducing the age of felony accountability to 17 will merely transfer 17-year-old children who’ve dedicated nonviolent offenses into the grownup system, exacerbating poor outcomes for these youth.

If SB 3 is handed and signed into legislation, Louisiana will probably be criminalizing childhood behaviors which might be higher handled in juvenile courtroom. What sense does it make to ship extra 17-year-old children to grownup jails, particularly in minor instances? Solely three different states — Texas, Georgia and Wisconsin — robotically put 17-year-olds in grownup settings, which helps to clarify why jails and prisons in these states are full of people that have been incarcerated since childhood.

Louisiana is already probably the most prolific state within the nation relating to prosecuting and incarcerating youngsters as adults. In a report launched final 12 months by Human Rights for Youngsters, we discovered that 7.2% of Louisiana’s jail inhabitants is incarcerated for offenses dedicated whereas they had been below the age of 18, greater than another state within the nation. That’s a price of 49 folks per 100,000 Louisiana residents, stratospherically greater than another state. 

Louisiana’s place as one of many worst human rights offenders within the nation would sink even additional if all 17-year-olds, together with the 342 seventeen 12 months olds that had been adjudicated delinquent final 12 months, are moved into the grownup system.

There are good explanation why youngsters needs to be handled otherwise from adults within the justice system. We don’t permit 17-year-olds to take part in authorities, signal contracts, lease property, or buy alcohol or tobacco merchandise. 

We even have legal guidelines in place to guard them from hurt, as a result of we acknowledge that they’re significantly weak to exploitation. The U.S. Supreme Courtroom has constantly established guardrails on the felony penalties that may be levied in opposition to youngsters, citing their immaturity and capability for change because the foundational cause. Analysis from the Workplace of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention signifies that youngsters face worse outcomes within the grownup system than in a juvenile justice system designed for them. In contrast, they’ve a better capability for rehabilitation if given child-specific providers to assist information them down a greater path.

Louisiana lawmakers acknowledged these realities in 2016, passing laws to part 17-year-olds into the juvenile justice system by 2020. This laws got here within the wake of a research commissioned by the legislature in 2015, which discovered that youth aren’t served higher within the grownup system, and that transferring them into the juvenile justice system wouldn’t solely assist public security within the state — it could save the state hundreds of thousands of {dollars} on account of decreased recidivism and different elements. 

Louisiana has additionally already seen the poor results of treating youngsters like adults. Final 12 months, the state moved a contingent of kids into the defunct Loss of life Row wing of Angola jail following complaints about security. The ensuing rights abuses dedicated in opposition to the youngsters who had been moved there (together with solitary confinement, oppressive warmth, and insufficient academic providers) garnered nationwide consideration, a federal lawsuit that demanded their launch, and even condemnation from the United Nations Workplace of the Excessive Commissioner on Human Rights throughout its assessment of the United States criminal-justice system final 12 months.

The travesties that resulted from transferring youngsters into Angola final 12 months illustrated that grownup correctional amenities — even separate sections of grownup amenities — are not any place for Louisiana’s youngsters. This was addressed by former OJJ Deputy Secretary Curtis Nelson, who advocated for a extra evidence-based and rehabilitative method for youngsters final 12 months. 

Senate Invoice 3 is not going to make Louisiana residents safer. Larger assets in research-proven approaches would end in higher outcomes for youngsters – and would really deal with the complaints concerning juvenile violent crime that the sponsors of SB 3 search to deal with.  

Aiden Lesley is the Baby Rights Researcher at Human Rights for Youngsters, a nonprofit targeted on the safety and promotion of the human rights of kids. For extra info on the inhabitants of individuals incarcerated in grownup prisons for offenses dedicated as youngsters, go to https://humanrightsforkids.org/a-crime-against-humanity/. 

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