Raising age for adult crimes faces resistance, The Herald Sun (06.28.2011)
After nearly 100 years of an ill-considered law that shovels North Carolina’s 16- and 17-year-olds into the harsh world of adult court and potentially dismal prospects for the future, the General Assembly could — and should — reverse that regressive statute in the short session in 2012.
A pair of companion bills with bipartisan support, HB 632 and SB 506, will be considered. Barb Bradley, CEO of Action for Children, a statewide, independent, non-partisan, non-profit child advocacy organization based in Raleigh, said filing adult charges against children whose brains are still developing, whose impulse control is still formative and decision-making skills are lacking is a practice that must end.
“We’re really hurting ourselves as a state with this approach. It’s very antiquated,” Bradley said. North Carolina is one of only two states that charges 16- and 17-year-olds as adults for every crime. New York is the other.
“If they have an adult record, that’s a checkoff record at UNC when you apply” that likely will prevent admission, Bradley said. “It also precludes them from getting employment,” even though companies hire people with similar arrest records from out of state because they were handled through juvenile courts.
“If these kids can’t get jobs because they have an adult record, then are they going to be getting public benefits that we’re paying for as opposed to getting a university education or a college degree or community college degree?” Bradley said.
State Sen. Ellie Kinnaird, D-Carrboro, co-chairwoman of the legislative Youth Accountability Task Force studying raising the age limit to 18, agrees.
“If we want to cut recidivism, this is the place to start,” Kinnaird said.
The data back her up. Youths who serve time in adult prisons are more than twice as likely to be reconvicted later of other crimes as youths who are punished and rehabilitated in the juvenile system, according to the N.C. Sentencing and Policy Advisory Commission.
But Orange-Chatham District Attorney Jim Woodall, who serves on one of the task force working groups that studied substantive legal issues, cautioned that the legislation could backfire. The N.C. Conference of District Attorneys has opposed it but not declared a final position.
“There are many reasons for that. One of the reasons is the fear that this is going to become another unfunded mandate,” and during a budget crisis to boot, Woodall said. “The DA’s as a state organization think the state’s just not ready financially to make this move.”
Not that Woodall thinks raising the age is a bad idea.
“I think the juvenile age has got to change in North Carolina,” he said, but smartly.
“If we flood the system with juveniles, are we going to turn a pretty good juvenile system into the adult system because we can’t handle the volume, so we lose so many of the good components of the juvenile system,” Woodall said.
Reforms would add to the number of juvenile court days, require additional prosecutors and additional support staff, “and right now the state’s telling us we can’t afford the support staff that we have,” Woodall said.
The Department of Juvenile Justice and police will have a heavier caseload that also requires more time because of the way juvenile cases are structured. And as the juvenile caseloads rise, there would be concerns with available capacity for intermittent confinement for a juvenile before being adjudicated delinquent, who transports them, who pays, and when does responsibility shift from county to state.
As it stands, the adult system does have some protections for juveniles.
“We tend to try to give them chances to keep their record clean,” Woodall said. “They get a couple bites at the apple before they start getting a permanent record.”
Still, Kinnaird believes immediate reform is vital.
“We’re very knowledgeable of the fact that we don’t have the funding,” Kinnaird said. “We want to make sure we have the right plan, and from there we have the public on board, and then to phase it in such that it’s financially feasible so it doesn’t dilute our wonderful juvenile system.”
Finding the funding will be a challenge, and some might say that after waiting 100 years for change, there’s no need to rush this legislation until the state is in better financial condition. But don’t try selling that argument to me, or the thousands of immature children snared annually in a life-altering adult world for mostly minor crimes.
Dan E. Way is editor of The Chapel Hill Herald. Send e-mail to dway@heraldsun.com or call 419-6654.
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