Pubdate: Sun, 6 Mar 2011
Source: New York Times (NY)
Page: Front Page, top of page
Copyright: 2011 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Mosi Secret

STATES PROSECUTE FEWER TEENAGERS IN ADULT COURTS

A generation after record levels of youth crime spurred a nationwide 
movement to prosecute more teenagers as adults, a consensus is 
emerging that many young delinquents have been mishandled by the 
adult court system.

Last year, Connecticut stopped treating all 16-year-old defendants as 
adults, and next year will do the same for 17-year-olds. Illinois 
recently transferred certain low-level offenders younger than 18 into 
its juvenile system. And in January, lawmakers in Massachusetts 
introduced a bill to raise the age of adulthood in matters of crime, 
and their counterparts in Wisconsin and North Carolina intend to do the same.

By year's end, New York might be the only state where adulthood, in 
criminal matters, begins on the 16th birthday.

The changes followed studies that concluded that older adolescents 
differed significantly from adults in their capacity to make sound 
decisions, and benefited more from systems focused on treatment 
rather than on incarceration.

A 2010 report by Wisconsin's juvenile justice commission to the 
governor, James E. Doyle, and the Legislature found that "for many, 
if not most, youthful offenders, the juvenile justice system is 
better able to redirect their behavior," in large part because of the 
greater availability of social services.

Most of the studies pointed to a 2005 decision by the United States 
Supreme Court in Roper v. Simmons that outlawed the death penalty for 
defendants who were younger than 18 when their crimes were committed, 
because of the "general differences" distinguishing them from adults 
- -- a lack of maturity, greater susceptibility to peer pressure and 
undeveloped character.

It is more expensive to prosecute a defendant in juvenile court, and 
opponents of the changes are questioning the costs at a time when 
states are facing deep budget deficits. In New Hampshire's House of 
Representatives, members voted overwhelmingly in 2008 to raise the 
age at which defendants are considered adults, to 18 from 17, but the 
bill died in the finance committee because of the projected cost.

In North Carolina, where proposals have failed in the last two 
legislative sessions, the issue has also largely been about money. 
"It does not make sense to take a system that all the experts agree 
does not have the resources to care for the children, and then add 
two more age groups," said Edmond W. Caldwell Jr., vice president and 
general counsel of the North Carolina Sheriffs' Association, which 
opposed legislation to send 16- and 17-year-olds to the juvenile courts.

An analysis by the Vera Institute of Justice, a criminal justice 
research group that has advocated alternatives to prison, found that 
transferring about 31,000 16- and 17-year-olds to North Carolina's 
juvenile system would cost approximately $71 million annually, but 
generate $123 million in benefits each year, assuming there were 
fewer arrests over the long term and fewer people in jails and prisons.

Every state maintains one court and correctional system for juveniles 
and another for adults. The juvenile system generally has a higher 
staff-to-offender ratio and programming that focuses on treatment and 
rehabilitation. Juvenile court records are sealed, making it easier 
for young people who do not commit crimes as adults to find jobs, 
apply for public housing and receive financial aid for college.

Thirty-seven states, the District of Columbia and the federal 
government have already set the age of adult criminal responsibility 
at 18. Eleven states have set the age at 17. New York and North 
Carolina are the only two states that set the age at 16.

In 2008, the year of the most recent national estimate from the 
Justice Department, law enforcement agencies made about 2.1 million 
arrests of teenagers younger than 18, and most of those cases 
involved 16- and 17-year-olds. The data also showed a drastic 
decrease in arrest levels since the mid-1990s: there were an 
estimated 2.9 million such arrests in 1996, when the population of 
those under 18 was smaller than it is today.

Despite a long history of liberal politics in New York's justice 
system, many facets of the system remain from the days when crime 
sent people to the suburbs and beyond.

New York led the charge to crack down on juvenile crime after a 
15-year-old named Willie Bosket shot and killed two people in the New 
York City subway in 1978. Mr. Bosket received a five-year sentence, 
the maximum for a juvenile, inciting outrage. Legislators quickly 
passed the Juvenile Offender Act, which lowered the age of adulthood 
to 13 in all murder cases, and 14 for other major felonies; the age 
was left at 16 for other crimes.

Over the next two decades, nearly every state and the District of 
Columbia passed laws that increased the number of young offenders who 
could be sent to adult criminal court, either by lowering the age of 
criminal responsibility or increasing the number of offenses for 
which juveniles could be prosecuted as adults, with most of the 
changes happening in the 1990s.

Even as that trend is being reversed, all states retain the ability 
to prosecute especially violent youths as adults, in some cases with 
no minimum age limit. But those cases make up a tiny portion of the 
total juvenile caseload nationwide. In 2007, there were fewer than 
9,000 juvenile cases waived to adult court, out of nearly one million 
juvenile prosecutions, according to the most recent national estimate 
from the Justice Department.

In New York, where 45,873 youths ages 16 and 17 were arrested last 
year, proponents of raising the age of adult criminal responsibility 
have attempted to push the issue in the past two months. Aides to 
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo did not immediately respond to questions about 
his position on the issue.

In January, an advisory board to the Governor's Children's Cabinet, a 
group of state officials with oversight over youth issues, released a 
report calling for a task force to examine raising the age.

Around that time, members of the New York State Bar Association 
children's committee drafted legislation to establish such a task 
force, and they are looking for support from legislators and the 
governor's office. Michael A. Corriero, a retired judge who presided 
over Manhattan's special court for 13-, 14- and 15-year-old offenders 
who were tried as adults, testified at a City Council committee 
hearing in January that the current system was ineffective.

Any efforts to raise the age would contend with questions about 
whether the state's juvenile justice system, already under strain, 
can handle an even bigger load. Four youth prisons were placed under 
federal oversight last year because of complaints of physical abuse 
of inmates and a lack of mental health counseling. Mayor Michael R. 
Bloomberg has proposed that the city be allowed to handle its own 
juvenile cases.

In interviews, New York City judges asserted that the juvenile court 
system as it was currently financed would be overwhelmed by adding 
16- and 17-year-old offenders. "We would need a big infusion of 
funding and staff to make it happen with that age group," said Fran 
Lubow, a judge in Queens Family Court. "I don't see that happening in 
our current budget circumstances."

Some judges said teenagers in adult court were well served with a 
host of special rehabilitation programs, and noted that young 
defendants in adult court automatically had their first misdemeanor 
conviction sealed, and that judges had the discretion to seal later 
convictions.

But others called on the state to get in step with the rest of the 
country. "People across the nation who have rethought this issue have 
come to the conclusion that it's time for a change, and I think it's 
time in New York for that same kind of assessment," said Monica 
Drinane, the supervising Family Court judge in the Bronx. "The age of 
16 is not a good cutoff for juveniles."

One case last month in Manhattan's adult criminal court, which 
involved a 17-year-old admitted shoplifter, illustrates the quandary 
and the costs involved. The judge offered the teenager a choice: a 
residential drug-treatment program or a one-to-three-year prison 
sentence. The judge had reviewed a social worker's assessment of the 
defendant that detailed a history of misdemeanor thefts, mental 
health hospitalizations, substance abuse and beatings by his mother's 
boyfriend, but no convictions involving violence.

The defendant, who was 16 when he stole clothing from a Filene's 
Basement store and cold medicine from Duane Reade, weighed his 
options. He knew that his mother's insurance would not cover the $600 
monthly payments for the program. But if he were in juvenile court, a 
judge could have ordered him into a program, with taxpayers picking 
up the entire cost.

He chose prison. "Because I didn't have Medicaid, the city wasn't 
going to pay for the program," said the teenager from a 
video-conferencing room at Rikers Island. He spoke on the condition 
of anonymity because the judge agreed to seal his conviction.

"This is a painful example of the problem with the current law, which 
literally puts handcuffs on 16- and 17-year-olds as well as the 
judges in criminal court," said Steven Banks, chief lawyer at the 
Legal Aid Society, which represented the teenager.  
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