In Some States, Raising the Age for Adult Court Is the Easy Part

South Carolina's justice system is slated to raise the age below which an offender is considered juvenile, from 17 to 18.

The state’s new law, which passed easily and was signed by Gov. Nikki Haley in early June, would transfer 17-year-olds from the unforgiving adult system into a juvenile system intended to promote their rehabilitation and education. That shift, however, will not take effect until 2019, because corrections officials need time to figure out how many of these 17-year-olds there are — and how much it will cost to relocate them

As it stands now, the juvenile system is in no position to offer the kind of substantially better environment that the raise-the-age movement had in mind.

“The same people who sat at the table to get the law passed, they now have to answer the question, Hey, what’s it going to take to make this work?” said Sue Berkowitz, the director of the South Carolina Appleseed Legal Justice Center, one of the chief proponents of the bill. “We’ve got to concretely say, O.K., we’re going to have X number of 17-year-olds now, what do we need to do next?”

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In simple terms, that means that 17 years olds will now be treated as minors. From the looks of this article, that means building more prisons for kids. Although it seems that this is just another way to expand the prison industry, I think it will be legally beneficial. This will make it easier for people to understand the difference between a child who committed a crime, and an adult who committed a crime. There is a vast difference between the two, and the legal transition from juvenile offender to adult offender is abrupt.

What are we doing to our children to make them into criminals? I do not believe that someone is "born bad." Unless a child has a psychological predisposition toward illegal behavior, then that child should be capable of making it to adulthood without going to juvenile detention.

“Is DJJ in crisis? Yes. Am I afraid? Yes. Is there an escalation of violence? Yes,” said Catherine McKnight, an employee of the juvenile justice department, to a legislative oversight committee in March.

Meanwhile, at least 20 percent of the about 100 juveniles held at the Broad River Road facility are confined in its “Crisis Management Unit” — in other words, in solitary confinement. For about 23 hours a day (leaving one hour for recreation, education, and showers), they live in small, concrete cells with a painted-over window, a food slot and a crack under the door to speak through.

Many of them have been held in isolation for months at a time, according to affidavits from juveniles, interviews with monitors authorized by law to observe the conditions, and records from oversight hearings of the state legislature.

They are also shackled (at the wrists, waist, and ankles) for most movement outside their cells. That includes when they are playing basketball and sometimes taking showers, said Phyllis Ross, an advocate for Protection and Advocacy, the disability-rights group that has been monitoring the facility for over a decade. “If you haven’t seen that, it’s a pretty mean feat to shoot a basketball in handcuffs,” she added.

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From what I understand, juvie is like prison, but for children. That means that these children are being grouped together into one massive concentration of misbehaving children. Those conditions have to make the worst possible condition for rehabilitation. So, even if we are able to definitively separate adults from children in the prison system, I think that this will have a very damaging effect on children who are already possibly damaged. No, not everyone can afford to send their child to a rehab clinic in Vermont. However, I think that what we are compromising is the integrity of our younger generations for the integrity of our culture, and that just doesn't make any sense.

Younger generations change society as they grow. So why does South Carolina have a 90-day jail sentence hanging over the heads of kids who misbehave in school?

Sometimes, archaic law can and should change. Recognizing these children for who they are, and not indoctrinating them into the ranks of adult criminals is the first step. Barack Obama took the first steps last year, in a series of executive actions to ban solitary confinement for juveniles. What we are seeing is a long overdue reform of our severely flawed justice system.

The problems with juveniles is they are often mentally ill by community standards, and lack the mechanisms to get along with adversity. In the "hood" they used to be armed, in jail they are not, and that brings additional stress to an already malfunctioning psychology.

Often, many are little more than feral children released into the community to join gangs, neglected by drug and alcohol compromised parent (s) leaving them free to commit mayhem on the population.

There is no male role model, and gangs fill the role of family.

We have a difficult problem on our hands, and no easy way to solve it. At least Trump acknowledges it, and plans to attempt to do something through economic revival in the neighborhoods. As Trump said:

"We Spent $6 Trillion In The Middle East, We Could Have Rebuilt Our Country Twice". That is a lot of jobs at home instead of bleeding tax money into corrupt governments.

chuckiechan said:

The problems with juveniles is they are often mentally ill by community standards, and lack the mechanisms to get along with adversity. In the "hood" they used to be armed, in jail they are not, and that brings additional stress to an already malfunctioning psychology.

Often, many are little more than feral children released into the community to join gangs, neglected by drug and alcohol compromised parent (s) leaving them free to commit mayhem on the population.

There is no male role model, and gangs fill the role of family.

We have a difficult problem on our hands, and no easy way to solve it. At least Trump acknowledges it, and plans to attempt to do something through economic revival in the neighborhoods. As Trump said:

"We Spent $6 Trillion In The Middle East, We Could Have Rebuilt Our Country Twice". That is a lot of jobs at home instead of bleeding tax money into corrupt governments.

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I suspect that there are still some Conservatives who think giving handouts to little old ladies here in the USA is beneficial to women. Employing young women, from migrant women to Native American women would benefit women. One thing that Trump said which I think many conservatives and liberals can get behind is, "you're gonna make the same if you do as good a job."

Unfortunately, as you pointed out, many of these juveniles are "hoodlums." They don't have jobs, even if they may be legally employed at that age in that state. The environment in which they live may not be particularly rewarding or encouraging of work. Many of these individuals who are incarcerated as juveniles are young men. Young men are twice as likely to be incarcerated as juveniles as young women, ranging from two times as likely to be convicted on charges like DUI and Property Crime, to four times as likely to be convicted of a violent crime.

People will interpret this to mean that men are more violent than women. I think that this bias against men is not necessarily true of all men. Some men are more violent than others. While these young men may not actually be feral, I don't think that they were born violent, and a system which ingrains violent behavior and chains these men up from a young age is damaging and wrong.

I know that we have to arrest criminals, and it would be sexist to claim that any teenage man is, on average, generally more criminal than any given teenage woman. So I think the answer is quite clear. Part of the problem that we are having with the criminal justice system is the systemic abuse of men.

We need to start listening to men and valuing men, especially when it comes to men who are fathers.