Washington, D.C. (October 17, 2019) – The Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ) applauds Congressman Tony Cardenas (D-CA) and Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) for introducing resolutions today in their respective chambers declaring October to be “National Youth Justice Action Month.”

Youth Justice Action Month, or YJAM, was inspired by Tracy McClard, a mother in Jackson, MO, whose son, Jonathan, died by suicide after being transferred to the adult criminal justice system and incarcerated in an adult facility. To honor Jonathan’s life, Tracy hosted a 5K race to bring public awareness to the issue of youth being transferred to the adult criminal justice system. Since that first race in 2008, youth justice advocates around the country have come together to organize events and online activities every October to raise awareness and inspire action on behalf of young people impacted by our criminal justice system.

 As noted in the Congressional resolutions, an estimated 76,000 youth are tried, sentenced, or incarcerated as adults every year in the United States, and most of the youth are prosecuted for nonviolent offenses.

This YJAM, the Campaign for Youth Justice is celebrating the more than 100 pieces of legislation that have been passed since our founding, including the reauthorization of the cornerstone federal statute on juvenile justice, the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. The legislation passed in the last decade has reduced, restricted, or ended the trial, incarceration, or sentencing of children in adult courts. But we also note that racial and ethnic disparities inherent in the system have not improved – more clear evidence that racism remains a centerpiece of our justice system.

“Despite the immense progress we have made in reforming the juvenile justice system, youth of color and other vulnerable populations of youth continue to be disproportionately represented in both our juvenile and adult criminal justice systems,” said CFYJ CEO Marcy Mistrett. “We thank Congressman Cardenas and Senator Harris for declaring October to be National Youth Justice Action Month in order to highlight not only the progress we have made, but how far we still have to go.” 

The read more about the House Resolution, click here.
The read more about the Senate Resolution, click here.

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT:    
Katy Otto
Director of Communications
Juvenile Law Center
215-625-0551 x 128
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Aprill Turner
Communication Director
Campaign for Youth Justice
202-558-3580 x 1604

Juvenile Justice Advocates Applaud the Introduction of the Justice for Juveniles Act

 Washington, D.C. (November 12, 2019) – The Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ) and Juvenile Law Center (JLC) applaud Representatives Mary Gay Scanlon (D-PA), Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), John Katko (R-NY), and Guy Reschenthaler (R-PA) for introducing the Justice for Juveniles Act.

The legislation will protect young people from abuse in institutions by exempting them from the strict filing requirements of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA). The PLRA currently creates obstacles for young people seeking relief in federal court who face abuse in juvenile and adult correctional facilities, by requiring incarcerated youth to file grievances before bringing a lawsuit, sometimes with the very people who have abused them. It limits the type of relief youth can get from the courts and prevents youth from bringing a lawsuit for emotional injuries if they are unable to also prove physical injuries. It also limits attorneys’ fees, making it harder for young people to find attorneys to represent them.

“Across the country, young people who are incarcerated far too often face physical abuse, sexual abuse, solitary confinement, pepper spray, and restraints,” said Jessica Feierman, Senior Managing Director of Juvenile Law Center. “They need the legal system to keep them safe. This bill is a huge step forward, as it will provide youth greater access to the courts when they are abused or mistreated in facilities.”

The Justice for Juveniles Act, which exempts youth from the requirements of the Prison Litigation Reform Act, will help protect young people like Hid, a youth from Pennsylvania, who was held by one detention staff member while being punched by another. He never told anyone at the facility, writing in the Broken Bridges report (written by Juveniles for Justice, a youth advocacy program at Juvenile Law Center) that “the staff who punched [him] would bribe [him] and other youth with snacks to not tell the CFO…they told [him] not to tell when [he] went to court.” Additionally, Hid was held in solitary and rarely checked on except at mealtime.

The Justice for Juveniles Act will also protect youth incarcerated in adult jails and prisons. “Youth held in adult jails and prisons are highly vulnerable to abuse and are five times more likely to be sexually abused than youth held in juvenile detention facilities,” said Rachel Marshall, Federal Policy Counsel with the Campaign for Youth Justice. “Youth also lack the maturity to fully understand, pursue, or exhaust the complex administrative rules and procedures in correctional facilities. We hope to see robust co-sponsorship of the Justice for Juveniles Act and we thank Representatives Scanlon, Armstrong, Jeffries, Katko, and Reschenthaler for introducing this important legislation.”

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For more information about Juvenile Law Center’s work, visit www.JLC.org and for more information on

the Campaign for Youth Justice’s work, visit www.campaignforyouthjustice.org.

May 3, 2019

Ron O’Brien, Esq. Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney

373 S. High Street 14th Floor Columbus, OH 43215 This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Re: Request to End the Unjust Prosecution of Masonique Saunders

Dear Prosecuting Attorney O’Brien:

We, the undersigned, write to express our support for Masonique Saunders and our opposition to your office’s decision to file felony murder charges against her.

Columbus Police claim that Masonique was present during an undercover sting operation at which Officer Eric Richards shot and killed sixteen-year-old Julius Ervin Tate Jr. during an alleged robbery. There is an ongoing dispute and investigation regarding whether Julius brandished a firearm at the scene before being shot five times by Officer Richards. What is not in dispute is that Masonique did not commit murder; utilizing the legal fiction of felony murder is a transparent attempt to distract from the actions of Officer Richards in Julius’s death.

Masonique is now seventeen-years-old, an age at which charging her with aggravated robbery and felony murder requires mandatory bindover to adult court under Ohio’s law. Charging Masonique with felony murder and prosecuting her in adult court would create further harm to a community that has already experienced a tragedy with Julius’s death. Research, data, and experience suggest that there are better ways to heal the community while also promoting public safety.

Youth do not belong in the adult criminal justice system. Children in the adult system are more likely to experience physical and sexual abuse, 36 times more likely to commit suicide than their peers held in juvenile facilities, and are more likely to be exposed to prolonged periods of solitary confinement, an experience the United Nations has found is akin to torture. Not only is the experience harmful for youth, but also harmful to public safety. Youth prosecuted in the adult system are at least 34% more likely to recidivate than their peers in the juvenile justice system. Adult prosecution of Masonique serves no public purpose. 3

In this case, Masonique’s alleged actions do not suggest that she is a threat to public safety, and in fact, placing her in the adult system presents a greater risk than it mitigates. Given that Masonique did not shoot Julius Tate Jr., we believe that her court-involvement will not ultimately further public safety. Furthermore, the police actions surrounding the killing of Julius Tate Jr’s and Masonique’s subsequent arrest are deeply concerning and require immediate redress.

We join the Coalition to #FreeMasonique in requesting the following:

1. The immediate release of Masonique Saunders. 2. Dropping the charges against Masonique. 3. Charge Officer Eric Richards with the murder of Julius Tate Jr. 4. Instigate an independent investigation of the murder of Julius Tate Jr. 5. Release the documents in the records release request filed by the Tate family.

We hope that you will strongly consider dropping the charges against Masonique and moving forward with the request above in order to heal the harm and trauma to the community caused by the death of Julius Tate. If you have any questions regarding the content of this letter, please contact Jeree Thomas at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Sincerely,

Jeree Thomas, Policy Director Campaign for Youth Justice

Jason Szanyi, Deputy Director Center for Children’s Law & Policy

Gina Womack, Executive Director Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children

Grace Bauer, Executive Director Justice for Families

Cayla Burton, Policy Director Juvenile Justice Coalition, OH

3 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.(2007) Effects on Violence of Laws and Policies Facilitating the Transfer of Youth from the Juvenile to the Adult Justice System: Report on Recommendations of the Task Force on Community Preventive Services, Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5609a1.htm.

Riya Shah, Managing Director Juvenile Law Center

Michael Friedman, Executive Director Legal Rights Center, MN

Rachel Gassert, Policy Director Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights

Sarah Bryer, Executive Director National Juvenile Justice Network

Kathy Wright, Executive Director New Jersey Parents’ Caucus

Valerie Slater, Executive Director RISE for Youth

1 Arya, N. (2018). Getting to Zero: A 50-State Study of Strategies to Remove Youth from Adult Jails. Los Angeles, CA: UCLA School of Law (2018). Retrieved from https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LLSF8uBlrcqDaFW3ZKo_k3xpk_DTmItV/view 2 U.N. Secretary General, Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, ¶ 77, U.N. Doc. A/66/268 (Aug. 5, 2011), Retrieved from http://solitaryconfinement.org/uploads/ SpecRapTortureAug2011.pdf.

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About the Campaign for Youth Justice:
The Campaign for Youth Justice, based in Washington, DC, is dedicated to ending the practice of trying, sentencing, and incarcerating youth under 18 in the adult criminal justice system.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
February 26, 2019 

Contact:
Campaign for Youth Justice
Aprill Turner
Phone: (202) 821-1604 Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Coalition for Juvenile Justice

Naomi Smoot
Phone: (202) 467-0864 ext.113; Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

National Coalition Releases Recommendations to 116^th Congress for Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Coalition (NJJDPC) held a Congressional briefing today to discuss the latest on federal juvenile justice reform, including what is next in the wake of the reauthorization of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), and other key priorities for the 116^th Congress. Congressman Tony Cárdenas gave opening remarks, and Anahi Figueroas-Martinez, a member of Juveniles for Justice, a project of the Juvenile Law Center, and Shamelen Henderson, a member of the D.C. Department of Youth Rehabilitative Services Youth Council, shared their experiences with the juvenile justice system with Congressional staff.

NJJDPC also released their recommendations for the 116^th Congress. “Last year showed great progress in the advancement of juvenile justice reforms. We are pleased to provide these recommendations to Congress on ways they can continue to build on the successes of last Congress,” says Rachel Marshall, Federal Policy Counsel at the Campaign for Youth Justice. The recommendations highlight six areas where Congress can take action to promote safe communities, ensure the welfare of our children, and guarantee a fair and equitable justice system, including: 1) Establishing a positive vision for juvenile justice reform; 2) ensuring developmentally appropriate responses to justice-involved youth; 3) reducing reliance on detention and incarceration and investing in communities; 4) ensuring fairness and equity for justice-involved youth; 5) ensuring safety for justice-involved youth; and 6) helping youth successfully reenter their communities.

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About NJJDPC: The National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Coalition (NJJDPC) is a collaborative array of youth- and family- serving, social justice, law enforcement, corrections, and faith-based organizations, working to ensure healthy families, build strong communities and improve public safety by promoting fair and effective policies, practices and programs for youth involved or at risk of becoming involved in the juvenile and criminal justice systems.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Press Contacts:
Kathy Wright
Executive Director
New Jersey Parents’ Caucus
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.  

Aprill Turner
Communication Director
Campaign for Youth Justice
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

New Brief Highlights Disproportionality in the Waiver of Black Children to New Jersey’s Adult Criminal Justice System

Elizabeth, New Jersey (May 22, 2019) -  Souls of Young Folk: The Disproportionate Prosecution of Black Youth as Adult in New Jersey, a new brief by the New Jersey Parents’ Caucus (NJPC), highlights the historical and social treatment of black youth in New Jersey and the emergence of the state’s youth waiver laws.  

In 1990, 281 youth were referred to criminal court.  After the creation of additional waiver statutes the number rose to 564 referrals to criminal court despite the number of youth arrests for serious offenses declining by over forty percent from 1990.  

Since the passage of S. 2003, New Jersey’s 2015 juvenile justice reform bill, fewer youth have been waived to adult court. According to data from New Jersey’s Uniform Crime Reporting System, 161 youth were waived in 2016 compared to 195, the year before the law passed.  

However, despite these significant reductions,  racial disproportionality continues to persist. While black youth make up approximately fourteen percent of the youth population, they represent sixty-six percent of the youth waived to adult court in New Jersey. NJPC’s Executive Director, Kathy Wright, explains that the report is long overdue and highlights a critical area for youth justice reform:

“We cannot talk about reform without talking about the historical context of disproportionality and how that context is the foundation of our current waiver laws that perpetuate disproportionality despite significant reductions in youth arrests. S. 2003 provided a springboard for New Jersey to continue to push for significant reforms, but there is still so much that is not publicly available on outcomes for youth who have been waived to adult court.  We need that data to make informed decisions about how to reduce disparities, hold system stakeholders accountable, end the solitary confinement of youth In the criminal justice system and most importantly get youth appropriate services outside of the justice system. Services that they can’t get in the adult system.”

NJPC recommends that the state publishes more detailed data on waiver by race, that the Juvenile Justice Commission develops a plan to reduce disproportionality in waiver, and that prosecutors are held accountable for their decision to motion to waive youth.  NJPC also encourages the legislature to study the effectiveness of its recent racial impact statement law and consider making changes if it is not helping to address disparities and disproportionality. While Director Kathy Wright believes that the only way to eliminate disparities and disproportionality is to end waiver in New Jersey, she acknowledges that it will take time to get there.  =

“The disproportionality that we see in our system did not happen overnight and it won’t end overnight, but we must act with urgency to dismantle this approach and the first step is acknowledging the many factors and biases that tend to push children of color to the adult system.”

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About the New Jersey Parents’ Caucus
The New Jersey Parents’ Caucus Inc. is a coalition of parents, caregivers and youth whose mission is to ensure that every family who has children with special emotional and behavioral needs is given an opportunity to play a strong and active role in the conceptualization, development and delivery of effective and timely services in the mental health, juvenile justice, child welfare and special education systems. To download a copy of the report, please email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. of visit http://newjerseyparentscaucus.org/.

CONTACT:
Aprill O. Turner
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
(202) 779-2910 (M)

WASHINGTON (April 17, 2019) -- In an effort to identify alternatives to adult incarceration for youth, the Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ) is learning from stakeholders across the country about their efforts to serve youth charged as adults across a continuum of care. In a new report, “If Not The Adult System,Then Where? Alternatives to Adult Incarceration For Youth Certified Adults”. CFYJ shares current and emerging practices for better serving youth charged as adults, insights from practitioners about what makes for successful programming for this population, and specific recommendations for policy and practice change.

“Failed and damaging policies that treat children as adults have always existed in the US and have deep historical roots in racist ideology.  The massive expansion of transfer laws thirty years ago trapped hundreds of thousands of youth between two systems — too often rendering them invisible and forgotten,” said Marcy Mistrett, CEO of the Campaign for Youth Justice. “Communities and states are now using research and data to bring many youth back to a more developmentally appropriate system of care. It's been affirming to talk to so many community and system leaders that now say, ‘These are our children. They belong with us here.’”

Speaking with stakeholders across the country that serve youth charged as adults across a continuum of care, CFYJ found a variety of approaches that are effective in ensuring youth are responded to in an appropriate way. These approaches include:

• Narrowing state laws for how and when youth are sent to the adult system;
• Investing in non-residential, community-based initiatives that offer diversion opportunities to more youth, including those charged with felonies;
• Deploying community-based therapeutic interventions well into adolescence that are more developmentally appropriate and that may include residential treatment; and
• Allowing youth charged and sentenced as adults to remain under juvenile justice custody and offering appropriate services to them.

Over the past two decades, recognizing that youth incarceration is overused, expensive, and ineffective at reducing recidivism and preparing youth for re-entry, the youth justice system has shifted from large youth prisons to investments in community- based alternatives to detention and smaller secure placements. Many youth justice systems also have begun relying on tenets of adolescent development, building developmentally appropriate continuums of care and ensuring that responses to youth criminal behavior have been individualized.

However, since the 1990s, tens of thousands of youth have been prosecuted as adults each year and completely excluded from juvenile court jurisdiction, therefore not benefitting from these advancements. The majority of youth charged as adults have entered the adult system without a juvenile court reviewing their case or assessing their risks and needs.

However, there has been some progress. Over the past 13 years, at least 37 states and the District of Columbia have passed laws to keep more youth in the juvenile justice system. As a result, the number of youth charged as adults in adult facilities has decreased more than 60% nationally; down from 10,000 youth per night in 2000 to 4,200 in 2016.

The report calls on states and localities to do more to invest in what is working and to include youth charged as adults in their services and programs. Too many youth aged 17 or younger are still classified as adults, and too many children still sleep in adult facilities every night. Overwhelmingly, they are African American, Latino, and Tribal youth, with 2016 showing the largest racial disproportionality in thirty years. Too many youth, seen as less innocent and more deserving of punishment, still face extreme sentences and inhumane treatment in a system designed to incapacitate adults.  The report lists recommendations to build on effective practice and invest in strategies that will help youth and communities heal while keeping communities safe.

Download the full report here.
View the interactive report here.

About the Campaign for Youth Justice:
The Campaign for Youth Justice (CFYJ) is a national initiative focused entirely on ending the practice of prosecuting, sentencing, and incarcerating youth under the age of 18 in the adult criminal justice system. CFYJ was initiated in 2004 by a parent whose son was transferred to the adult criminal court for prosecution. 

September 10, 2019 (Washington, DC):  State legislatures across the country are passing laws to “raise the floor” by raising the minimum age at which a child could be prosecuted as an adult, according to a new brief by the Campaign for Youth Justice. 

The brief highlights legislative efforts in a variety of states including California, Connecticut, Illinois, Kansas, New Jersey, South Carolina, Tennessee and Vermont that have raised their minimum age of transfer for at least one of their transfer mechanisms.   For some states, including California, Florida, Kansas, New Jersey, Oregon and Rhode Island, raising the minimum age resulted in the state getting rid of one of its transfer mechanisms altogether.  

Before the “tough on crime” era of the 1980s and 1990s, most states did not prosecute children under fifteen as adults.  However, in the 1990s, in response to the myth of the rise of the juvenile superpredator, several states lowered their minimum age of transfer to adult court and the number of youth prosecuted, sentenced, and incarcerated as adults increased.  

The number of youth transferred by juvenile court judges was approximately 6,000 in 1985.  The number hit a high of 13,100 by 1994, a 54% increase. By the 2000s, the “tough on crime” pendulum began to swing in the opposite direction as evidence-based approaches to adolescent development began to influence legislation.  According to the Campaign, since 2005, 39 states and DC have passed over 100 bills to keep youth out of adult courts, jails, and prisons. During that time period juvenile crime has continued to fall and the number of youth transferred by juvenile court judges has declined from 6,600 in 2005 to 3,800 in 2017.  

“These shifts to raise the floor are significant” according to Marcy Mistrett, the Campaign for Youth Justice’s CEO.  “However, we must remember that these shifts are not radical, but rather returning states to how they treated youth before the severe ‘tough on crime’ measures took effect.  States are righting a wrong by acknowledging that pushing children, literally in some states ten, eleven, and twelve-year-olds, into adult court, is a harmful practice that not only hurts children and their families, but ultimately the community as well.”

The overall number of youth prosecuted as adults as a result of a judicial, prosecutorial, or legislative transfer to adult court has declined as well from 250,000 in the early 2000s to 75,900 in 2015.  While the total number of transfers to adult court have declined, it is important to note that children of color, particularly black children, are still disproportionately transferred. While they were approximately 14% of the youth population, black youth were 54% of the youth transferred by juvenile court judges in 2017.  

“We have made tremendous progress in reducing the number of children who touch the adult system.  However, there is still something fundamentally wrong with the systemic and disproportionate adultification of children of color in our criminal system,” says Mistrett.   “We know that treating Black youth as adult has historical roots in racist policies and practices which is why until we can say that no child is at risk of facing an adult court and sleeping in an adult jail, we still have a long way to go to get justice.” 

Contact:
Campaign for Youth Justice
Aprill Turner
Phone: (202) 821-1604 

Coalition for Juvenile Justice
Naomi Smoot
Phone: (202) 467-0864 ext.113

The Act 4 JJ Coalition Honors the Legacy of Senator Birch Bayh 
Architect of the cornerstone juvenile justice reform legislation passes away at the age of 91

WASHINGTON, D.C (March 14, 2019). – Civil rights champion and architect of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA), former Senator Birch Bayh of Indiana passed away today at the age of 91. While perhaps more well known for authoring Title IX, the 1964 Civil Rights Act, and two constitutional amendments, Bayh was also a long-time champion for juvenile justice reform. As Chair of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency, Bayh held a hearing in 1971 detailing the rampant abuse in the youth prison system. He that incarcerated youth were often “beaten, brutalized and subject[ed] to vicious sexual attacks.” After Senator Bayh initially introduced the JJDPA in 1972, the legislation was finally signed into law by President Gerald Ford in 1974.

“The introduction and eventual passage of the JJDPA marked the first time we had a concrete response from the Federal government to address the way states treat young people in their custody,” said Marcy Mistrett, CEO of the Campaign for Youth Justice and co-chair for the Act 4 JJ Coalition. “Thanks to Senator Bayh’s relentless advocacy, Congress took action to protect some our country’s most vulnerable children. The JJDPA has been so successful that nearly every state and U.S. territory participate in this voluntary program, and youth crime is at all all-time low.”

The Senator’s passing comes shortly after the JJDPA was finally reauthorized after a 16-year lapse. In December 2018, Congress passed a reauthorization bill that strengthened the core protections and included critical, research-based improvements that reaffirm a national commitment to the rehabilitative purpose of the juvenile justice system. States and advocates now await direction from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention on the implementation of these important updates. “The passing of the first champion for juvenile justice reform cannot be the death of the law. We need to honor the legacy of Senator Bayh by ensuring full implementation of the reforms made by the Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2018,” said Naomi Smoot, Executive Director of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice and co-chair of the Act 4 JJ Coalition.

The Act 4 JJ Coalition honors the life of Senator Bayh. We remain committed to carrying on the work started by the Senator and honor his legacy through continued advocacy for our nation’s young people.

For more information go to www.ACT4JJ.org

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About Act 4 Juvenile Justice - Act 4 Juvenile Justice (ACT 4 JJ) is a campaign of the National Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Coalition (NJJDPC), which represents a broad network of organizations that work on youth development and juvenile justice issues. ACT 4 JJ is composed of juvenile justice, child welfare, and youth development organizations advocating for the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA) and increased federal funding for juvenile justice programs and services.

In the aptly titled National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine Report, The Promise of Adolescence: Realizing the Opportunity of All Youth, the Committee on Neurobiological and Socio-Behavioral Science of Adolescent Development and Its Applications acknowledges that the period of adolescence provides many “opportunities for positive development and recovery from past adversity.”  It also recognizes some of the structural limitations to providing opportunities to some adolescents:

“The promise of adolescence can be severely curtailed by economic, social, and structural disadvantage and, in all-toomany cases, by racism, bias, and discrimination. These potent societal determinants shape adolescents’ life-course trajectories in multiple ways. They reduce access to opportunities and supports enjoyed by more privileged youth, and they also expose less privileged youth to excess risks, stresses, and demands. …..Disparities in adolescent outcomes are not immutable. They are responsive to changes in underlying conditions, and adolescents themselves show resilience and demonstrate strengths and assets that may be utilized to overcome inequities.”  

While the Campaign for Youth Justice recognizes these recommendations as an important first step, we believe the Committee missed a significant opportunity to call for the end of the prosecution and incarceration of youth under eighteen in the criminal justice system, through their recommendations for justice-involved youth:

“Legislatures should restore judicial discretion in decision making about transferring juveniles to or from criminal courts…[and that] [j]udges sentencing juveniles in criminal courts should place these youth in juvenile correctional settings rather than adult correctional facilities.” https://www.nap.edu/read/25388/chapter/13#342 

In the section dedicated to understanding the impact of transfer, the Committee outlines several significant reports that indicate the harms associated with prosecuting youth as adults. This includes the fact that youth in the adult system are more likely to be exposed to harsher and longer sentences, sexual violence, and “toxic settings” within adult facilities. The Committee also highlights the incredibly disparate treatment of Black youth in the transfer process, which often results in longer adult prison terms.  

However, the Committee concludes this section by stating that the research is “mixed” on the impact of transfer and the “mechanisms by which juveniles should or should not be prosecuted in criminal courts.”

The Campaign for Youth Justice believes that it is critical to acknowledge the historical context of the adultification of children and the systemic racism that underlies the practice. It is not by mistake that Black youth and other youth of color are disproportionately represented at the point of transfer, it is by historical design.  It is the result of well documented historical oppression and racial terror along with current societal biases and under-investment in communities of color; practices that continue to permeate our society by dehumanizing and adultifying children of color. The Committee recommends that all youth, no matter their court of jurisdiction, should have access to the services and treatment provided in the juvenile justice system. Yet, they stop short of calling for youth to remain in juvenile court.  

The Committee acknowledges the causes and impact of inequality on adolescents, but fails to connect that historical and societal context to the purpose and practice of transferring youth to the adult system. We believe that identifying this notable gap provides an opportunity for an investment in further research that considers the full and lived experiences and expertise of children, youth, and families who have been directly impacted by the criminal justice system.

Bipartisan Legislation Would Improve Public Safety and Result in Better Outcomes for 17-year-olds

WASHINGTON (October 16, 2019) - The Michigan Legislature has voted to finally pass its “Raise the Age” law, bipartisan legislation which will increase the age at which youth are automatically tried as adults from 17 to 18. Should the package of bills be signed into law by the Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Michigan would become the sixth state in the last four years to enact such legislation.

Currently in Michigan, children are automatically charged as adults the day they turn 17, even for the most minor offenses, but plans to “Raise the Age” in the state have been in the works for several years. Should Michigan’s “Raise the Age” proposal become law, there will be just three states remaining that have not yet updated their requiring all 17-year-olds to be tried in adult courts.

“The Michigan Legislature has worked incredibly hard to craft this important legislation, and we are excited to see Michigan moving to adopt the best practices in youth justice that have swept across the country in recent years," said Marcy Mistrett, CEO at the Campaign for Youth Justice. "As we have seen in other states that have made this change, Michigan will see better outcomes for children, who will be protected from the harms of the adult criminal justice system, and improvements in public safety, as children who remain in the juvenile justice system have significantly lower rates of recidivism than those who are tried and punished as adults."

“Based on the experience of other states that have “Raised the Age”, the short-term costs of this reform are likely to be much less than anticipated, while the long-term benefits to Michigan will likely be significant,” Mistrett added.

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About the Campaign for Youth Justice:|
The Campaign for Youth Justice, based in Washington, DC, is dedicated to ending the practice of trying, sentencing, and incarcerating youth under 18 in the adult criminal justice system.

New Legislation Would Improve Public Safety and Result in Better Outcomes for Vulnerable Young People

WASHINGTON (April 24, 2019) - The Michigan Senate has voted to increase the age at which youth are automatically tried as adults from 17 to 18. Should the legislation pass the House of Representatives and be signed into law by the Governor, Michigan would become the sixth state in the last four years to enact such legislation.

Michigan is one of just four states that has yet to update its laws that require all 17-year-olds to be tried in adult courts. Currently in Michigan, children are automatically charged as adults the day they turn 17, even for the most minor offenses, but plans to “Raise the Age” in the state have been in the works for several years.

“This legislation has been carefully considered and diligently pursued, and we are so happy to now see Michigan moving to Raise the Age." said Marcy Mistrett, CEO at the Campaign for Youth Justice. "As we have seen in other states that have made this change, this legislation will lead to better outcomes for children, who will be protected from the harms of the adult criminal justice system, and for public safety, as children who remain in the juvenile justice system have significantly lower rates of recidivism than those who are tried and punished as adults."

“As we have seen in other states, we anticipate that the short-term costs of this reform will be much less than anticipated, while the long-term benefits to the Michigan economy will be significant,” Mistrett added.

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About the Campaign for Youth Justice:
The Campaign for Youth Justice, based in Washington, DC, is dedicated to ending the practice of trying, sentencing, and incarcerating youth under 18 in the adult criminal justice system.