'Adult at 16' policy criticized

Sentencing panel urges raising age

RALEIGH -- Sixteen and 17-year-olds are barred from serving on North Carolina juries, can't enter civil contracts on their own and can't get married without their parents' permission. That's leading some legislators and a state sentencing commission to argue that they also shouldn't automatically be treated like adults by the judicial system.

The N.C. Sentencing and Policy Advisory Study Commission recently recommended that the state should raise the age at which criminal defendants are automatically charged in adult court from 16 to 18.

North Carolina, Connecticut and New York are the only states to set the age limit for juvenile court at 16. Every other state sets the age at 17 or 18.

"It doesn't make sense to say [16- and 17-year-olds] are fully informed individuals ... in one half of our legal code and the other half say no they're not," said Rep. Alice Bordsen, D-Alamance, a supporter of raising the age of juvenile court jurisdiction. "There's a huge inconsistency in our law. It leads to waste in young people and a waste of money."

That argument has drawn rebuttals from many people charged with fighting crime, including prosecutors, judges and law enforcement officials. They contend reducing the threat of prison time could embolden gangs, burden an underfunded juvenile justice system and show disrespect to the public and victims of crime.

"As a district attorney, I have to be the voice of those who've been wronged, who've been hurt," said Howard Boney Jr., the longtime district attorney for Edgecombe, Nash and Wilson counties. "If we jump into this, then all of a sudden we're going to be giving a pass to people who often probably need a taste of the correction system."

Bordsen argues that such a "taste" of adult prison isn't doing much good.

She thinks teenagers sent to adult prison or placed on probation for a first offense don't receive the intensive behavioral help needed to keep them from becoming repeat offenders or escalating to more violent crimes.

The study commission came to a similar conclusion in its report, which urges next year's General Assembly to raise the age of juvenile court.

Interpreting data

According to data compiled by the commission, about 5.5 percent of the 28,734 felons convicted during the 12 months ending June 30, 2005, were 16 or 17 at the time of their crimes. Forty-six percent of offenders who entered adult prison or were placed on probation at age 16 or 17 in 1999 were re-arrested within three years, compared with 38 percent for all offenders.

Susan Katzenelson, the commission's executive director, said young offenders often err because of a lack of maturity. While in juvenile court, a delinquent's record is confidential and can be expunged later; adult offenders, on the other hand, must live with their mistakes publicly.

"By giving them convictions and calling them adults at 16 at a very vulnerable, very poor-judgment period of their lives, we have made them basically held responsible to a degree for the rest of their lives," Katzenelson told the Governor's Crime Commission at a recent meeting in Cary.

Prosecutors' discretion

The proposed changes would leave prosecutors with discretion to transfer any juveniles who are 13 or older and are accused of a felony from juvenile court to adult court. Such a transfer already is mandatory for anyone accused of first-degree murder and would remain so under the sentencing commission's proposed changes.

Several members of the crime commission, which advises the governor on criminal justice matters, balked at the age change.

"Those of us in the court system find the 14-, 15-, 16-, 17-year-olds are usually the meanest," Alamance County Superior Court Judge J.B. Allen Jr. told Katzenelson. "And now we're going to make it softer for them?"

Durham County Sheriff Worth Hill said law enforcement wants to help young people stay out of trouble but said he thinks there's a point of no return for criminal behavior: "The concrete sets up at 16. That's what I've been told since the [1960s]."

Katzenelson and others argued that there is growing evidence that brain development continues into the mid-20s, offering the chance that therapeutic treatment can turn a young person from crime. "We really need to take that new science into account," said Robin Jenkins, a crime commission member.

The sentencing commission also recommended that any change in the age limit for juvenile justice be delayed two years, giving a task force time to prepare the court system for changes.

Sentencing commission projections show that if the age limit were raised, the number of 16- and 17-year-olds found delinquent and committed to training school could surpass the 450 now in custody of the Department of Juvenile Justice. But it also could free more than 1,000 adult prison beds.

Department secretary George Sweat, the N.C. Sheriffs Association and others said they would like to see a study of how an age change would affect the courts, police and social services.