Michigan may finally stop locking children in adult jails as 'Raise the Age' bills clear committees

Thanks to votes in state House and Senate committees this week, Michigan may be on its way to finally joining the 46 other states that have stopped locking up 17-year-old children in adult jails. “This is an initiative whose time has come,” said Democratic state Rep. David LaGrand, one of the co-sponsors of the package of “Raise the Age” bills in the state. He said it’s “really urgent that we move this legislation forward and get to a successful change, because I think this is a deeply moral issue.”

Under current Michigan law, 17-year-olds aren’t allowed to vote. The law limits their ability to make their own medical decisions, and restricts the kinds of contracts they can enter into without the consent of a parent or guardian. But if 17-year-olds break the law, they are automatically treated as an adult and face adult consequences—consequences that include years in an adult jail and criminal records that stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Or, as Briana Moore asked the state legislature in 2018, “At what point does the punishment end? Will I always be paying for the mistakes I made as a child?” According to a report in the Detroit News about Moore’s testimony, she was 17 when she got into a fight at a local mall and was charged with, and then convicted on, an adult misdemeanor.

Michigan was among the majority of states that began charging children as adults during the “tough on crime” orgy of punitive legislation that marked the period from the 1970s to the 1990s. Today, it’s one of only four states that still do so, even though the consequences of charging and treating children as adults have become starkly apparent.

Youth in adult jails are more likely to be sexually assaulted and thrown in solitary confinement, and face suicide rates 36 times higher than young people held in juvenile facilities, according to a report in the winter 2018 edition of the American Bar Association magazine Criminal Justice. They also lose their chance at an education, because “formal high school classes are virtually absent from adult jails and prisons,” according to the report. Further, surrounding impressionable teens with adult criminals makes them more, not less, likely to commit crimes when the adult criminal justice system finally sets them free.

from Daily Kos http://bit.ly/2VgRcKE