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Statistics
Currently an estimated 250,000 youth are tried, sentenced, or incarcerated as adults every year across the United States.
The human brain does not fully develop until the mid-20s and the portion of the brain that governs rational decision making is the last to develop, this means children truly do not know the consequences of their actions.
On any given day, 10,000 youth are detained or incarcerated in adult jails and prisons.
0 to 75 percent of the 2 million youth encountering the juvenile justice system meet the criteria for a mental health disorder and these undiagnosed, untreated issues are exacerbated when youth placed in isolated, dangerous, and unfamiliar territories.
BACKGROUND
Juveniles have been tried as adults since 1899. In 1995 a law was passed that children under 16 were legally able to be sent to adult prison. This was called the “tough on crime period”. Since 2003 there have been about 1,500 children from the ages 15 and under being tried as adults and given life in prison. In 2016, California voters passed Proposition 57. This proposition limited who could be transferred to adult prisons. Kids have been getting tried in adult courts and have been getting sent to adult prisons for many years. This, however, hasn’t stopped many protests and acts against this. Over time more and more laws and propositions have been getting passed to try and put an end to this.
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There have been numerous protests and awareness campaigns against children being sent to adult prisons. One of these campaigns was organized by many lawyers and law students coming together about the paying system of incarcerated juveniles. These lawyers and students planned to seize the system where parents were held accountable for paying their kids dues while they were held in prison. They thought these parents are suffering enough as it is; being separated from their children, having to pay off a debt on top of that would be unjust. The National Campaign to Reform State Juvenile Justice System, the goal is to change the justice system in an attempt to improve the youth outcome. One of their protests was held in Davenport, their goal was to build a bigger juvenile detention center as they believe “kids should not be treated as criminals but rather as kids”. They believe they should be given the right education and a chance to better their lives.
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HEAR THEIR STORY:
In 1980 crime among juveniles was on a rise. To try and find a solution to this, states passed laws, some of which included mandatory and automatic transfers to adult prisons. The first juvenile court in the US was in 1899 in Illinois, before kids 7 and up were legally able to be tried as adults and sent to adult prisons. Lionel Tate was one of the youngest kids in U.S history to be sentenced to life imprisonment at the age of 12. Lionel, born in Florida, killed Eunick, a 6year old girl. While his mother was babysitting him and Euinick, the kids were playing downstairs, they were fighting and Lionel held Eunick in a headlock; she later hit her head on a table and was left unconscious. He was later convicted of 1st-degree murder, probation violations, and robbery. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and life without the possibility of parole, he was also sent to an adult prison at charlotte correctional institution. This is one of many cases where kids' lives were destroyed based on something that happened when they were younger and happened by accident.
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Click here to hear more about his story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VZRmKdAa8I
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