Six-Year-Olds Can Be Prosecuted in North Carolina Courts. A New Bill Seeks to Change That.

[TexasTowelie]

In December, when North Carolina’s Raise the Age law takes effect, the state will no longer be the only one in the country to automatically prosecute sixteen and seventeen-year-olds as adults. The law raises the age of juvenile jurisdiction for nonviolent crimes from sixteen to eighteen, meaning all cases involving anyone under eighteen would start in the juvenile court system, though some serious offenses would be transferred to adult court.

The change, passed in 2017, was rooted in the idea that teens are better served by a juvenile justice system that focuses on intervention than a system built for detaining adults.

Noticeably absent from conversations about raising the maximum age of juvenile jurisdiction, however, is that there’s also a minimum age at which juveniles can be prosecuted in court.

It’s six.

Of states that have a minimum age of juvenile jurisdiction, North Carolina’s is the lowest.

Read more: https://indyweek.com/news/northcarolina/kids-six-can-be-prosecuted-in-nc-courts/

[underpants]

1. About two years ago neighboring Virginia completely transformed its juvenile system

This wasn't just done overnight of course but it culminated in closing all but one of its state run detention centers. There were 8 at one point. The budget to run what was the largest (about 800 beds I think) was $24M a year. There are still regional detention centers but it's much cheaper for the state to supplement funding rather than run their own facilities. Also spending for housing, which range from basically being in prison to levels of mobility using tracking devices or supervision/check ins, goes directly to locally owned and ran businesses. Granted you probably wouldn't be crazy about one of these being in your neighborhood but the size of these "homes" are quite small - from 6 to maybe 10 beds.

The emphasis is now directly at the courts offering a myriad of options to the judges. The statewide department has 34 court service units to advise the judges and to offer probation, assessments, tracking and so forth. It also should, given results from other states, reduce recidivism. One of the assessment tools is an actuarian model using 10-15 different factors that can quantify the likelihood of future behavior. Yeah that's sounds a bit "Minority Report" but it's constantly reviewed and tweaked. Time will tell.

Much more flexibility and a lot less sticking kids into gladiator academies.