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James Stewart, a 17-year-oldfrom Denver, had committeda terrible act: While drivingdrunk in 2008, he slammedinto another vehicle head-on

and killed its driver.After his arrest, he was initially

placed with other juvenile offenders.

After years of moving inthe opposite direction, «̂many states are now

making it harder to tryLteen offenders in the

idult justice system

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BY JOHN SCHWARTZ

But when the district attorney chargedhim as an adult, he was moved to thecounty jail. Left alone in his cell despitehis frantic pleas not to be isolated, he

WATCH A VIDEO punishmentsWWW.UPFR0NTMAGAZINE.COM

tightened his bedsheets around hisneck and took his own life.

His death was one of two suicides byyoung people in Colorado jails that helpedspur a significant change in the state's laws |last year: Colorado narrowed the author- ëity of prosecutors to charge juveniles as g

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adults and to place them in adult jails. Ë

8 imes UPFRONT • UPFRONTMAGAZINE.COM

The change is part of a nationwidetrend. In a reversal of the tough-on-crime legislation that swept the nationin the late 1980s and '90s, nearly halfthe states have enacted laws that keepmore young offenders in the juvenilejustice system, divert them from beingautomatically tried as adults, or preventthem from being placed in adult jailsand prisons (see map, p. 11).

Several factors are behind the shift,experts say: a decline in juvenile crime,concerns about the costs of adult pris-ons, and a growing understanding thatadolescents have a greater potential forrehabilitation than adults do.

"What we are seeing is a very starkand important rethinking of how wetreat juvenile criminal offenders,"says Marsha Levick of the JuvenileLaw Center in Philadelphia. "Now werealize that to ensure that kids are pro-tected, we have to recognize that theyare actually different from adults."

More Good Than Bad?Two decades ago, police depart-

ments and the court system wereheaded in the opposite direction. From1985 to 1993, as the crack-cocaine epi-demic spread, juvenile homicide ratestripled and nearly every state changedits laws to make it possible to chargeand sentence the most violent juve-niles as adults. The idea was to getviolent offenders—no matter howyoung—off the streets and to send amessage that serious crimes wouldhave serious consequences.

But juvenile justice experts say thatlocking up young people with hard-ened adult criminals did more harmthan good. That realization, along witha sharp drop in violentcrime and new scientif-ic research showing thatteenagers' brains are notfully developed, beganturning the tide away fromthis get-tough approach.

Scientists have foundthat the part of the brainthat guides impulse control

Nicole Miera witha photo of her brother,James Stewart, who killedhimself at age 17 afterbeing charged as an adult.

'Ninetypercentof teen

offendersdo not

becomeadult

criminals.

and weighs risks versus rewards is notfully mature in teenagers. Research hasalso shown tliat a person's actions at age13 or 14 are a poor indication of the kindof adult he or she wiU become.

"Ninety percent of teen offendersdo not become adult criminals," saysLaurence Steinberg, a psychology profes-sor at Temple University in Philadelphia.

The Supreme Court has increasinglytaken neurological research into account

on juvenile justice issues,whittling away at the twoharshest punishments inthe juvenile justice system:the death penalty and lifewithout parole (see Key

Dates, p. 10). In 2005, theSupreme Court declaredthe death penalty uncon-stitutional for juvenile

offenders. In the 2012 case Miller v.Alabama, the Court barred mandato-ry life sentences without the possibilityof parole for anyone who committed acrime before turning 18. Justice ElenaKagan's majority opinion in the casecited adolescents' "diminished culpabil-ity and heightened capacity for change."

Change is also happening on thelocal level. Cities like Washington,Chicago, and New York, as well ascounties across the nation, havelaunched efforts to keep nonviolent,low-level juvenile offenders—kidsarrested for things like theft or gettinginto a fight—out of the criminal jus-tice system altogether, hoping to sendmore of them to community rehabili-tation programs. The Annie E. CaseyFoundation, a child advocacy group,has been working with 184 counties

DECEMBER 9, 2013 9

Juveniie Court in 1910: An 8-year-old

is charged with stealing a bicycle In St. Louis.

Key Dates in Juvenile JusticeJuvenile Court The first juvenile court is established inChicago, based on the principle that juvenile offenders need protectionand treatment, not just punishment. By 1925, most states havejuvenile courts.

Kent V. United States This supreme court case establishesthat teens can be tried as adults for the most serious crimes.

In re Gault This landmark Supreme Court ruling establishesthat juveniles are entitled to the same legal rights and due processprotections as adults.

Get~TOUgh L a w s Many state legislatures pass laws making iteasier to try juvenile offenders in adult courts, subjecting them toadult sentences.

1990s

2005 Roper V. Simmons The supreme courtdeclares the death penalty unconstitutional forjuvenile offenders. r

Graham v. Florida The supreme courtrules that life without parole is unconstitutionalfor juvenile offenders whose crimes did notinvolve killings.

Miller V. Alabama The supreme Courtrules that mandatory life without parole isunconstitutional for all juvenile offenders,even murderers.

SIMMONS C990111

09 30 03MO OOC

Ciiristopher Simmons wasoriginally sentenced to death for

a murder he committed at age 17.

He's now serving a life sentence.

nationwide to develop alternatives toincarceration for teenagers.

It's not just changing views of juve-nile justice that are motivating states toact. As states look for ways to cut costs,jailing teenage offenders is increasinglybecoming a less attractive option, saysMark Soler, the executive director of theGenter for Ghildren's Law and Policy, ajuvenile-justice watchdog group.

"The whole idea is to make the systemmore rational," Soler says. "If you've gotkids who are really violent and a threatto their communities, then lock themup. But if you've got a kid who can beprovided with a safe amount of supervi-sion and handled within the community,doing that costs a tiny percentage of whatit costs to lock him up."

Twenty-three states have enactedreforms that try to keep more juvenileoffenders out of the adult court system.Many of these bills have passed withbipartisan support from Democrats andRepublicans. A handful of other statesare considering similar reforms.

In Golorado, initial attempts by alocal advocacy group to change thesystem failed. Kim Dvorchak, the exec-utive director of the Golorado JuvenileDefender Goalition, says that legislatorshad been convinced by prosecutors thatthe minors they chose to try as adultswere the worst offenders—"serial killersand rapists." So her group did a study in2009 that showed that 85 percent of the1,800 cases in which juveniles were triedas adults over a 10-year period involvedmiddle- to low-level felonies hke rob-

bery, assault, and burglary;only 15 percent involvedhomicides and only 5 percentinvolved first-degree murder.

James Stewart's sisterNicole Miera worked withDvorchak's group to pass thereforms. Her compelling storyabout her brother's suicidehelped change lawmakers'minds. The bill passed in2012 with bipartisan support.Dvorchak says that since thechanges, the number of young

10 EljcJicUiJJorkSimes UPFRONT • UPFRONTMAGAZINE.COM

Crime & PunishmentTwenty-three states have made it harder to try juvenile offenders as adults

Alaska and Hawaii are not drawnto scale or piaced in theirproper geographic positions.

KEYStates that havechanged theirlaws to keep morejuveniles out of theadult system

SOURCE: Campaign (or Youth Justice

people put directly into the adult systemin Colorado has dropped by nearly 85percent and that the rate of adult jailingof minors has fallen by 92 percent, withno increase in juvenile crime.

"We gave more kids an opportu-nity to have a second lease on life,"Dvorchak says.

'Unfair to the Victim'Not everyone is happy

with the new directionin juvenile justice. PeterWeir, a prosecutor inJefferson and Gilpin coun-ties in Colorado, says,"What we're fighting is aphilosophy that a juvenileshould never be tried asan adult."

Prosecutorscriticize

'a philosophythat a

juvenileshould never

he tried asan adult.'

Kent Scheidegger of the CriminalJustice Legal Foundation, a victims' rightsgroup, is alarmed by the broad nationaltrend toward steering juvenile offendersaway from the adult justice system.

"My concern is that it will be takenmuch too far," Scheidegger says. "Theway teenage criminals were treated, ifyou go back 30 years, was an atrocity in

the other direction: If youwere under 18, no mat-ter what you did, you gotonly a few years and thenyou were free. For crimeslike murder and rape, thatis grossly unfair to the vic-tim and grossly unjust tothe next victim. "

Miera says she befievessome juvenile offenders

show such cruelty and viciousness thatthey should be charged as adults. But herbrother, she argues, was not one of those.

"My brother didn't premeditate to goout and murder somebody," she says,adding that during the weeks he was inthe juvenile system, James spoke of want-ing to visit schools to talk about drunkendriving. When he was moved into theadult system, he grew despondent. OnOct. 22, 2008, he committed suicide.

Her brother. Miera acknowledges, did"something terrible." But she insists,"he was a good kid. He was the posterboy of how your life can change intwo minutes." •

John Schwartz is a national correspondent

for The New York Times. Additional

reporting by Patricia Smith.

DECEMBER 9, 2013 11

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