As part of his efforts related to crime in Washington D.C., President Donald Trump recently said that he believes criminals as young as 14 should be prosecuted as adults, and U.S. Attorney for the district, Jeanine Pirro, agrees that juvenile offenders should face more severe consequences.
Depending on the crime, young teens do sometimes get significant sentences in the U.S. For example, Ethan Crumbley was 15 years old when he committed the mass shooting in Oxford, Mich., that resulted in a life sentence without parole.
There are also some areas of the country where 14-year-olds and offenders who are even younger are tried as adults. While Trump and Pirro contend that this move in D.C. will help cut down crime, some experts have warned against such measures.
“The Law in D.C. must be changed to prosecute these ‘minors’ as adults, and lock them up for a long time, starting at age 14,” said the president in an X post earlier this month. “The most recent victim was beaten mercilessly by local thugs. Washington, D.C., must be safe, clean, and beautiful for all Americans and, importantly, for the World to see.”
That was posted as reports came in about the attack of Edward Constantine – a 19-year-old man known as “Big Balls” who played a key role in the Department of Government Efficiency initiative to shrink the size of government, per POLTICO. Around a week later, Trump announced a temporary takeover of the nation’s capital, citing out-of-control crime.
While this incident and others, including Audacy’s report last year about group of girls ages 12 to 15 who attacked a 64-year-old man, are disturbing, data shows that crime in D.C. and across the nation is down. In D.C., youth arrests reached a post-pandemic high in 2023 and fell last year, according to D.C. government statistics cited by CNN. However, it did note that youth arrests have increased this year.
“Young people now make up roughly 7% of the annual arrests in the city, a share on par with Boston, a city of similar size,” said a recent report from The New York Times. “This share is comparable to the national average for juvenile arrests, according to the nonprofit Council on Criminal Justice.”
Trump and Pirro insist that a law enforcement and prosecution crackdown is necessary.
“I know evil when I see it, no matter the age – and the violence in D.C. committed by young people belongs in criminal court, not family court,” Pirro said in a statement to CNN. “We’re not dealing with kids who need a pat on the back – we’re dealing with a wave of brutal violence that demands a serious response. While others debate causes, families are burying loved ones, and the only way to stop this is to treat violent offenders like the criminals they are.”
In an opinion piece published by The Washington Post, Pirro said she has called on the D.C. Council to “immediately reconsider three laws that are detrimental to public safety and to my ability to fight crime and hold young offenders accountable: the Youth Rehabilitation Act, the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act and the Second Chance Amendment Act.”
In particular, CNN said that Pirro attacked the 2018 Youth Rehabilitation Act, which was enacted to “separate youth offenders from more mature, experienced offenders,” and said the 2022 Second Chance Amendment Act allows for the “stunning erasure of criminal convictions.”
According to CNN, D.C.’s current laws don’t allow juvenile offenders younger than 15 to be prosecuted as adults in the majority of cases. Throughout the country, most states set the “age of majority” or age of criminal responsibility at 18, but many allow cases concerning younger offenders to be moved to adult court.
Here’s a list, based on Interstate Commission on Juveniles data updated last week:
Alabama (allows transfer with a juvenile court hearing)
Arkansas
Delaware (age of majority ranges from 14-16 depending on the specific charge)
Florida
Hawaii (if alleged to have committed act that constitutes a felony if committed by adult)
Idaho (no age limit for certain offenses such as murder, rape and arson)
Indiana (14 upon waiver motion by prosecutor and finding of juvenile court)
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Maine (no minimum age for a bind over to adult court)
Maryland (age of majority 14 for 1st degree murder and rape)
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi (can be transferred to adult court at age 13)
Missouri (can be transferred at 12 for certain offenses, no minimum age for first degree murder, second degree murder, forcible rape, forcible sodomy, etc.)
Montana (can be transferred to adult court at age 12)
Nebraska
Nevada (can be transferred to adult court at age 13)
New Mexico
New York (can be transferred to adult court at age 13)
North Dakota (can be transferred at 14 or older for serious offenses)
Ohio
Oklahoma (can be transferred starting at 13, based on offense)
Pennsylvania (automatic certification to adult court if murder)
Rhode Island (no age limit if charge punishable by life imprisonment)
South Carolina (any age for murder)
Texas (can be transferred starting at 14, based on charge severity)
Utah (can be transferred starting at 14, based on charge severity) Virgin Islands
Virginia
Washington (can be transferred to adult court at age 12)
West Virginia (can be transferred starting at 14, based on charge severity)
Wisconsin (can be transferred starting at 14, based on charge severity)
Following a spike in carjackings by teens in New Orleans, La., including the tragic death of Laura Frickey, Audacy reported on efforts to increase consequences for teens in Louisiana. Vera reported this May that voters in the state blocked attempts to charge more young people as adults.
“Some criminal justice experts and local officials say that Trump and Pirro’s vision for DC is out-of-date and harkens back to the rhetoric of historic crime waves in the 1990s,” said CNN. It also said D.C. Councilmember Christina Henderson said: “I feel strongly that the district should be able to make that decision for themselves, because these are our kids.”
According to the Juvenile Law Center, “punishing children the same way we punish adults does not advance public safety,” and youth who end up in the adult criminal justice system “face a higher risk of sexual abuse, physical assault, and suicide.” This week, the Columbia Law Review published on the unconstitutionality of juvenile transfers to adult court.
The New York Times also reported that “some who work with children in the district’s juvenile justice system said that research and experience had shown repeatedly that overly punitive methods don’t work, trapping young people in a cycle of lawlessness rather than giving them the tools to build a healthy and productive life.”