It’s been several years since Louisiana did away with sentencing 17-year-old juveniles to adult prisons.
The ‘Raise the Age’ act was one of the first criminal justice reform actions to find traction among politicians.
But over years, with rising crime among juveniles skyrocketing, Louisiana is considering reversing itself on the idea.
A new bill from a bipartisan group of lawmakers is looking to repeal the law enacted in 2017 which saved older juveniles from spending their time in adult prison.
The bill was unanimously approved last week by a Senate panel, according to the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate.
State Senator Stewart Cathey told the publication, “I feel like at 17, you know without a doubt that what you’re doing is wrong. I think there’s a bipartisan effort here to try to solve some of these problems.”
Former juvenile court judge and Southern University ethics professor Pamela Taylor Johnson responded:
“We need to start looking at the totality of the circumstances and not just have a knee-jerk reaction to a systemic problem. Returning 17-year-olds to the adult system does not contribute to justice.”
“Sending kids into the adult system is not always the answer, but sometimes it needs to be,” says Perry Stagg, secretary of the Office of Juvenile Justice.
In the meantime, a get-tough change to the juvenile justice system sailed through the Senate without objection. The bill is authored by Senator Katrina Jackson. The Monroe Democrat says the bill will prosecute juveniles as adults if they are already in a correction facility or jail and they attack a guard. “There are no consequences for these actions most of the time, and that is becoming a major issue,” Jackson said.
