Should Young Adult Offenders Be Treated More Like Juveniles?

Vincent Schiraldi, senior adviser in the New York Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. Credit: Gwen McClure / JJIE

At a workshop this week, advocates and experts discussed, among other things, how trauma affects the brain and why this is important to understand in a criminal justice population. 

Groundbreaking research in recent years clearly shows major brain development continues until about age 25, and, in many respects, young people tend to think and behave more like adolescents than adults until they reach that age.

So why does the U.S. criminal justice system continue to treat these young people as if they’re fully developed adults?

Experts pondered that provocative question Wednesday at a workshop at the Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative Inter-Site conference here.

Participants in the workshop — titled “Young Adult Justice: Is it Time for a New System?” — suggested it may be time to change existing age divisions and enable older youths and young adults to be treated differently than older adults.

http://jjie.org/should-young-adult-offenders-be-treated-more-like-juveniles/107017/