By Nila Bala and James Dold, The Hill, August 27, 2019
Over the last three decades, through both Democratic and Republican administrations, thousands of children have been warehoused in prisons with adults. We have usually ignored the cages these children are in because they were convicted of crimes in the adult criminal justice system. But we cannot ignore the fact that regardless of what they have done, they are still our children. Congress has a chance to enact reforms that assist children prosecuted in the adult criminal justice system by passing House Resolution 1949, one of three child sentencing reform bills led by Republican Representative Bruce Westerman of Arkansas.
An estimated 76,000 children are tried as adults every year. These children end up in a system that is poorly equipped to serve them. Children are fundamentally different from adults, which is why we do not let children vote in elections, join the military, or buy cigarettes. Young people often make bad decisions without pausing to think about the consequences. But because their brains are still developing, they also have an incredible capacity for change, and who they are when they are teenagers is certainly not who they will be for the rest of their lives. This is why the Supreme Court, in a series of rulings, has struck down the use of the death penalty for those under 18 and declared life without parole an impermissible sentence for the vast majority of children.
Yet, many children still face incredibly long sentences that are harmful to them and provide no commensurate benefit to public safety. A few decades ago, a group of academics propagated the false notion that some young people could not be rehabilitated because they were so evil and remorseless that they should be termed “superpredators.” This idea has been completely debunked. Unfortunately, the bad policies that allowed children to be easily transferred into the adult criminal justice system in the wake of the superpredator era had a lasting impact across the country. Children continue to be subject to lengthy mandatory minimum sentences when they are tried as adults, and their status as children is often not considered during sentencing.
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