Could California Make Changes to Juvenile Crime Laws?
In 2000, California passed Proposition 21, which was an initiative aimed at increasing penalties for juveniles who committed crimes. It also meant juveniles would be put into the adult criminal justice system.
The initiative was intended to curb what some thought would be a large group of criminal kids considered “superpredators.” Youths would be tried as adults and sentenced to hard time under the proposition.
In 1997, juvenile arrests peaked and have been falling ever since. In fact, arrests of juveniles dropped 48 percent by 2011, according to the Justice Department’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. The problem with the proposition is that state prisons and juvenile facilities were filled with youths, which created human rights concerns and budget issues.
Studies found that it cost $100,000 annually to incarcerate a youth, while it is only about $10,000 to put a child through public school for a year.
However, there has been a change in thought regarding juvenile crime in the last handful of years. Since studies have shown that incarceration of young people increases their chance to commit another crime, states are looking at alternative punishments.
A few major Supreme Court decisions since 2004 have helped reframe the conversation regarding juvenile offenders and appropriate punishments. What was once an “adult crime, adult time” mentality is morphing into a more complex approach as research shows how costly and detrimental to the youth it can be.
Supreme Court decisions that have been influential include:
Roper v. Simmons (2004): Capital punishment for juvenile crimes was abolished.
- Graham v. Florida (2010): States could no longer give mandatory life sentences to juvenile crimes, except homicide.
- Miller v. Alabama (2012): It was now unconstitutional to hand down mandatory life sentences for juveniles for any crime.
Since juvenile crime’s peak in 1997 and 2011, 46 states have made reductions to their commitments for juveniles.
