This year, more than half a dozen states, including Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri and Utah, have passed new laws reshaping their juvenile legal systems. While some have adopted measures designed to divert more young people from incarceration, others have sought to impose stiffer penalties and expand prosecutors’ authority to pursue adult charges.
The opposite tacks underscore an increasingly fractured approach to juvenile justice nationwide.
Related, “In Texas Schools, a Crisis of Arrests of Kids as Young as 10 - A groundbreaking data analysis shows how districts across the state are arresting and citing children for common misbehavior, leaving lasting trauma as the Legislature rejects bills to raise the age of criminal responsibility and floods schools with even more police.” (arc)
I had a similar series of thoughts about religion relating to this story. It is reasonable to presume they support childhood religious indoctrination, specifically because of the malleability of youthful minds. Children are more open about imaginary friends than adults. At the same time, these states don’t want to acknowledge that a youthful mind is not yet a mature, adult mind, capable of understanding cause and effect as it relates to criminal behavior? A rather large double standard.