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: The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Adults or Kids? States debate what the best response is to teenagers who commit crimes.

By Real Cost of Prisons Project (The Sentencing Project)

Adults or Kids? States debate what the best response is to teenagers who commit crimes. By Sarah Hammond April 2008 When teenagers break the law, do they need rehabilitation or punishment? For several years in the 1990s, state lawmakers decided to treat young lawbreakers as adults, sending them to prison with tough sentences. In recent years, however, some states are rethinking the wisdom of such punishment. Last session, Connecticut, which automatically tried 16- and 17-year-olds in adult court?giving it the largest number of inmates under the age of 18?changed course. What the public didn?t know, says Connecticut Representative Toni Walker, was that ?only 3 percent of these young people are dangerous.? For years, Representative Walker has been trying to change Connecticut?s treatment of youths in the criminal justice system...continue to full post

Full post as published by The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog on May 04, 2008 (boomark / email).