BOSTON - The number of kids and teens detained in Massachusetts has decreased since the state started treating arrested 17-year-olds as juveniles rather than adults.

A new report from the Sentencing Project points out that prior to raising the age of criminal responsibility, it was expected to increase juvenile caseloads and overwhelm capacity in youth detention centers.

But Sana Fadel, deputy director of the Citizens for Juvenile Justice, notes that after a temporary increase in court caseloads, the numbers have gone down.

She said one reason is that the juvenile system has more of a focus on rehabilitation, and what she calls positive youth development.

"If you help young people mature," said Fadel, "you are much more likely to have them desist from crime and reoffending and actually having more positive outcomes. They need education, they need connection to family, they need skill sets, they need civic engagement and connection to society."

Since 2016, three years after the "raise the age" law passed, the number of detained youths in the Commonwealth has gone down more than 60%. And detention for 17-year-olds decreased by nearly 30%.

Fadel said a next step could be to raise the age even further.

Fadel said despite the progress, there are still stark racial disparities.

"We have our Black and Latino children much more likely to get deeper and deeper into the system than their white peers for similar behavior," said Fadel. "And as the system shrinks as the number of young people in the system shrinks, we see greater disparity."

Marcy Mistrett, senior fellow with the Sentencing Project, authored the report. She said advocates in several states are working to raise the age of criminal responsibility even higher than 18.

In Vermont, for instance, it is 19. Research has shown young people's brains are still developing until roughly age 25.

"With those emerging adults, we need to understand that young people are still very impulsive, still growing, still maturing," said Mistrett, "and they should get some of these protections extended to them."

The report notes that Georgia, Texas and Wisconsin are the only remaining states to automatically treat 17-year-olds as adults when they're arrested. It also recommends states and municipalities invest in community-based services rather than incarceration.

SANTA FE, N.M. -- A New Mexico legislator is optimistic a bill will pass in the 2022 session to prohibit life sentences for juveniles convicted of crimes.

This year, a bill to end life sentences and mandated earlier probation eligibility for juveniles easily passed in the Senate, but died without a vote in the House.

Sen. Bill O'Neill, D-Albuquerque, a juvenile justice advocate, thinks teens who have committed crimes should get a parole hearing if they show signs of remorse or redemption.

"If you're a juvenile, you are a child, and you should not be sentenced to life without parole," O'Neill asserted. "A person should at least be eligible, if they've worked on their stuff, and they committed a crime at age 16."

O'Neill previously sponsored a bill approved by the governor, which prohibits private employers from inquiring about someone's criminal history on an initial job application.

About 75 New Mexicans are currently serving sentences longer than 15 years for crimes they committed before they were 18, according to the New Mexico Coalition for the Fair Sentencing of Youth.

O'Neill admits it is difficult to hear the stories of victims of crimes committed by young people, but he noted the behavior often can be explained.

"The perpetrator is oftentimes from a horrific upbringing; poverty, drug abuse, sexual abuse, etc.," O'Neill noted. "That behavior doesn't come out of left field."

The group "Leaders Organizing 2 Unite and Decriminalize" or LOUD said to create a more fair and equitable juvenile justice system, policymakers need to do more to educate themselves about the experiences of young people who've been incarcerated.

SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- As students across Indiana begin the new school year, some communities are reevaluating the need for police officers in schools.

In recent decades, the percentage of schools across the nation with a police presence on campus increased from less than 1% to nearly 60%.

Indiana doesn't disclose the numbers of police officers in schools, but in the last few years, between 900 and 1,200 students were arrested on school property.

Darryl Heller, director of the South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center and assistant professor of women's and gender studies at Indiana University-South Bend, pointed to data that show Black students are arrested at more than twice the rate of white students.

"We know that Black and brown students will get punished harsher and more frequently for exactly the same behaviors that white students do," Heller observed. "So, that disparity is a deep cause of concern."

He added the disparity often leads to criminalizing behaviors that are really just kids acting up. He urged the South Bend School District to remove its five School Resource Officers. In Heller's view, a new agreement between the district and police department is long overdue, and could be an opportunity to put resources to better use.

Heller argued community members who want officers in schools may think it improves student safety, but research shows otherwise. He would like to see the current funding for School Resource Officers go instead toward more nurses and counselors on campuses.

"We're willing to spend millions of dollars a year to pay police to be in our schools, when we could actually be using that money to pay for more social workers, or more restorative justice practitioners or others, who I think would make our environment in schools much safer than a mere police presence," Heller contended.

A bill in Congress, the Counseling Not Criminalization in Schools Act, would prohibit the use of federal funds for law enforcement officers in schools. Nationwide, more than 14 million students attend schools that have police officers on duty.

SALEM, Ore. - Young people of color are locked up at disproportionately high rates compared with their white peers, despite recent signs the gap is closing.

According to new data, Black youths in Oregon were more than three-and-a-half times more likely to be incarcerated than white youth in 2019.

The Sentencing Project research found that the gap narrowed by nearly 20% from 2015 to 2019. But Alice Lundell, director of communications for the Oregon Justice Resource Center, said the continuing disparity isn't surprising.

"This isn't being driven by some rogue judge or one bad apple among cops," she said. "These are not problems that are primarily stemming from individual, conscious, racist decision-making. This is a systemic problem."

Nationwide, Black youths are incarcerated at a rate nearly four-and-a-half times higher than white youths.
The disparity for Latino youths incarcerated in Oregon is smaller, at about 1.2 times the rate of white youths, which is close to the national average.

Report author Josh Rovner, senior advocacy associate for the Sentencing Project, said one big factor in these disparities is that communities of color are much more heavily policed. He noted that when young people are arrested and charged, it can follow them into adulthood. Rovner pointed out that nearly all kids, regardless of race, get into trouble when they're young.

"We all need to understand - and I think deep down, we do - that kids are different, and deserve patience and tolerance to get them back on a right path," he said. "But we also can expect that they're going to grow out of these behaviors, and one of the least effective ways to do that is to incarcerate them."

Lundell described seeing some progress from the Oregon Legislature this session, in terms of reining in police and reforming the criminal justice system. But she added that racism within the system won't be solved overnight.

"And we're not going to do it unless we start looking at root causes of crime and start focusing on community well-being," she said. "How do we strengthen communities, how do we bring opportunity to communities, and how do we put members of communities in the driving seat?"