Dozens of teens are in adult jails

CARLISLE, Pa. (AP) — On any given day, dozens of children ages 14-17 are housed in adult jails in counties across Pennsylvania while facing charges in adult court.

Most will see their cases dismissed or moved to juvenile proceedings, but not before they spend weeks, months or even years locked up with adults, according to a review of court records conducted by The Sentinel.

In 1995, the Pennsylvania Legislature passed Act 33, which requires people between the ages of 15 and 17 charged with certain felonies — like robbery or aggravated assault — to be charged in adult court if they meet certain requirements, such as the use of a weapon during the alleged crime.

Anyone younger than 15 charged in the same cases will be sent through the juvenile system.

Prior to Act 33, criminal homicide was the only charge ranking above infractions like traffic tickets that automatically pulled people younger than 18 into adult court.

Lauren Fine, co-founder and co-director of the Youth Sentencing and Reentry Project, said the passage of Act 33 in 1995 proved to be pivotal in how juvenile cases are handled.

Fine’s organization provides services to help youths transfer out of the adult system and into the juvenile system.

“None of our work is done without recognition that there is harm caused in every one of these cases ... (but) we’re still talking about children,” Fine said. “We don’t allow children of this same age to vote or even buy cigarettes or make other decisions that have long-lasting effects, and we do that for a reason and that’s because young people are not fully developed, their brains are not fully developed, and we’re holding them accountable for behavior that doesn’t actually reflect where they are in life.”

Violent crimes

Act 33 came at a time when the national conversation about crime in America focused mainly on rising violent crime rates and the myth of the “super predator,” a now-debunked theory that a new generation of young people was somehow more violent or dangerous than prior generations.

“I think that as you look across Pennsylvania, when you look at the statistics on crime ... people are fed up with violent crime, and they are particularly fed up with violent crime that has been committed and continues to be committed in this Commonwealth by juveniles,” Sen. Michael Fisher, who introduced the bill that became Act 33, said on the state Senate floor in 1995. “The young thugs across this Commonwealth who have held people hostage in their homes and in their streets and in their neighborhoods will come to an end. Hopefully, it will be somewhat abated by the passage of this legislation.”

As Fisher stated, the bill was aimed at addressing rising violent crime rates, which rose sharply in the United States beginning in the 1970s through the 1980s, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Reporting System.

The violent crime rate reached its pinnacle in 1991 — four years before the passage of Act 33 — and has fallen precipitously ever since, according to the FBI.

But the law remains in place (with similar versions in other states), and in 2017, it resulted in more than 400 children ages 14 to 17 in Pennsylvania being charged with criminal offenses in adult court, according to an analysis conducted by The Sentinel of more than 240,000 criminal dockets filed in the state.

Despite accounting for less than 10 percent of the youth population, nearly 70 percent of youths charged in adult court and more than 60 percent of youths convicted in adult court were black teenage boys, according to The Sentinel’s analysis.

Black youths were 10 times more likely to be charged and convicted in adult court than their white counterparts, The Sentinel found.

Roughly two-thirds of all youth cases were ultimately dropped or sent to juvenile court after being charged in adult court, according to court records.

However, most of the juveniles charged in adult court spent time in adult jails.

Fine said youths in Philadelphia on average spend

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