The Crossroads section of yesterday’s (Sunday 9/13) Milwaukee Journal Sentinel contained a guest column by WCCF Acting Executive Director Jim Moeser. The piece comes in response to a horrific case in Milwaukee in which 13-year-old Labrina Brown is accused of fatally stabbing a family member. The case has brought to the fore a lot of questions about how we treat young offenders in the justice system, including: What purpose does it serve to incarcerate teenagers in adult system? Does it make communities safer? (Hint: The answer to that one is no.) Is justice for the victims or for the community? Should juvenile justice policy in 2009 be driven scary decade-old rhetoric about dangerous teenage predators rather than by a research-based understanding of what makes adolescents tick? (Hint: That one’s also a “no.”) Jim explores these and related issues in the column, along the way making the case that we’re overdue in passing legislation that would return 17-year-olds to the jurisdiction of the juvenile system, where they are much more likely to receive the services they need to get their lives together, likely to be exploited or harmed by fellow inmates, and less likely to become repeat offenders.