Representative Fred Kessler has introduced AB703 – a bill to raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction to include 17-year-olds who have not previously been adjudicated delinquent. Although our goal continues to be to raise the age to 18 for all youth, this proposal provides that thousands of 17-year-olds who have not been found delinquent in the juvenile system are not automatically considered adults, subject to adult criminal or municipal court jurisdiction. Adoption of this would mean that:

• For thousands of 17 year-olds who commit minor ordinance violations, they will no longer have to worry that their retail theft ticket or disorderly conduct ticket or other minor violation will show up in the publicly accessible portion of CCAP.

• For thousands more 17 year-olds who commit a crime that would have automatically been filed in adult court, they will have a chance in the juvenile system to avail themselves of the services and avoid some of the collateral consequences of an adult conviction, including that they would not be held in an adult jail pending court proceedings.• For a small number of youth who may commit a very serious offense, the court will still have the options of waiver to adult court or adjudication as a serious juvenile offender – in essence giving the court more options to best serve the community’s interests on a case-by-case basis.

• For youth who have previously been found delinquent, they will be treated as an adult, just as they are now. But, the numbers of juveniles being arrested and the number of delinquency petitions has declined dramatically over the past 7-10 years, and they will be no worse off than they are now.

• The risk of deeper-end placements and services costing the counties more is reduced, as in many cases those placements and services come about as the result of a history of prior juvenile services being provided. This reduces the potential harm to counties who have already seen their Youth Aids funding reduced by seventeen percent in the state budget.

• In the end our communities will be safer. As we focus more developmentally appropriate resources on youthful offenders, the likelihood of reoffending diminishes and their chances for becoming contributing members of our community increase.

Credit goes to Representative Kessler, Assembly co-sponsors Doyle, Pasch, and Grigsby and Senator Taylor for continuing to pursue this needed change in how youth are treated in our justice system. This bill has been referred to the Assembly Committee on Criminal Justice and Corrections, chaired by Representative Gary Bies (1st Assembly District) who is pretty knowledgeable about this issue.

Given the timing of the session and a few other things going on these days in the legislature, the next steps are not clear, but you can contact your legislator and let them know that this is an important issue for thousands of youth in our communities and that they need to support AB703 or any similar measure that may be proposed in later sessions.

Jim Moeser