Grits for Breakfast June 03, 2018
The Missouri Legislature recently voted to raise the age of adult criminal responsibility from 17 to 18 years old, beginning January 1, 2021. That leaves Texas one of only four states nationally that still prosecutes 17-year olds as adults, despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of GOP primary voters (86%) support changing the policy. This is becoming embarrassing.
Quite a few stories you see on Grits are byproducts of Texas' backwards, minority-view policy on who is a juvenile.
For example, yesterday in a roundup I'd linked to a Dallas News story about the Youthful Offender Program at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which manages incarcerated youth younger than 18. After an adult inmate engaged in sexual relations with one of the youth, the warden and most of the staff were terminated and the entire program was moved to a unit in Huntsville, closer to central administration. This program - and the scandals that come with it - only exist because Texas has refused to "raise the age."
Similarly, Governor Abbott wants to treat 17 year olds as children for purposes of their parents' gun-storage requirements, but I'd described how the exact same logic may be used to support prosecuting 17-year olds as juveniles. Indeed, if Texas had already raised the age for purposes of prosecutions, it's likely the gun-storage rules would have been updated in the process.
More:
http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2018/06/now-in-dwindling-minority-failure-to.html
