Nila Bala and James Dold have this new commentary at The Hill under the headline "Mandatory minimums harm children." Here are excerpts:
An estimated 76,000 children are tried as adults every year. These children end up in a system that is poorly equipped to serve them. Children are fundamentally different from adults, which is why we do not let children vote in elections, join the military, or buy cigarettes. Young people often make bad decisions without pausing to think about the consequences. But because their brains are still developing, they also have an incredible capacity for change, and who they are when they are teenagers is certainly not who they will be for the rest of their lives. This is why the Supreme Court, in a series of rulings, has struck down the use of the death penalty for those under 18 and declared life without parole an impermissible sentence for the vast majority of children.
Yet, many children still face incredibly long sentences that are harmful to them and provide no commensurate benefit to public safety. A few decades ago, a group of academics propagated the false notion that some young people could not be rehabilitated because they were so evil and remorseless that they should be termed “superpredators.” This idea has been completely debunked. Unfortunately, the bad policies that allowed children to be easily transferred into the adult criminal justice system in the wake of the superpredator era had a lasting impact across the country. Children continue to be subject to lengthy mandatory minimum sentences when they are tried as adults, and their status as children is often not considered during sentencing.
The adult system is not the right place for children, who grow up without educational opportunities, age appropriate services, or treatment if they are placed in it. In the adult system, they face far greater risks of physical and sexual abuse, and are far more likely to commit suicide than youth committed to the juvenile justice system. Long sentences driven by mandatory minimums further compound the harm these children suffer. When we prosecute children in the adult system, where the focus is on punishment instead of on treatment, we continue failing to address why kids end up committing crimes in the first place....
As the law stands now, the hands of judges are tied when sentencing under statutes that require harsh mandatory minimums that do not consider the capacity of children to change. Under House Resolution 1949, however, judges would be required to consider how children are fundamentally different from adults and would be authorized, but would not be required, to depart up to 35 percent from the otherwise applicable mandatory minimum sentence. Similar legislation has been championed at the state level by members of both parties, and most recently by Republican state lawmakers in Arkansas and Nevada.
I believe this commentary means to reference this bill, H.R. 1949. But the text of the bill, though it does allow a judge "to impose a sentence that is 35 percent below a level established by statute as a minimum sentence so as to reflect the juvenile’s age and prospect for rehabilitation," does not actually expressly require a judge to consider how juvenile offender are different than adult.
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