Children. They're not like us.

Once again the Supreme Court has ruled that the age of 18 is a defining line between childhood and adulthood, and that children should not receive the same punishment as adults. The decision laid the foundation for states to reexamine their laws on prosecuting kids as adults.

Jordan Brown, 11 years old at the time, was certainly not an adult last year when he is alleged to have fatally shot Kenzie Houk, 26, with a 20-gauge shotgun as she slept in the New Beaver farmhouse they shared. Now 12, he can't vote, drink alcohol, get married, enlist in the armed services or make medical decisions for himself. He's not an adult, but he is being treated as one by the Pennsylvania criminal justice system.

Jordan has been charged in adult court with first-degree murder and late last month, a Lawrence County Common Pleas Court judge, saying he did not believe the young boy could be rehabilitated, denied a request from his defense attorneys to move the case to juvenile court. The judge based this largely on expert testimony that the boy would be less amenable for juvenile treatment because he refuses to accept responsibility for the crime.

If Jordan remains in adult court and is convicted, he would be the youngest person in the United States to serve a life sentence without parole. If he instead were transferred to juvenile court and found responsible for the crime he would serve more than nine years in the juvenile system and have the opportunity to turn his life around. And the odds are that he would.

Applying the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling, judges and experts cannot know whether Jordan Brown would be a lifelong threat to public safety. Although the court did not address homicide cases, it said, "To justify life without parole on the assumption that the juvenile offender forever will be a danger to society requires the sentencer to make a judgment that the juvenile is incorrigible. The characteristics of juveniles make that judgment questionable. It is difficult even for expert psychologists to differentiate between the juvenile offender whose crime reflects unfortunate yet transient immaturity and the rare juvenile offender whose crime reflects irreparable corruption."

Adolescent brain research shows that children's brains are developing well into their early 20s and that youth do not have all the mental capacities of adults. In fact, the final part of the brain to mature is the prefrontal cortex, which governs the "executive functions" of reasoning, advanced thought and impulse control. This suggests that children not only should be held less culpable for their actions, but also that they remain malleable and able to respond to rehabilitation.

So if children are so different from adults, what are kids like Jordan Brown doing in the adult criminal justice system?

For years, policy makers have believed that "get tough" laws that treat young people as adults enhance public safety and reduce youth crime, but we've learned that this is simply not true. Research overwhelmingly finds that prosecuting juveniles in adult criminal courts increases the likelihood they will commit crimes again.

For the past several years, the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Brookings Institution have issued reports that show juveniles who have been tried as adults are 34 percent more likely to commit crimes than young people tried in the juvenile justice system.

We also know that children placed in adult jails and prisons are at increased risk of assault, abuse and suicide. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 13 percent of substantiated victims of inmate-on-inmate sexual violence in jails were juveniles in 2006. The figure was 21 percent in 2005. These are extraordinarily high percentages given that only 1 percent of jail inmates are juveniles.

Trying children as adults is inhumane and ineffective. It unnecessarily puts youth at risk and does nothing to reduce crime.

We don't have to give up on the tens of thousands of Jordan Browns who are prosecuted as adults each year in the United States. Pennsylvania and other states should eliminate the practice of trying children as adults and Congress should update the Juvenile Justice & Delinquency Prevention Act to close the loophole that permits the placement of children in adult jails and prisons.

The Pennsylvania legal system appears to be giving up on Jordan Brown. But it doesn't have to. The prosecutors in his case could still act to move his case out of adult court. They should study the research on adolescent brain development that says children aren't adults and that young children like Jordan can be held accountable and rehabilitated in the juvenile system.

What kind of society gives up on its children?

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