Is this justice?: The 'adult time' law for juveniles hasn't fulfilled its backers' promises

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Is this justice?: The 'adult time' law for juveniles hasn't fulfilled its backers' promises

First of a four part series

Sunday, March 18, 2001

By Barbara White Stack, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

It would be a tough new era of cracking down on violent juvenile criminals, the politicians promised. No more would brutal teen-agers be coddled by juvenile courts.

First of four parts Racial, institutional bias compound the damage inflicted by a flawed law
Law didn't lower juvenile crime rate, expert says
About the team

Day Two A reform movement crumbles

Day Three Punishment backfires under 'adult time'

Day Four The 'adult-time' law burdens children already handicapped by poor parenting

Five years ago today, violent teens in Pennsylvania began serving "adult time for adult crime." Under the law, youths 15 and older charged with certain serious crimes go to trial in adult criminal court, unless a judge transfers the case to juvenile court.

The law is Pennsylvania's rivulet in a national torrent of such legislation. The "get tough" laws were prompted largely by a rapid increase in violent felonies by juveniles, particularly gun crimes, in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Because the Pennsylvania statute stipulated that the teens either had to be repeat offenders or be charged with using a deadly weapon during the crime, the politicians said they'd be sentenced to at least five years in prison if found guilty -- a year more than the maximum possible juvenile sentence to a reform school.

The longer sentences, the politicians said, would improve public safety and impose appropriate punishment.

From the day the law took effect in 1996, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette began to track the 129 Allegheny County youths who would be charged as adults in the law's first year. The newspaper wanted to find out whether the reality of the law would live up to its rhetoric.

Now, five years later, after all of the teens except one have gone to trial, the Post-Gazette has compiled the stories and the statistics.

Some are sad. Some are startling. And all of them point to this conclusion: The law has proved to be both unfair and ineffective.

For instance:

Black youths clearly suffered more under the new law. Three-quarters of those charged and kept in the adult system were black, even though the number of juvenile offenders in the county is almost evenly divided between whites and blacks. Also, the median prison sentence imposed on black teens was twice as long as that given to whites * Despite politicians' claims that the law would send violent juveniles to prison for at least five years, most of the youths sentenced in adult court got less than a year. Such short sentences are served in county jails -- not state prisons -- so the majority of youths did not get the education, counseling or rehabilitative services that are available in a new prison Gov. Tom Ridge built for these offenders. Ridge, who used "adult time" as a centerpiece in his first gubernatorial campaign, said he was unaware of the short sentences.

When compared with the youths transferred to juvenile court and sent to reform schools, those who remained in criminal court and served time in jail were more likely to commit new crimes and more likely to commit more serious new offenses.

Some of those new crimes were committed while the teens were out of jail on bond awaiting trial. There is no bond in the juvenile system, and most teens charged with serious crimes as juveniles are held in detention centers until their trials in juvenile court. The one Allegheny County youth arrested during the first year of the "adult time" law who hasn't yet been tried now faces trial on another charge: homicide, for killing a toddler while he was out on bail.

Those charged with "adult crimes" in that first year included some of the most vulnerable teen-agers in the county. More than half had suffered abuse or neglect as children, and at least 40 percent were the children of criminals.

Today through Wednesday, the Post-Gazette will tell the stories of youngsters caught in the net of the new law and present the views of national experts who have studied the trend of prosecuting juveniles as adults.

The Post-Gazette does not usually withhold the identities of juveniles accused of crimes, but has made an exception for these stories.

In order to obtain some information about these teens that is normally confidential, the newspaper agreed not to disclose their full identities.

For that reason, and because those whose cases were transferred to the juvenile system do not have criminal records for those offenses, the newspaper is using only first names and last initials of those whose stories are told.