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Friend,
Ten years ago, in a historic decision, the U.S. Supreme Court recognized, as it had in earlier cases, that children who commit crimes are fundamentally different from adults – less mature biologically, more vulnerable and susceptible to negative pressures and influences, and therefore less culpable and more likely to change.
It’s one of the reasons this country has had a separate criminal justice system for children for the past century.
But even though this distinction between adults and children is widely accepted in the law and science, thousands of children accused of crimes are still prosecuted in the adult justice system each year – subjecting them to adult jails, where they are often denied adequate educational resources and the mental health and rehabilitative services they need.
No state prosecutes children as adults on felony charges more than Florida, where 4,446 children have been charged with felonies in the adult system over the past five years. And the statistics show that Black children accused of crimes are more likely than white children to be funneled into adult courts and lockups.
What makes Florida an outlier is its harsh “direct file” statute, enacted in 1978 as the era of mass incarceration was taking root in this country and politicians were racing to pass ever-tougher sentencing laws.
Florida’s law grants state prosecutors the extraordinary power to bring adult charges against children as young as 14 – without any review by a judge or a grand jury.
Juvenile court judges can also transfer a child’s case to the adult courts. But that rarely happens. In Florida, direct file prosecutions – those decided by prosecutors themselves – account for more than 98% of the adult charges brought against juveniles in the state.
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
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