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A 17-year-old reportedly committed suicide in January while in custody at the Fort Bend County Jail. Jail staff found the teen - charged with aggravated robbery involving a pellet gun and evading arrest - hanging in his cell, as reported by KPRC-TV.
Most 17-year-olds are in high school. Their parents still ground them, and they have to ask to borrow the car. Besides being able to get into R-rated movies, they possess the same adolescent freedom as 16-year-olds. Yet, in Texas, 17-year-olds are prosecuted as adults and housed in adult correctional facilities.
Texas is one of six states that tries 17-year-olds as adults. But a new bill wants Texas to follow the national trend of raising the age of criminal responsibility from 17 to 18.
Listen to an interview with Rep. Gene Wu at KUT 90.5 (Austin's NPR Station).
Texas is one of only a handful of states that still sends all 17-year-olds to adult courts, no matter how minor their offense. Legislation that would raise the age of juvenile court jurisdiction in Texas was passed by the state House of Representatives last week and is now awaiting action in the Texas Senate.
The cutoff for criminal responsibility in Texas was increased to age 17 in the year 1918. Before that, 9-year-olds could be prosecuted as adults.
It has long been an article of faith in Texas politics that no one ever lost an election for being too tough on lawbreakers. The inverse of that, of course, is that locking up more people for longer periods tends to pay dividends at the ballot box. But that principle was turned on its ear in the Texas House last week when legislation to raise the age of criminal responsibility from 17 years old to 18 cruised to passage by a vote of 92-52.
Read the rest of this article at the Corpus Christi Caller-Times.
It has been nearly 100 years since Texas raised the age of criminal responsibility from eight years old to 17, and today, Texas is only one of six states that still considers 17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system. On Thursday, though, the Legislature got a step closer to passing legislation that would raise the age to 18 after the House passed House Bill 122 with an 82-62 vote, sending the bill over to the Senate.
A bill that would bump up the age of adult criminal responsibility from 17 to 18 is scheduled for a vote in the Texas House today. Advocates say this gives a second chance to 17-year-olds who are still treated like minors in other aspects of society.
Texas is one of seven states that automatically classify 17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system. That’s important because once a 17-year-old enters the courtroom as an adult, they are cut off from the stated rehabilitative goals and resources of the juvenile justice system.
Read the rest of this article at The Chronicle of Social Change.
More than three-fourths of Texas voters believe 17-year-old offenders should be treated as juveniles rather than adults, and an even greater number support alternatives to incarceration for some nonviolent low-level drug-related crimes, a newly released survey revealed.
A broad group of smart-on-crime organizations in Texas announced the release of new Texas Voters Survey polling data showing strong Texas voter support for alternatives to incarceration, as well as for other criminal justice reform policies currently being considered during Texas' 85th Legislative Session.
A high-profile bill that would raise the age of criminal responsibility in Texas from age 17 to 18 tentatively was approved Thursday by the Texas House of Representatives, despite the likelihood that its projected $45 million cost will doom it in the Senate.
State Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, is not sold on raising the age of criminal responsibility in Texas from 17 to 18. House Bill 122 would move 17-year-old offenders from the adult criminal justice system to its juvenile justice counterpart, beginning in 2019.
Texas is one of only a handful of states that still prosecutes 17-year-olds as adults in its criminal justice system, but state lawmakers could soon change that. A coalition of advocacy groups is backing House Bill 122, to change the age of criminal responsibility to 18, moving 17-year-olds into the juvenile justice system.
Although the criminal justice system in Texas treats 17-year-olds as adults rather than juveniles, their arrest rate—and types of crimes for which they are arrested—more closely resembles 16-year-olds than adults, a new study revealed. Criminal justice reform advocates insisted the data supports their call to raise the age of juvenile jurisdiction.
In Texas, 17-year-olds are tried as adults, but one coalition says new data collected shows 17 is too young. The Raise the Age Coalition is working to raise the age of criminal responsibility in Texas from 17 to 18. The group says research shows that 17-year-olds are arrested for non-violent, low-level offenses that closely resemble those of 16-year-olds rather than older youth or adults.
When it comes to committing crimes, 17-year-olds are much more similar to 16-year-olds than to adults, according to a study released Tuesday by advocates urging lawmakers to treat those under 18 as juveniles in the criminal justice system.
Seventeen-year-olds are automatically prosecuted as adults in the Texas criminal justice system. A new data analysis from a broad coalition of groups working to raise the age of criminal responsibility in Texas from 17 to 18 finds that 17-year-olds are arrested at a rate and for non-violent, low-level offenses that closely resemble those of 16-year-olds rather than older youth or adults.
The House Juvenile Justice and Family Issues Committee on Wednesday voted to approve a bill that would raise the age of criminal responsibility in Texas from 17 to 18. The proposal would affect thousands of 17-year-olds who encounter the criminal justice system by sending their cases to the juvenile justice system, a bone of contention for advocates and critics.
Few Texans would want to be judged their entire life based on what they did or who they were when they were 17, an age when most of us were in high school. However, Texas is one of only seven states where all 17- year-olds are placed in the adult justice system.
Read the rest of this op-ed at the Austin American-Statesman.