Press Contact: For all media inquiries, please contact Torrie Bethany, Communications Manager for the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, at tbethany@texascjc.org or (512) 441-8123, Ext. 108.
With the start of the 2015 legislative session on the horizon, Fort Bend County is preparing for a possible change to the age at which criminal offenders are classified as adults in Texas - a shift that some worry could leave the county's juvenile detention program in the lurch.
Texas is one of only 10 states that automatically places children under the age of 18 in the adult criminal justice system. Overwhelming evidence suggests that sending 17-year-olds to adult jails - rather than keeping them in the juvenile justice system - needlessly destroys lives and threatens public safety by turning nonviolent teenagers into hardened criminals.