'Raise the Age' One Step Closer to Passage | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's note: The author of this post is Kari Travis, who is an associate editor for the Carolina Journal, John Hood Publisher.

House bill treating fewer teens charged with crimes as adults could reach House vote next week; Senate version included in that body's budget

    RALEIGH     A legislative effort to "raise the age" for some juvenile offenders has instead raised concerns about costs.

    Most lawmakers agree that, in most cases, 16- and 17-year-0lds should not be criminalized as adults, but the impact on taxpayers of leaving those kids in the juvenile system has become a sticking point.

    Legislators pored over the cost estimates for House Bill 280, the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act, during a May 11 meeting of the House Appropriations Committee. Under the legislation, teens younger than 18 charged with nonviolent crimes would qualify as juveniles. It would take effect Dec. 1, 2019.

    The Senate budget included a raise-the-age provision but no funding for the program. It set the start date at Dec. 1, 2020. The Senate was debating the 2017-19 budget as this article went to press.

    H.B. 280 would cost $44.3 million in annual recurring expenses beginning in 2020, said Mark White, a fiscal research staffer at the General Assembly.

    Rep. Chuck McGrady, R-Henderson, said costs are a recurring concern.

    "One of the problems with this bill in the past is that it's been about the money."

    North Carolina is the only state yet to reform its juvenile age limit. Last month, New York raised its juvenile age limit to 18.

    The General Assembly in recent years has enacted several criminal justice reforms that have wound up reducing taxpayer costs and helped some low-level offenders get out of the prison system and become productive members of the community.

    McGrady, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, told legislators to view this bill as another investment.

    "What about the long range here? When you get the juveniles out of the criminal justice system and your recidivism rate drops, who's going to benefit from that in terms of jail space down the road? It's just not a near-term thing," he said.

    The Senate's budget proposal, released earlier this week, included a stripped-down version of "raise the age."

    Under that proposal, 16-and-17-year-olds with misdemeanors only would be placed in the juvenile system.

    Most of the money in H.B. 280 would go to the Division of Juvenile Justice, White said.

    Unlike adult courts, the juvenile system provides court counselors to assist kids and families. Juvenile cases also require the judge to spend more time working with the offenders.

    The provisions can get expensive, White said.

    But the legislature's fiscal analysis overstated some of the numbers involving costs, said William Lassiter, deputy commissioner of juvenile justice at the North Carolina Department of Public Safety.

    H.B. 280's fiscal note designates need for a 96-bed Youth Development Center estimated to cost the state an additional $10.8 million.

    There aren't enough sentenced kids to fill that space, Lassiter said, adding that he could do with another 60 beds, then add more later if needed.

    "Fiscal research does an outstanding job of analyzing cost," he said. "What they cannot do is analyze the benefits. Every cost-benefit analysis that you guys have commissioned as legislators has shown that this proposal will save the state money."

    North Carolina's juvenile justice system has saved the state more than $40 million in recurring funds since 2008. System reforms and dropping delinquency rates have allowed for the savings.

    The state should reinvest that money in the system, Lassiter said.

    H.B. 280 passed the committee by voice vote. It may be taken up by the full House next week.