North Carolina's Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act: Real Juvenile Reform or a $143 million Financial Boondoggle?

Largely attributed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s expansion of Eighth Amendment jurisprudence over the past twenty years, state legislatures have slowly dismantled three decades of laws designed to “get tough” on juvenile offenders. These laws in some cases limited the jurisdiction of the juvenile courts and mandated that courts try juveniles as adults for certain crimes if the juveniles were of a certain age, usually 16 or 17 years of age. This legislative session, the North Carolina General Assembly modified its juvenile transfer and jurisdiction statutes to expand juvenile court jurisdiction and to limit transfers of juveniles to Superior Court. Titled the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act and contained in the Legislature’s budget bill (S.L. 2017-57, SB 257), the measure modifies existing juvenile transfer and jurisdiction statutes to limit their impact on juveniles and reduce the likelihood that a juvenile will be tried for alleged crimes in the same way as an adult.

 

This genesis of the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act is to be found in the work of the United States Supreme Court, which has over the past several decades significantly eroded the impact of state legislation aimed at criminalizing juvenile offenders.  Most notably,  in Roper v. Simmons, 543 U.S. 551 (2005), the Court struck down state laws that provided for the imposition of capital punishment on juveniles as being contrary to the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishments.  Nearly a decade later in Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010) and in Miller v. Alabama, 567 U.S. 460 (2012), the Court again expanded the reach of the Eighth Amendment to ban the imposition of a life sentence without the possibility of parole upon juveniles convicted of serious crimes. In all of these cases, the Supreme Court holdings differentiated between adult and youthful offenders, noting that juveniles were more likely to lack maturity; less likely to have a developed sense of responsibility; were more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure; were more likely to have an unformed character; and were more likely to have an occasion for reform. Roper at 570; Graham at 74. As such, juveniles should not be punished in the same way as adults.

Half a decade later, the Juvenile Justice Reinvestment Act has finally been passed in North Carolina. Despite all the celebratory headlines in North Carolina newspapers, the reality at present is that nothing has changed with regard to juvenile jurisdiction or transfer to Superior Court, at least not yet.

At present, N.C. Gen. Stat 7B-2200 permits transfer of the case of a juvenile 13 years or older at the time of an alleged crime by the juvenile if the crime were a felony if committed by an adult and mandated the transfer if the felony were a Class A felony (Murder, Manslaughter). Likewise, N.C. Gen. Stat. 7B-1604(a) afforded juvenile court jurisdiction over a juvenile who has allegedly committed criminal acts only to the extent that the alleged acts were committed on or before the juvenile’s sixteenth birthday. Effective December 1, 2019, where the court obtains jurisdiction over a juvenile alleged to be delinquent who has not reached 18 years of age, the juvenile court will retain jurisdiction under N.C. Gen. Stat. 7B-1604 unless the juvenile has been alleged to have committed a felony. In that case, N.C. Gen. Stat. 7B-2200 permits transfer of the juvenile who is 13-16 to superior court and mandates transfer in the case that the alleged felony is a Class A felony. A new statute, N.C. Gen. Stat. 7B-2200.5 requires transfer of juveniles over the age of 16 to Superior Court if they are alleged to have committed an A-G felony, and permits transfer if the alleged felony is a Class H or I felony. Thus, the reformed statutes essentially maintains the integrity of the existing transfer and jurisdiction statutes while effectively raising the age of their application, making it a greater likelihood that a juvenile will be prosecuted in juvenile court than would have been the case without the legislation.

 

Many questions are now ripe for answering since North Carolina has abandoned its hard line approach to juveniles in favor of one that is, on its face, kinder and gentler. Is raising the age a good idea whose time has come or will it be a costly boondoggle that will increase case-loads in juvenile court and cost the taxpayers money? The verdict on this question is still out. A Legislative Fiscal Study attached to the original Juvenile Justice Investment Act House Bill projected that the impact of the legislation would be approximately $25,307,000 for Fiscal Year 2017-2018, and cost an additional $29,576,319, $44,376,721 and $44,478,339 for Fiscal Years 2019-2020, 2020-2021, and 2021-2022. Gen. Assembly of N.C. Session 2017 Leg. Fiscal Note.

So much for the cost side of things.

But an additional question needs to be asked: now that a juvenile won’t have to face adult charges (a significant deterrent to law enforcement since it will cloud a juvenile’s future) is there now more of an incentive for law enforcement to charge an act of delinquency that might in the end be expunged? And if so, what will these additional charges do to the numbers of juveniles who are expected to enter the juvenile system and how much more cost will it add to the $143 million price tag this legislation is already expected to cost?

Turning from costs, one need also ask about the impact of this legislation on the lives of juveniles. Will the expenditure of $143 million over five years lead to significant reform of juvenile behavior, reduce the incident of juvenile delinquency, and lead to better outcomes for those juveniles adjudicated delinquent? If one assumes that the sole cause of juvenile delinquency and subsequent recidivist behavior is lack of proper psychological treatment and youth services that aren’t delivered because juveniles have been prosecuted as adults, perhaps one could imagine that the legislation will lead to  some positive impact.  

However, the reality is and remains that juvenile offenders mainly become the way they are because of the sociology of their individualized households and extended social groups. Until the environment of home and hearth is better nourished, sustained and supported, until parents and caregivers take a more active and corrective role in instilling proper values, until expectations for a better life are instilled in juveniles who are at risk for offense, the result is likely to be more of the same.