Senate approves making it easier to send minors to adult prisons
18th November 2024 · 0 Comments
By Julie O’Donoghue
Contributing Writer
(lailluminator.com) — The Louisiana Senate approved a measure last week that could result in younger teenagers being sentenced to adult prisons more often.
The senators voted 28-9 in favor of Senate Bill 2 to lift limitations on the types of crimes for which people under age 17 can be sentenced as if they are adults. The proposal will next be considered by the Louisiana House and also needs voter approval statewide before it can become law. It will appear on the March 29 or Nov. 15 ballot next year.
The constitutional amendment would allow legislators to craft new laws that expand the court’s ability to send minors – including 14-, 15- and 16-year-olds – to adult prisons.
Children’s advocates oppose the proposal and believe it will further erode protections for youth in the criminal justice system.
In Louisiana, 15-,16- and, in more restricted circumstances, 14-year-olds, can already face adult prison sentences for a limited list of mostly violent crimes. They include murder, attempted murder, manslaughter, rape, armed robbery, kidnapping, aggravated battery, a second or subsequent burglary of an inhabited dwelling and a second or subsequent violation of some drug crimes.
The legislation, sponsored by Sen. Heather Cloud, R-Turkey Creek, would replace that list of crimes with language allowing a minor to be charged as an adult for “any crime” as long as lawmakers pass new laws to do so.
It’s not clear who asked for the amendment. The Louisiana District Attorneys Association came out Thursday in support of the proposal but also said prosecutors didn’t request it. The Louisiana Sheriffs Association has been silent about the measure.
Cloud has also refused to provide specifics on what she has planned if the amendment passes, even when asked by fellow senators.
“Is this an attempt to charge younger children as adults for less serious offenses?” Sen. Regina Barrow, D-Baton Rouge, asked Cloud on the Senate floor last Thursday.
“Those conversations would happen after the fact [if the constitutional amendment is approved and] if the people give us the authority,” Cloud responded.
When pressed for answers, Cloud mentioned a few crimes that she would add to the existing list in the constitution. Advocates have said the offenses Cloud mentioned are already addressed under current law.
For example, Cloud said the amendment would help address situations such as the murder of 73-year-old Linda Frickey during a botched New Orleans carjacking in 2022. But the four teenagers involved in that killing were charged as adults and sent to adult prisons earlier this year under existing law.
Cloud also insisted her amendment wouldn’t “change the law” because lawmakers would have to pass more legislation to ultimately alter the way teenagers are sent to adult prisons.
Some of her colleagues disagreed with that assessment. They said her proposed amendment would remove authority from the public to decide precisely when younger teenagers should be charged as adults and give it exclusively to legislators.
Sen. Katrina Jackson-Andrews, D-Monroe, said the amendment would “take something out of the constitution that protects the least of us.”
“We are divesting the people of their right to protect children,” Jackson-Andrews said.
Cloud’s proposal also comes on the heels of a new law approved earlier this year that treats all 17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system. It took away discretion from district attorneys to put those teens through the juvenile justice system instead of adult courts.
The law was pitched as a way to grapple with violent acts committed by out-of-control youth, but ProPublica and Verite News report that data show nearly 70 percent of 17-year-olds arrested under the new law in East Baton Rouge, Jefferson and Orleans parishes were accused of nonviolent crimes.
Louisiana sheriffs are also struggling to accommodate 17-year-olds moved from juvenile courts into the adult system earlier this year.
While Louisiana state law may consider a 17-year-old an adult for criminal justice purposes, the federal government does not. In order to comply with federal law, sheriffs have to keep anyone under 18 separate from adult detainees and provide them with educational services.
Sheriffs have complained they don’t have the space in their jails or resources to meet these federal requirements. A few are spending money to house the 17-year-olds at a special facility in Jackson Parish in order to not run afoul of federal or state mandates.
This article originally published in the November 18, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
