DOVER, N.H. (AP) - Although juveniles have been certified as adults in high-profile cases in recent years, a bill being considered by lawmakers would move 17-year-olds back into the juvenile system.
Joe Diament, who heads the state Division of Juvenile Justice Services and supports the bill, said the change may result in increased costs for his division, but would save money for the adult corrections system in the long run. He also said it is the right thing to do.
“Young people who are put in the adult system (return) at about two to three times the frequency of those that go into the juvenile system,” Diament said.
The bill would reverse a law passed in 1996 that lowered the age from 18 to 17 under which someone is treated as an adult in a criminal case.
The law also made it easier for district courts to certify youth 15 or older to stand trial as adults. Gov. Steve Merrill pushed for the bill, arguing that serious juvenile crime was on the rise.
Judge Edwin Kelly is in charge of the state’s district courts, which have jurisdiction over juvenile cases. He said he supports the proposal because the youths would find more rehabilitative services in the juvenile system.
“Those 17-year-old kids are still juniors and seniors in high school,” Kelly said.
According to a 1998 Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention report, 37 states and District of Columbia consider adults to be 18 or older, 10 states set the age at 17 and three at 16.
Some local law enforcement officials said the law should stay as is because the courts and juvenile justice system would not be able to handle the extra cases the bill would create.
Dover Police Chief William Fenniman opposed any change, and described Merrill’s proposal as a bold step in law enforcement.
“We have seen an increase in juvenile crime, serious juvenile crime, committed by 17-year-olds. Kids these days are more sophisticated and I think it would be detrimental to increase the age,” Fenniman said.
Fenniman said the courts and treatment programs already are facing enough problems without adding 17-year-olds. Youth detention facilities are full, he said.
The state operates a secure Youth Development Center in Manchester, filled to capacity of 108 beds. A detention facility in Concord has 22 of its 23 beds full.
But Diament said the bill would not go into effect until the end of 2004, giving his division time to secure the necessary funding to expand its services. The state also operates nonsecure facilities and contracts with outside social service agencies that help troubled youth.
“There are approximately 3,500 to 4,000 youth under the responsibility of the division ... very few of them are in locked facilities,” he said.
The Division of Youth, Children and Families also supports the bill. Director Nancy Rollins said the current system is disruptive because 17-year-olds are eligible for child protective services, while being considered adult when they commit crimes. They are stuck in two court systems, she said.
Rollins said the certification process still is available for prosecutors to move 17-year-olds or younger teens into the adult system if the crime is serious enough.
As many as 20 juveniles facing some kind of homicide charge have been ordered to stand trial as adults in the last decade or so.
The most recent is James Parker, who was 16 when he was charged in the murder of two Dartmouth professors, and later was certified as an adult.
Jeffrey Dingman, 14, was certified as an adult after he and his 17-year-old brother killed their parents in Rochester in 1996.
Parker and Dingman pleaded guilty.