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Juvenile Injustice Bill HR 2037 a danger
to children
Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-IL)
and Subcommittee on Crime Chairman Bill McCollum (R-FL) have
introduced a new juvenile justice bill, H.R. 2037, which has
been considered on the House floor. This new juvenile "injustice"
bill presents dangers to children by:
H.R. 2037 allows federal prosecutors rather
than judges the discretion to try children as adults, lowers
the age to 13 in some cases at which children can be tried as
adults in the federal system, and broadens the scope of federal
crimes for which juveniles can be tried as adults. This provision
would mean that more children would be placed in adult jails,
and children could be placed in the same jail cells with adults.
This places children at serious risk of abuse and assault, and
flies in the face of current studies which indicate that trying
children as adults increases rather than decreases youth crime.
H.R. 2037 allows children to come into contact
with adults in adult jails in the federal system. Children as
young as 13 years old would be allowed to be in the same jail
cells with adults. Allowing contact between juveniles and adults
in adult jails would place children at risk of assault and abuse,
as children are eight times more likely to commit suicide, five
times more likely to be sexually assaulted, and twice as likely
to be assaulted by staff in adult jails than in juvenile facilities.
H.R. 2037 imposes new mandatory minimum sentences
for children who are convicted of certain offenses. These new
draconian mandatory minimums would likely impose harsher penalties
on youthful offenders than adult criminals guilty of the same
offenses. For example, any juvenile who discharges a firearm
in a school zone would get a minimum 10-year sentence. An adult
charged with the same offense would not be subject to the same
mandatory penalty.
H.R. 2037 requires juvenile records of juveniles
who are convicted of felonies in the federal system to be maintained
in the same manner as adult records. Also, H.R. 2037 requires
that all juvenile records be available for background checks
with no protections to assure that the records would not be made
widely available. Under H.R. 2037, juveniles' records could be
shared with law enforcement, courts, the FBI, and schools, including
schools in which the child is seeking to enroll. Opening juvenile
records and allowing for broad dissemination of these records
would have devastating consequences for the future employment
and education of many children.
The Children's Defense Fund
25 E Street NW
Washington, DC 20001
(202) 628-8787
Web: www.childrensdefense.org
E-mail: cdfinfo@childrensdefense.org
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