They told us it was all about the youth.

Maybe, but one thing is for certain - it wasn’t about the victims.

Raise The Age reform passed in April 2017. It came with good intentions but, like most state mandates, lacked funding. And reality.

Raise the Age eliminated consequences for juveniles by moving their cases from criminal courts to Family Court, where victims and the public aren’t allowed to know how they were adjudicated. Designed to engage troubled youth with services, instead, Raise the Age emboldened many. It curtailed detention and returned them to the streets to re-offend. Repeat offenders mean more crime and more victims.

By insisting most juvenile lawbreakers, even violent ones, disappear into the black hole of Family Court, Raise the Age traumatizes crime victims a second time by forcing them to accept no justice. Unfortunately, the relatively few offenders held in detention are still too many for an inadequate juvenile corrections system. To find a secure facility, law enforcement sometimes must ferry youth around the state, away from family and counsel. Moreover, existing juvenile detention facilities lacked appropriate infrastructure to keep safe the onslaught of offenders they were forced to house, along with the staff asked to maintain order, care, and custody.

Raise the Age set two goals: treat 16 and 17-year-old defendants as youth in Family Court and better deliver them resources through pre-trial services. The legislature thought Raise the Age would miraculously fix youth by reducing detention and incarceration, stopping housing juveniles with adults, removing cases from criminal to Family Court, and improving the continuity of the legal process.

Raise the Age gives youth a second chance, particularly those in disproportionately affected communities – if they do something stupid, they don’t automatically go to jail. Through “diversion,” youth can be redirected away from crime.

But sadly, across New York, prosecutors report the toughest issue is guns – youth caught carrying an illegal firearm typically transfers to Family Court. Even cases where they threatened someone with it, are often considered non-violent and transferred. With no consequences, too frequently, that youth gets another gun, and the probability of them using it increases.

Raise the Age circumvents judicial process. It endangers the public by returning violent offenders to the streets. It takes discretion away from judges and prosecutors to make it look like the reform is successful.

Pro-Raise the Age legislators shied away from specifying what crimes are violent. They created undefined legal terms that left judges and prosecutors scratching their heads. Disregarding impacts on victims and the fact there are youth who require something more than social intervention endangers everyone.

Let’s not wait for more youth’s lives to be derailed or lost by misdirected leniency. Unchecked recklessness and ignorance of youth, combined with today’s disregard for other people, just produce more victims.

Passed in April 2017 as part of the New York State Budget, Raise the Age was designed to accomplish those missions by:

• Reducing detention and incarceration of youth
• Not detaining or incarcerating juveniles in the same facilities as adults
• Establishing a process to remove cases from Criminal Court to Family Court
• Bettering continuity of the legal process – court assigned, defense counsel, prosecutor

Prior to the implementation of Raise The Age reforms, criminal responsibility began at age 16 and cases went to adult courts where proceedings were public record. Youth ages seven through 15 went to Family Court where proceedings are private. With the passage of reforms in April 2017, the following changes took place:

• Effective October 2018 – 16-year-olds were no longer criminally responsible in most cases
• Effective October 2019 – 17-year-olds were no longer criminally responsible in most cases
• Issued specific directives to county Probation Departments on handling Juvenile Offenders and Adolescent Offenders
• Established “Youth Part” of county superior courts statewide

Under laws that existed before Raise The Age reforms, and as a result of the directives to probation departments, victims of crimes cannot be told about statements made by youth accused of crimes nor find out the dispositions of cases involving them that are handled by Family Court.

Definitions

• Youth Part Court/Family Court

As a result of Raise The Age reforms, existing definitions of youth offenders were revised and a new category was added to the law:

• Juvenile Delinquent
• Juvenile Offender
• Youthful Offender
• Adolescent Offender (NEW)

Adjustments

“Raise The LOWER Age” legislation passed in June 2022:

• Effective December 29, 2022 – the lowest age youth could be brought into the justice system was raised to 12 years old. It had previously been seven. This effectively ended the prosecution of youth as young as seven as Juvenile Delinquents
• Effective December 29, 2022 – the youngest a youth could be held in secure detention was raised to 13 years old. It had previously been 10.
• Neither change applies to youth alleged to have committed homicides.

Research

The initial legislation created a Raise The Age Implementation Task Force which issued its final report in March 2020 and requires the New York State Office of Children and Family Services to collect data on cases involving youth since the reforms took effect.