NY State Advocate Group Pushes to Raise the Age on Prosecution
Members of the Raise the Age campaign are once again pushing state lawmakers to change the age of criminal responsibility in New York. Advocates says that prosecuting and placing adolescents in the adult criminal justice system hurts them later in life and does little to improve public safety.
The group's website states that New York is the only state other than North Carolina that prosecutes all youth as adults when they turn sixteen.
From the Raise the Age website
Research into brain development underscores that adolescents are in fact children and that the human brain is not fully formed until the age of 25.
The group also says that teenagers prosecuted in the adult system are 34% more to face arrest again.
Raise the Age pushed for legislation in 2015 but it failed to pass.
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