When Jamal was 14, he wore the same outfit to school everyday. One day in Union, New Jersey, he went looking for a way to get money.
“I seen a guy and I had a gun on me so I robbed him,” Jamal said. “I carjacked him for his car keys, and I robbed him for his wallet, phone and money.”
Jamal never shot the gun, but he did point it at the man he robbed. Tried as an adult, he got nine years in an adult prison.
“My record as a juvenile kept showing violent crimes, so I guess they just got tired of me,” Jamal said.
Minors in New Jersey who commit crimes like robbery, drug trafficking or homicide can be tried as adults. But that only happens at a prosecutor’s request. And according to an analysis by WNYC Radio, most of their requests are for black minors, like Jamal.
Getting tried as an adult depends on your race
Minors in some other countries – like Germany, which WNYC visited – never get such long sentences for robbery, and would never be prosecuted as adults. But it is allowed in every US state.
In New Jersey, court data obtained by WNYC found 692 minors tried as adults in the past five years. The youngest were 14 years old when charged. Almost 90% are black or Latino.
Not all were found guilty and not all went to prison, but WNYC found at least 152 inmates still in adult prisons today for crimes they committed as minors in the past five years. The most common crime? Robbery.
Laura Cohen, director of the Criminal and Youth Justice Clinic at Rutgers Law School, says white children commit the same crimes as black children. National research shows prosecutors do not seek to try white children as adults at the same rates.
As of 1 March 2016, minors convicted as adults in New Jersey have to be placed in juvenile facilities until they’re at least 18. But the law is not retroactive. And minors in the state can still end up with adult records and sentences – which are longer than juvenile sentences.
Can the US handle short prison sentences?
New York has a separate sentencing scheme for minors convicted as adults with shorter minimum terms. The minimum sentence a 15-year-old in New York can get is one year for robbery or five years for murder. In New Jersey, the minimums are 8 ½ and 25 ½ years, respectively.
In both states, the maximum penalty is life in prison – and some crime victim families say that’s fair. But research has found that long sentences don’t deter juveniles from re-offending any more than short sentences.
Still, American society has long resisted judges who hand down short sentences, noted Vincent Schiraldi, a criminal justice policy expert at Harvard University.
“So we passed a bunch of mandatory sentences that take that power away from those loosey-goose judges,” he said. “Bit by bit everybody gets more and more time, and then we have a system that is very reliant on prisons rather than rehabilitation.”
Schiraldi argues even young adults should be protected from adult records.
“They’re more susceptible to peer pressure, they’re more volatile in emotionally charged settings, they’re less future oriented, and all of that stuff matters from the standpoint of committing crimes,” Schiraldi said.
Laurence Steinberg, a psychology professor at Temple University, says raising the age of criminal adulthood would be expensive. Juvenile facilities cost more because they offer more rehabilitative services.
In Germany, a belief that people can change
In Germany, people who commit crimes under age 21 can be treated as juveniles, and the longest sentence a minor can get is 10 years.
“He’s still a 14- or 15-year-old boy even if he killed another person,” says Jorg Jesse, who runs prisons in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. “We would never say because he killed another person, we know have to react in a way we would a 30-year-old.”
Prisons in Germany are supposed to mirror the outside world. Officials say that helps inmates learn how to live a life without crime when they get out.
Inmates have access to knives in kitchens and electric saws at their jobs. Male and female inmates at Neustrelitz prison for adolescents can kiss and hold hands.
About 30% of Germany’s young prisoners return to jail within three years. In America, more than 80% of offenders under age 24 are re-arrested within four years.
• Sarah Gonzalez is a reporter for WNYC and New Jersey Public Radio. You can find WNYC’s full series, Kids in Prison, here.
