Jon Bruning, the Attorney General of Nebraska said yesterday "We make a lot of choices for our children: we don't allow them to vote; we don't allow them to drink; we don't allow them to drive cars; we don't allow them to serve in wars at age 13, whether they want to or not; and we don't allow them to have sex with grown men.".
That's a pretty interesting thing to say considering that Nebraska has no minimum age for trying children as adults. There are currently 66 children in the Nebraska Correctional Youth Facility, a secure confinement facility for children tried as adults, many of whom will transfer automatically into adult prisons when they turn 21. The youngest is fifteen years old and he's in for robbery, a part one violent offense in that state.
It's funny to hear the Attorney General talking about making choices for our children. It's a pretty commonsense argument - we don't allow children to do these things because they are children and children cannot make certain decisions yet because they are not fully developed. We won't let them drink, have sex, or vote, and yet we try them as adults. We don't consider them responsible enough to have a beer but we'll end their lives for crimes committed when they're 13.
We need to take Jon Bruning seriously and wake up to this issue and recognize that children are not adults. Yes, we have to hold them accountable, but we need to focus on rehabilitation. In many states a child can be tried as a child and still held until the age of 25, so it's not like I'm talking about giving them a hug and returning them to the streets. Also, it would be less expensive to re-evaluate a child when they are 21, perhaps releasing them into adult probation, then to sentence them for extended sentences at such early ages. When we refer to children as adults we are telling a lie that we have already confessed to, as evidenced and acknowledged by the chief prosecutor in the state of Nebraska.
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