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Group advises transferring young killers
RAY PIERCE
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

ALEXANDER -- Ten-year-old killers should be eligible for transfer to adult prisons after age 16 instead of just being let go at 18, a subgroup of the Governor's Working Group on Juvenile Justice has recommended.
At a meeting of the working group at the Alexander Youth Services Center on Wednesday, the legal subgroup gave its recommendations. It called for blended sentences, a legal concept under which a youth convicted of a crime spends part of his sentence in the juvenile justice system and then can be transferred by a judge to the adult system.
Youths judged delinquent in major crimes in Arkansas generally don't stay in state custody past their 18th birthdays.
The subgroup's recommendation is that children 10 to 13 be subject to "extended juvenile jurisdiction" for capital murder or first-degree murder only.
Some child welfare advocates think that approach sends a wrong message -- that children will be held to the same level of responsibility as adults.
"We're making the statement that a 10-year-old that can't vote, that can't drive a car, that can't get a tattoo, who can't enter a contract is all of a sudden, by the nature of a horrendous act that they ought to be held accountable for, to be dealt with as an adult," said Paul Kelly of Little Rock, senior program coordinator for Arkansas Advocates for Children and Families, at the unit after the recommendation. "I think it's hypocritical, and it goes against what we know about children."
Kelly said he has studies that purport to show that children 10 and younger think with a part of their brains different from what adults use.
"You're taking their entire childhood away," said Didi Sallings of Little Rock, director of the state Public Defender Commission. "We're basically saying that kids aren't kids anymore."
Prosecuting Attorney Brent Haltom of Lewisville, a member of the subgroup looking at revision in juvenile justice laws, said enough safeguards would be in place to prevent children who commit crimes from being placed in prison if they did not have the necessary mental state of mind at the time of the crime to be punished as an adult.
"If a 21-year-old commits a capital murder, he's given that opportunity to show that he didn't have the culpable mental state, that his mental faculties were off at that time," Haltom said. "But to allow a person to commit that crime and not allow him to be tried as an adult is just not fair."
Youths 14 and 15 would be subject to blended sentences for a longer list of crimes than the 10- to 13-year-olds. Youths 16 or 17 charged with a felony could be charged in juvenile court or in circuit court at the discretion of the prosecutor.
If a child is designated subject to extended jurisdiction, the subgroup recommends that judges consider a list of factors before transferring him to the adult system. Those include:

The seriousness of the crime and whether extended jurisdiction is needed to protect the community.

Whether the crime was committed in an aggressive, violent, premeditated or willful manner.

Whether it was a crime against a person or against property, with greater weight being given to crimes against people.

The sophistication or maturity of the child as based on his home, environment, lifestyle, emotional attitude or his desire to be treated as an adult.
Haltom said the recommendations would give prosecutors more flexibility in dealing with young offenders. He said that the law as it is only allows for an "either-or" situation: try the child before a judge in juvenile court, or if he is 14 or older, try him before a jury in circuit court.
Under this system, Haltom explained, nearly all youths would start off in the juvenile system.
"That's something the judges would like to see," he said. "You give them the chance as a juvenile, a juvenile sentence. ... Then when they get to be 18, they go to the adult sanction."
The subgroup's recommendations do not give a firm age at which a child may be transferred to the adult system, but it says it doesn't want anyone younger than 16 sent to the Department of Correction.
The subgroup dealing with schools also gave its recommendations Wednesday. Among them:

That information about a delinquent child be given not only to school superintendents, as the law allows now, but to school counselors and classroom teachers.

That schools cooperate with the Department of Health and other child welfare agencies to assess a child at varying stages to identify risk factors.

That no child be expelled or given long-term suspensions that allow him to avoid getting an education.

More emphasis on controlling truancy.
The subgroup recommended that school-based programs and alternative schools be fully funded, but the group couldn't answer a legislator's question on how much state money would be needed.
The working group will hear recommendations from its family and community subgroups at its October meeting. The whole panel can approve, reject or alter the subgroups' recommendations when it makes its report to Gov. Mike Huckabee.
The working group was assembled by Huckabee in the wake of the March 24 shootings at Westside Middle School near Jonesboro. Four Westside students and a teacher were killed in the ambush. Ten others were wounded.

This article was published on Thursday, September 17, 1998

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