On March 29, Louisianans will vote on Amendment 3, a constitutional amendment that would hand legislators the power to add, with a two-thirds majority vote, any felony to the list of charges that would qualify a child to be treated like an adult in the eyes of the law. In Louisiana, this includes crimes like making a fake ID or stealing a phone. The state constitution currently restricts the crimes for which minors aged 14 and up can be charged as adults to a list of 16 serious felonies including murder, rape, and armed robbery.
The amendment’s sponsor, Republican state senator Heather Cloud, says the limits on charging children as adults have “hamstringed” Louisiana from being able to address juvenile crime. Some of the bill’s supporters have expressed a deeply pessimistic view of Louisiana’s youth population; in a House committee hearing last fall, Republican lawmaker Tony Bacala told his colleagues, “Some of these kids are already lost when they’re two years old.”
Thanks for the link! Really surprising stats including “At case disposition, 65% of persons ages 12 to 17 charged with a felony in adult criminal courts were convicted, compared to 25% of persons charged with a misdemeanor.”
Def don’t link to your research. It’s bad opsec lol. In this case I do feel like mock trials would give a better indication as to the actual effect, seeing as in actual cases there’d be so much to account for. Really sad to hear this is the effect shown even in the research you did with mock trials.