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Attorney General Marshall Coleman has proposed a four point legislative program that calls for “adult punishment for adult crime” committed by juveniles and that reduces the restrictions on trying juveniles as adults.
Coleman revealed the four proposals, which will be introduced in the 1979 Session of the General Assembly as part of the Attorney General’s anticrime package.
Coleman said the proposals are designed to make juvenile laws “less lenient, based on the proven theory that a tougher policy toward juvenile violence reduces crime.
“The juvenile court system was not established to shield real criminals from the threat of punishment. It was designed to rehabilitate the youthful offender. A youngster who repeatedly commits serious crimes is using the system and making a mockery of our best intentions,” Coleman said.
The major points of the program are:
—Required Adult Trial: Under the first proposal a 16 or 17-year old charged with rape, armed robbery, sodomy by force or murder, would automatically be tried as an adult. The current law provides that judges have discretion to try such an offender in the juvenile system or as an adult. "These subjective judgments,” Coleman said, “result in unjustifiable disparity of treatment, and inequities which appear contrary to the rule of law.”
—Repeat Offenders: The second proposal provides that youthful repeat offenders of felonious offenses should, in most cases, be tried as adults. Although this proposal allows the judge to determine in each case whether the offender will be tried as an adult, it assumes that a typical repeat offender has not been helped by the juvenile justice system in the past.
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