WASHINGTON -- Michigan lawmakers are expected to introduce 21 bills this week that address prison treatment and criminal justice practices for kids in the adult corrections system. Some measures would ban placing youth in adult jails and prisons altogether.
The legislative push arrives several months after The Huffington Post published an investigation of the treatment of youth in adult prisons in the state. We found under-18-year-olds being restrained, held in isolation, forcibly extracted from their cells and shocked with stun guns.
A number of inmates have sued Michigan, alleging that the state facilitated sexual violence by housing youth with adult inmates. The Michigan Department of Corrections has said it is confident the outcome of the case will be in favor of the state.
"Numerous studies have shown that a young person’s brain is not fully developed until their mid-20s," said Democratic state Rep. Harvey Santana, who represents Detroit, in a statement. "We are throwing children in with hardened criminals and they are not getting the rehabilitation services they so desperately need."
As of 2013, there were about 6,000 youth in adult facilities in the United States. Children of color are more likely to be sentenced as adults: Of the 257 children prosecuted as adults in Chicago between 2010 and 2012, only one was white. There is growing national pressure to reform the criminal justice system, particularly for kids: A new Senate package would ban solitary confinement for juveniles in nearly all cases.
Michigan is one of nine states that automatically charges 17-year-olds as adults. One bill state lawmakers are proposing would raise the maximum age of juvenile court jurisdiction to 18. A second would encourage judges to weigh other factors before waiving a youth out of the juvenile system, such as the kid's culpability and what other options are available.
A Detroit teen who spoke to HuffPost, Jamie, was initially sentenced to two concurrent six-month sentences for fighting with a family friend. She served that time in an adult women's facility, where she earned misconduct tickets that led a judge to revise her sentence to up to five years. The tickets were for defying an order, yelling at an inmate and giving a guard an "intimidating look."
Another bill would ensure that youth under 21 in segregation receive age-appropriate programming and exercise at least five days a week. In Michigan, 28 kids in adult facilities spent an average of 52 days each in punitive segregation between 2011 and 2013. Seventy-nine kids spent an average of 24 days each in some other form of isolation, such as protective custody, according to prison documents.
Two bills introduced by Republican state Rep. Kurt Heise would prohibit placing kids in adult jails and prisons to ensure they're put in juvenile facilities where they can receive more age-appropriate treatment. "The time has come for Michigan to join the rest of the country," Heise said in a statement.
Proposed changes follow recommendations from a recent report by the Michigan Council on Crime and Delinquency.
Chris Gautz, a spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections, said "this is a large and complex bill package," and that once the bills are introduced, "we will carefully review them and their possible impact on our operations."
The video below, originally published in originally published in The Huffington Post Highline article "Cruel And All-Too Usual," shows Jamie, the minor mentioned above, receiving rough treatment from Michigan correctional officers. It may be disturbing to some viewers.