Just weeks after the NC House passed bipartisan legislation to “raise the age” of juvenile court jurisdiction to 17 for misdemeanor offenses (HB 725), US Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) have given NC a new incentive to enact this bill. According to this press release, Senators Paul and Booker have introduced the REDEEM (Record Expungement Designed to Enhance Employment) Act, which proposes major criminal justice reform by removing non-violent juvenile offenders from the adult criminal court system and improving employment opportunities for non-violent adult offenders. A key provision of the bill encourages states to increase the age of criminal responsibility to 18 by offering those states a preference for federal community police grants. The REDEEM Act would also: Create a process for adult, non-violent offenders to seal their criminal records; Limit information available to employers via FBI criminal background checks; Automatically expunge or seal juvenile records for non-violent offenses; Restrict the use of solitary confinement for juveniles; and Restore welfare benefits to low-level drug offenders who have served their time. The bill’s sponsors have called it common sense legislation designed to reform a costly and “broken criminal justice system,” citing research, long advanced by “raise the age” proponents, which shows that rehabilitating youth in the juvenile justice system costs less, reduces recidivism, and removes barriers to employment caused by having an adult criminal record. In short, they claim it will save taxpayers money. NC has twice studied the fiscal impact of raising its maximum juvenile court age, and [...]
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