We have to preserve the human rights of children, commit crimes

Too often vulnerable and abused children end up in our adolescents and adult criminal judicial systems in which they are subject to practices that end up against human rights standards.

In Hawaii, for example, there is no minimum age if a child can be prosecuted in front of the youth court.

Older children who end up in the criminal justice system for adults also experience human rights violations. Children who have serious charges can be held in adult prisons, which is not a place where a child should ever be. If these young people are convicted, these young people are exposed to exactly the same punishment as an adult, without taking into account why they came into the system at all.

In a report published by human rights for children in 2023, it was found that more than 32,000 people for crimes they committed as children are locked up in US prisons.

Investigations on the prevalence of childhood trauma among this population have been carried out in states across the country, including California, Louisiana, Maryland, Wisconsin, South Carolina, Arkansas and Oklahoma. The results are worryingly consistent in all of these countries: over 70% of children who were prosecuted as adults experienced physical or emotional abuse, and almost 40% were victims of sexual abuse before entering the judicial system.

It is worse for girls if more than 84% are victims of physical, emotional and sexual abuse before they commit their crime. Most children also experience trauma in their houses, including parental separation (83%), neglect (70%), domestic violence (53%), drug abuse (75%), mental illnesses (54%) and detention (64%).

Even children in youth or family courts claim with high rates of childhood trauma. A doj study on young people in the youth court from 2014 showed, for example, that 90% of young people experienced at least two negative childhood experiences and more than half at least four. A high degree of heavy childhood trauma was causal in children with a negative development of the brain.

The legislative pursues reforms

The science behind the brain and behavioral development development in childhood forms the basis why we have to treat children differently when they commit crimes.

But there is hope. The legislator has just passed the Senate Act 694, the draft law 691 of the Senate and the Senate Bill 544, which will lead to higher human rights protection for systems for system -related young people in Hawaii.

These reforms will determine a minimum age of 12 years before a child in the youth system can be assessed in a delinquency, and judges give greater flexibility by enabling them to deviate from mandatory minimum defaults if young people were condemned to be condemned to an adult court. In the reforms, the judges must also take into account the effects of childhood trauma and the status of the child as victims of sexual abuse or human trafficking before they impose a punishment.

Similar reforms have just been signed by governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders in Arkansas in the law. These reforms are non -partisan and reflect the reality that children in primary school should not be in our judicial system and that children who are tried out in the adult system do not be condemned how adults should be condemned.

It is just as important to eliminate the placement of children in adult prisons and prisons. Children are sexually and physically attacked five times more often in adult prisons. The suicide rate of young people in adult prisons is almost 7.7 -larger than those of youth interface roofs.

Just last year, a 16-year-old girl committed suicide when he was arrested in an adult prison in Mississippi. This was followed by the suicide of a young man in New York after being released from the notorious Riker's Island prison, where he was kept in solitary confinement for two years from 16 years.

While we have to hold the youth for crimes, we have to do this in a development -friendly way that respects their human rights. These reforms are morally correct and will lead to better results in Hawaii for the young people affected by systems.