RALEIGH (N.C.) Juveniles as young as six can be charged in North Carolina juvenile courts. This is the lowest age allowed by law in the United States. However, a bipartisan effort to raise the minimum age for delinquency from 6 to 10 would move the state out its current position at the bottom.According to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety (NCDPS), more than 2,100 complaints were filed against almost 1,150 youths under 10 in the three fiscal years 2016-2019. Black children are most commonly accused of wrongdoing. According to the data, 211 children aged 6-9 appeared in front of a judge. 54 were ultimately found guilty.Although state prison officials claim that no child below 10 years old was held behind bars, lawyers, racial justice advocates, and legislators worry that an appearance in court can cause lasting harm.According to Barbara Fedders (director of the Youth Justice Clinic at University of North Carolina School of Law), the likelihood of them not having legal capacity and the potential for identity development damage are both very high. If we don't find a better solution to these problems than prosecution, it feels like we are doing them all an injustice.Fedders Clinic represented a 6-year old boy from Raleigh who, in 2014, threw a stone at an apartment window. The child, who was Black, fled his mother and confessed to the crime to a local police officer. The property owner wanted to pay for the window. Over the next few months, the boy's mother and the boy went to court twice more, which caused him to miss school. Clinic argued that children younger than 7 years old are not capable of forming criminal intent and got the case dismissed.Marcia Morey, a Durham County Democrat, and former judge, recalls children sitting in her courtroom in oversized chairs, some of them with their feet dangling in coloring books or crying. She found the most alarming case, which she dismissed in 2010, concerning a 7-year old, 8-year old and 11-yearold throwing dice at a building within a public housing complex.Continue the storyI was dumbfounded. Morey stated that they brought these children to court to throw dice.In 1979, North Carolina's minimum age of delinquency was 6 years. This was during a time when tough-on crime legislation was prevalent. Some saw the juvenile justice system in North Carolina as a way to get kids and parents the resources they needed.According to a March report by the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, Washington, D.C. and 28 states have no age requirement. New York, Connecticut and Maryland have set the minimum age at 7 years. Massachusetts and California, however, have 12 year-old minimum thresholds. Twelve states permit 10-year-olds in juvenile court to be prosecuted. Three states have a minimum of 8, while one state has a minimum of 11.A total of 600 counselors from juvenile courts are responsible for deciding how to proceed with a complaint.The majority of complaints are from schools, with more than 43% being dismissed right away. Nearly half of all complaints were diverted from school to other agencies. However, one-tenth (or less) of referrals ended up in court due to parents or children not meeting their obligations such as mandatory counseling. A court counselor sent a complaint directly to a judge in about one-sixth cases.While law enforcement officers are allowed to temporarily detain a child for as long as 12 hours, the state does not keep track of how often it happens. After their cases were resolved in court, two 9-year-olds and one 8-year-old were admitted to Juvenile Crisis and Assessment Centers. These centers offer short-term, unsecure residential care.It is difficult to tell if states that have minimum age laws will see a higher number of juvenile criminal prosecutions than those without such restrictions. Amy Borror is the National Juvenile Defender Center's justice systems analyst. She said that there are commonalities across the country, such as racial disparities in which Black boys are often underrepresented in the juvenile justice process.According to the North Carolina Department of Public Safety, Black children aged 6-9 years old were most commonly accused of wrongdoing. They made up 47% of all complaints, but only 24% of the total population. This age group includes 53% of the population, but 39% of complaints.Dawn Blagrove, Emancipate NC's executive director, stated that children of color under 10 years old who behave badly are more likely to be considered a threat than those who commit similar crimes as white children.North Carolina legislators warn that the bill to increase the age of delinquency could not be passed this year. As intense budget negotiations take precedence, Sen. Danny Britt's plan is still in doubt. It is still up for debate whether parents should be subject to contempt of juvenile court.Britt, a Robeson County Republican and some law enforcement officers believe that parents are invested in the process because of the possibility of prison time and fines. However, only four parents were held in contempt during fiscal years 2016 through 2019. DPS reports that one mother was in jail for two days.Blagrove supported Britt's bill, but said that it doesn't go far enough to eradicate systemic racism.Blagrove stated that Republicans are finding the easiest, most innocuous and least disruptive ways to make changes to a system that is in dire need of major overhaul, Blagrove explained.Britt pointed out that Democrats failed to act on the issue despite having controlled the General Assembly for many years prior to the election of 2010.Activists and lawmakers on both sides of this aisle are now finding common ground. They don't like North Carolina being last in anything.___Follow Anderson on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BryanRAnderson___Anderson is a corps member for Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America, a national service program of nonprofits that places journalists in local newsrooms where they can report on undercovered topics, is called Report for America.
