Louisiana leaders want more leeway to charge kids as adults. A measure on the March 29 ballot would enable lawmakers to move more teenagers into the adult criminal system.
Louisiana leaders want more leeway to charge kids as adults. A measure on the March 29 ballot would enable lawmakers to move more teenagers into the adult criminal system.
Louisiana leaders want more leeway to charge kids as adults. A measure on the March 29 ballot would enable lawmakers to move more teenagers into the adult criminal system.
On March 29, Louisianans will vote on Amendment 3, a constitutional amendment that would hand legislators the power to add, with a two-thirds majority vote, any felony to the list of charges that would qualify a child to be treated like an adult in the eyes of the law. In Louisiana, this includes crimes like making a fake ID or stealing a phone. The state constitution currently restricts the crimes for which minors aged 14 and up can be charged as adults to a list of 16 serious felonies including murder, rape, and armed robbery.
The amendment’s sponsor, Republican state senator Heather Cloud, says the limits on charging children as adults have “hamstringed” Louisiana from being able to address juvenile crime. Some of the bill’s supporters have expressed a deeply pessimistic view of Louisiana’s youth population; in a House committee hearing last fall, Republican lawmaker Tony Bacala told his colleagues, “Some of these kids are already lost when they’re two years old.”
As in "The kids are yearning for the prison cells"? Hmm, who might profit from even more prisoners in a corrupt justice system?
more prisoners == more slave labor
someone's gotta pick the crops...
Unironically this. Juvie has more restrictions and is essentially a bit nicer/safer. It's less expensive to run non juvie places and putting them in with adults must (I don't actually have stats) increase recidivism. So if they get out they are more likely to get back in. Juvie records can also be automatically sealed in some places, but not if transferred to non juvie. So more likely that they follow this person forever.
The younger they start, the longer they can work.
... Republican lawmaker Tony Bacala told his colleagues, “Some of these kids are already lost when they’re two years old.”
How ghoulish and completely divorced from reality must one be to look at a two year old as a criminal?
That dude is a sick fuck.
You can just say they want more slaves. It is blatantly obvious what is going on. I just saw they are trying to take away mandatory food breaks for working kids in Florida too. You guys are all so fucked and just sitting around and taking it like good peons. Twas a nice country, once upon a time.
Every state has similar restrictions. Louisiana is trying hard to be Florida and Texas combined.
It's probably worth noting they didn't get these batshit ideas to the fore until their Democratic governor term-limited out. Thier new MAGA stooge is rubber stamping every fascist thing he can.