Florida Supreme Court recognizes children convicted as adults deserve meaningful opportunity for release
The Florida Supreme Court confirmed this week what experts and parents have long known: Children are fundamentally different from adults. Recognizing this fact is critically important in Florida, a state where more than 10,000 children have been prosecuted as adults in the last five years without a judge鈥檚 input.
The Florida Supreme Court confirmed this week what experts and parents have long known: Children are fundamentally different from adults.
The state鈥檚 highest court issued decisions this week recognizing that children 鈥� even those who have committed the most serious offenses 鈥� deserve the chance to show they have changed for the better instead of being locked up for life. With this decision, children currently serving sentences of life without parole now have the opportunity to demonstrate they have been rehabilitated, and deserve to be released.
Recognizing this fact is critically important in Florida.
Far too many children are prosecuted as adults in this state 鈥� over 10,000 in the last five years, all brought into the adult system without a judge鈥檚 input. That鈥檚 because the state largely puts the decision of trying a child as an adult in the hands of prosecutors.
The Florida Supreme Court鈥檚 decisions confirm that now is the time for the Legislature to put an end to prosecutors鈥� unchecked power. The majority of these children are nonviolent offenders, yet so many of them receive adult felony convictions and overly harsh sentences that damage them for life.
Several bills are currently pending in the Florida Legislature to reform this process, known as 鈥渄irect file.鈥� It is time for the state to recognize that an adult jail is .
Tania Galloni is the managing attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center鈥檚 Florida office.
