268
When Florida judges sentence children tried as adults, they give them higher sentences on average for felony crimes than adult offenders (www.miamiherald.com)
submitted 3 months ago by gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20240815120609/https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/crime/article290425414.html

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] AA5B@lemmy.world 1 points 3 months ago

The article is missing critical info about frequency and severity.

While the premise (and headline) seems outrageous,

  1. Juveniles tried as adults should be rare
  2. Should only apply to the worst cases

If my expectations are met, is it really so bad that a small number of the worst offenders got excessive sentences? Is it really fair to compare sentences of a small number of the worst offenders to sentences of the general population?

However I didn’t read anywhere in the article whether these were truly a small number or that they were the worst offenders.

[-] gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

I think this section answers a lot of your questions

Only one in 10 of the more than 20,000 children tried as adults in Florida were given juvenile sanctions and less than 5% received a “youthful offender” designation, the Herald found in an analysis of the last 15 years of state court system sentencing data from 2008 to 2022.

Children tried as adults were sentenced to a little more than three years in prison on average for third-degree felonies — around 50% longer than the average sentence given to adults for the same class of offense. The vast majority of all felony charges are third-degree offenses, which are the lowest class of felony crimes and include burglary, some types of assault, drug possession and certain DUI offenses.

Children and adults had similar average sentences for more serious offenses that fall under first and second-degree felonies. Overall, a child tried as an adult was sentenced to a little more than five years for a felony charge while an adult received around three-and-a-half years. These trends held even after the Herald adjusted for the most extreme sentences that could skew the figures.

is it really so bad that a small number of the worst offenders

They're not necessarily "the worst," prosecutors can try any juvenile as an adult that they want to in Florida

Is it really fair to compare sentences of a small number of the worst offenders to sentences of the general population?

They're comparing juveniles and adults charged with the same class of crimes, and actually the disparity is more pronounced with the lowest level third degree felonies than with the first and second degree ones.

[-] Feathercrown@lemmy.world -3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Shut up nerd I want to be mad about the prison system again /s

(It is actually a big problem but you're right to question the premise in this case)

this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
268 points (98.6% liked)

News

23409 readers
3124 users here now

Welcome to the News community!

Rules:

1. Be civil

Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.

2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.

Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.

3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.

Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.

4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.

Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.

5. Only recent news is allowed.

Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.

6. All posts must be news articles.

No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.

7. No duplicate posts.

If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.

8. Misinformation is prohibited.

Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.

9. No link shorteners.

The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.

10. Don't copy entire article in your post body

For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
rjc@lemmy.world
Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world
Tenthrow@lemmy.world
JonsJava@lemmy.world
gedaliyah@lemmy.world
little_cow@lemmy.world
jeffw@lemmy.world
enu@lemmy.world