Treating our Children as Adults is Not Justice – We Must Raise the Age in Missouri

The Missouri legislature is seeking to pass some significant changes to our criminal justice system this session. In the months ahead, you are likely to hear some chatter about a renewed interest in “Raise the Age” legislation, so we wanted to provide you with a quick primer on the issue. 

What are “Raise the Age” laws?

Each state has its own laws about the age at which an individual can begin being charged for criminal offenses as an adult rather than as a juvenile. The general standard for being considered an adult in the United States is 18 years old.  When you turn eighteen, you can begin voting in federal, state, and local elections. You are able to legally enter into contracts and other written agreements. You can be conscripted into military service, if we were ever to reenact the draft. You can begin to make your own medical decisions. Before you are 18, an adult– a parent, other relative, or court-appointed guardian– has legal custody and decision-making authority over you. 

Given all of that, logic would dictate that children under the age of 18 who break the law should be handled by the juvenile justice system– a court and detention program designed specifically for minors with a strong focus on rehabilitation. These programs are designed to provide wrap-around support for children and families who are often undergoing very difficult circumstances; these interventions seek to ensure that minors don’t end up trapped in a lifetime of encounters with the criminal legal system. However, many states allow minors to be tried and incarcerated as adults. “Raise the Age” laws seek to address that fundamental miscarriage of justice.

What is the status of “Raise the Age” in Missouri? 

In 2018, the Missouri legislature passed our first piece of “Raise the Age” legislation. This bill changed the standard age for which teenagers can be tried as an adult, raising it from 17 to 18 years old. Unfortunately, due to a technical error with the bill, it was not fully enacted until the legislature approved the additional funding for juvenile court and detention services in 2021. Before this bill was enacted, all 17-year-olds in Missouri were treated as adults by the criminal legal system.

However, Missouri law allows for children as young as 12 years old who are suspected of having committed a crime that is categorized as a felony offense to be tried as an adult at the discretion of the court. Empower Missouri is committed to passing a new piece of Raise the Age legislation that will ensure that 12, 13 and 14-year-olds can never be tried as adults. 

Why should you care? 

As a society, we have determined that children younger than 18 do not have the cognitive capacity to make their own decisions. This is why those under 18 are required to be under the legal supervision of an adult unless they have been specifically adjudicated to function as an adult by becoming an emancipated minor. There is a mountain of scientific evidence that says that human brains are not fully developed until the age of 25. Adolescents are more easily influenced by external factors than their adult counterparts, and their brains are still building the capacity for judgment, impulse control and long-term planning. 

If a child commits a felony, we should assume that at least one of the following three things is true:

  1. The child has been subjected to extraordinary circumstances that have resulted in a terrible tragedy.
  2. The child has been the victim of abuse or neglect.
  3. The child has been or should be diagnosed with a serious mental illness. 

In any of these situations, it is cruel and unusual to punish the child the same way that they would punish an adult. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, there are 4,500 children incarcerated in adult facilities across the country on any given day. This puts children at enormous risk for physical or sexual assault, worsening mental health conditions, extreme trauma, and, at the very least, exposure to adults who could be a very negative influence on them. Some states “protect” children by requiring “sight and sound” separation from the adult populations, but in many facilities, that means solitary confinement. Solitary confinement is psychologically brutal for adults; it is mentally unbearable for children. 

We must cherish and protect all of our children in Missouri.  This includes protecting children who are victims of terrible circumstances. This session, Empower Missouri strongly supports the passage of SB 406, which would raise the minimum age at which children can be charged as adults from 12 to 15.  Sign up for our weekly newsletter and follow us on social media to get notified when a hearing is scheduled for this bill.

If you’re interested in learning more on this topic, our February Friday Forum will explore more about these policies and how we can work to change them. Register now to join us on Friday, February 10th.

13 Responses
  1. Maycee hogan

    I was locked up at the age of 17 in 2017 in the state of Missouri and sent to werdcc until I was the age of 20 in 2020. I was placed in a separate unit in the prison until my 18 birthday and placed on the yard. Before that I was in jail with the general population, not separated. It was my first time in jail and my first time in prison. I received 7 years and did 3. I’ve completed 3 years on parole with zero violations. This will ALL finally be over for me in 2024.

    1. Rebecca guard

      wow I am so glad your journey is almost over . hopefully you go on to advocate your story it reached me 🙂

  2. Candy Dysart

    How is being 17 years old so different than being 18 or 19? Its a matter of a few months in some cases that people are still incarcerated with no hope left in the system to gain relief. The system is still flawed in Missouri when there is overwhelming evidence that the sentence was way to exuberant for the crime in some cases, just to get the conviction. The disparities going on in the 80’s warrant a 2nd look at the people that have been in prison as long as 35 years with no chance of parole because they missed the cut off date for Juveniles by a few months. Certainly their minds were still considered not fully developed at age 18-20. The integrity of the sentencing in the 80’s needs overhauling to bring it to a standard of fairness in correction. The State Of Missouri has a responsibility to correct past wrongs that people are still suffering for.

    1. Rah

      I agree with you now to this day it’s still tha same and it’s crazy Missouri needs help on laws and they are not trying to budge or change, when the proof is out there. There’s alot of people with LWOP some needs a second chance at life that were under 21x Other states has changed the laws called (raise the age)due the proof of the brain

  3. Steve

    The age to be tried as an adult should be 18yo and nothing else! There is a reason why kids/juveniles are called kids and juveniles and an adult an adult so why trying a kid/juvenile in an adult court no matter the crime they committed. We all know their brains aren’t fuilly developed at that age (I also feel the same about those who created those laws in MO) neither are their emotional state.

    PS : Maycee, I’m wishing you good luck.

  4. Jerry

    I hear your opinion and I feel where you’re coming from but at the same time what if the crime was murder? you can’t say that a child doesn’t know that is beyond wrong. I feel that even if the child is only say about 8 to 12 years old by that age they definitely know robbing stealing and killing are wrong because most of us are taught at a young age in church that not only those offenses but all the other commandments are to be taken serious even in adolescents and God said that and he is the ultimate authority

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