All right, Sen. Erpenbach. I?ll bite. Maybe 17-year-olds
should be prosecuted as juveniles. What?s that? You want to fund it with a tax
on video games? You can?t be serious!

Oh, you?re not. Well, we can find the money elsewhere. It shouldn?t be too
hard.

Until you realize that every single 17-year-old offender who has committed a
nonviolent crime is going to be put in juvenile hall.

But, of course, it?s supported with decent evidence. According to a study
released by the Legislative Audit Bureau last week, shifting nonviolent
17-year-old offenders from the adult criminal justice system to a juvenile
system would likely reduce recidivism rates through treatment and probation.

Well, that sounds just fine and dandy until you realize that the proposal
doesn?t just allow 17-year-olds to be tried as juveniles. It makes it
mandatory. Grand theft auto, assault and battery, drug possession ? you?re all
children, according to the law.

To be fair, the current system of sentencing for those on the cusp of adulthood
is certainly flawed. Nonviolent offenders are automatically prosecuted in
criminal court unless they are granted what is known as a ?reverse waiver,?
which must prove that the offender be placed under the jurisdiction of the
juvenile system. This option may be provided to the defendant, but it is
curious why the criteria isn?t discretionary in the first place. Are we to
assume all 17-year-olds who commit a crime deserve prison rather than juvenile
detention and treatment? Of course not.

But treating them all like children isn?t much better.

First off, you?re taking all nonviolent crimes and assuming all offenders can
be punished and treated. It may be in the state?s interest to step in when
drugs and lesser crimes are involved ? especially ones that reveal the social
and developmental immaturity of the 17-year-old involved ? but at some point
teenagers need to be brought into the adult sphere and treated as such.
Sometimes they can be rehabilitated, but if you keep punishing teenagers in a
way that protects them from the punishment they would?ve experienced with the
same crime one year later, are you pushing them into adulthood or keeping them
children?

And frankly, one has to wonder how well the state will work to rehabilitate
30,000 teenagers. It may have been shown that treatment in juvenile centers can
lead to lower rates of repeat offenders, but will they be able to handle an
influx of 30,000 more?

Not if done blindly. Right now, the proposal would result in extra costs
anywhere from $53 to $82 million a year. Of course, there are alternatives.

Most other states that tweaked the juvenile offender category did so in a
gradual way. Legislators in Connecticut and Illinois moved the age for
automatic adult prosecution to 18, moving in line with the time when a teenage
votes, smokes and can be drafted into the military. The LAB report highlights
these alternatives while suggesting that the effects of moving all 17-year-old
offenders into juvie could potentially create an overload for prosecutors and
cost much more. In the end, moderation in this adult to juvenile switch is
stressed.

But you wouldn?t have thought so from the actions of our legislators. Instead
of weighing the cost-benefit of this proposal and entertaining other options, Sen.
Jon Erpenbach, D-Waunakee, decided to go digging through the treasure chest of
public policy pariahs. When video games landed on his radar, he thought ?Tax!?
and flung it toward the Senate. His only defense was that they needed the
money, so this was an option. Despite his massive shrug that he wasn?t ?married
to the idea,? as his spokesperson told a Badger Herald news reporter, Mr.
Erpenbach made it clear ? his focus was on a radical switch in the system,
whatever the cost.

And with this, we see an excellent example of lazy public policy. Instead of
easing into a test run of a new system, Mr. Erpenbach shoved a half-baked tax
on an unrelated medium without even trying to justify it.

What legislators need to realize is that the criminal justice system for teens
needs a little less juridical polarization. We?re currently giving up on every
17-year-old offender as an impulse. But then again, we?re doing the same thing
to violent offenders who can be as young as 10. If we can admit that
17-year-olds may benefit from treatment, why do we then decide that every teen
and pre-teen is a lost cause when they commit a violent crime? If they?re more
undeveloped and lacking the tools to deal with the world alone, why should they
be treated as adults? To get tough on crime?

If legislators really want to keep kids from committing crimes and falling off
the straight and narrow, they should put a little more effort into reforming
the institutions that guide them. Discretionary ruling is a step forward, but
instead of trying to scratch for funds being spent on a gamble, perhaps we
should be focusing on things like ? oh, I don?t know ? school, after-school
programs and things that generally improve human welfare.

Of course, that?d take too much thinking, wouldn?t it?

Jason Smathers ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in history and
journalism.