‘Blended Sentences’ for Youths

A 12-year-old Riverside County girl was sentenced last week to five years in a juvenile facility after pleading guilty to pouring rat poison into her teacher’s Gatorade. According to prosecutors, she intended to murder the woman--who was warned by another student that the drink had been poisoned--and at her sentencing hearing she showed no remorse. On the same day, a Yorba Linda boy, 15, who shot his mother to death after a dispute over cookies was ordered tried as a juvenile rather than an adult; the judge reasoned that he had no criminal record and probably could be rehabilitated.

Did the juvenile judges make the right decisions? Or, given the grave nature of each crime, were they too lenient?

The alarming rise in violent and serious offenses by children understandably frightens the public. Many view the juvenile justice system as a failure and are anxious to fix it. Dozens of bills are now before California state lawmakers. Most would get tougher on juvenile criminals by lengthening the list of felony charges that automatically remove them from juvenile court jurisdiction, forcing them to stand trial as adults. If convicted as an adult, they would serve out an adult sentence, which is generally longer than that imposed on juvenile defendants for comparable crimes. Moreover, once sentenced as an adult, defendants over 16 could be incarcerated in state prison rather than a juvenile facility.

We think a far better approach is embodied in SB 2126, sponsored by Sen. Milton Marks (D-San Francisco) and others. The bill has passed the Senate and is now before the Assembly Public Safety Committee, where it faces an uncertain future.

Marks’ proposal is aimed at juveniles 13 or more years old who have committed violent or serious felonies like murder or rape. Juvenile judges would retain jurisdiction, but they could impose both a juvenile and an adult sentence. A convicted youth would serve time in a juvenile facility and be eligible for rehabilitation and therapeutic services there. The adult sentence would be suspended but could be imposed at any time if the defendant committed any of a list of serious or violent offenses while in the juvenile facility or on parole and for a period beyond that. Activation of the adult sentence could mean time in state prison.

To our mind, the “blended sentence”--already used in Minnesota, Connecticut and other states--maximizes the both carrot of the juvenile court’s promise of rehabilitation and the stick of adult sentences. Compared to automatic transfer of juveniles to adult court and incarceration in state prison, the blended-sentence approach also appears to result in lower rates of recidivism and subsequent acts of violence. And that’s what everyone wants.