United States: New York raises age of criminal responsibility in 'lightning rod' reform

When Anjelique Wadlington was arrested at 17 after her older boyfriend persuaded her to sell some cocaine, she expected repercussions.

What she didn’t expect was being sent to an adult prison in upstate New York where she witnessed fellow inmates being slashed and gang-raped by other women.

“A girl tried to cut me and another woman would stalk me in the shower. As long as it wasn’t a big fight breaking out, the guards didn’t care,” she said, before a fellow inmate serving time for murder decided to protect her.

Wadlington came home to Long Island at 19 and tried to get her life together, but soon faced the disappointment of being turned down for job after job because of her felony record, even though she interviewed well.

If she had been punished as the juvenile she was, she would have had a sealed youth offender record afterwards, not an adult criminal record.

New York is one of only two states in the US that automatically charges 16- and 17-year-olds as adults. The other is North Carolina. But that is about to change.

North Carolina governor Roy Cooper last month threw his weight behind efforts to change the law in that state.

And on Sunday New York approved legislation in the state budget to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 18.

Governor Andrew Cuomo said the reform “was a lightning rod, politically polarizing and probably the most difficult part of the budget”.

Opponents in Albany, led by Republicans but with some renegade Democrats, had argued that changing the process would waste money, overload the juvenile system and threaten the public.

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