The Juvenile Justice Information Exchange (JJIE) featured an article written by Paul Elam, PPA President and Mary King, Executive Director of the Michigan Council on Crime and Delinquency. The juvenile justice experts detailed why Michigan needs to raise the age of adult adjudication to 18. Michigan remains one of only five states that automatically consider 17-year-olds adults for any offense. The adult prison system does not effectively rehabilitate youth, and there is substantial cost of not passing juvenile justice reform.
Dr. Elam specializes in juvenile justice and sits on the board of the Michigan Council on Crime and Delinquency. Ms. King began working with people in prison in the early 1980s. She also worked for eight years as the Community Coordinator for the Michigan Prisoner ReEntry Initiative in Washtenaw and Livingston Counties.
To find out more about PPA’s work in juvenile justice, contact Dr. Elam at 517-485-4477 or pelam@publicpolicy.com. JJIE is an initiative of the Center for Sustainable Journalism created to deliver information and share ideas related to juvenile justice.