Mississippi has expanded the list of crimes for which children as young as 13 must be prosecuted as adults and sent to adult prisons.
Prior to Senate Bill 2710 taking effect on July 1, children could only be tried as adults if they were accused of using a deadly weapon in the commission of a felony, or a crime punishable by life in prison or the death penalty.
But under the new law signed by Republican Gov. Tate Reeves, 13-year-olds must automatically be tried in adult court for most violent crimes committed while possessing a firearm, even if they don’t use the gun.
“The days of allowing young people — underage folks — to get away with very violent crimes using deadly weapons in Mississippi has ended,” bill author Sen. Joey Fillingane told the Mississippi Today news outlet. He described the legislation as necessary to curb youth violence. “We are no longer going to tolerate anybody, whether you’re over 21 or under 21.”
According to a spokesperson for the Mississippi Department of Human Services, “any convicted persons would be committed to the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections, which is responsible for the state’s adult correctional facilities.”
Youth justice advocates have long argued that prosecuting children as adults doesn’t make communities safer, and causes irreparable harm to developing minds and personalities. Liz Ryan, former head of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention under the Biden administration, said the new law in Mississippi is contrary to best practices.
“Children do not belong in adult courts, jails, or prisons. Period,” Ryan said in an email. “Youth held in adult facilities face dramatically higher risks of sexual assault and suicide than those in youth facilities, outcomes no child should ever face.”
Annual reports by the Mississippi Department of Human Services show a significant uptick in minors charged with gun-related offenses, from 479 in 2019 to 780 last year.
The new law states that children under 13 cannot be held responsible in adult court for misdemeanors or felonies, but their parents or guardians may be held liable in civil court.
Over the last decade, youth justice advocates around the country have pushed to raise the minimum age for minors to be tried as adults, arguing that children who commit crimes need rehabilitative services and treatment in juvenile facilities, which are not required in the more punitive adult criminal justice system. This movement followed a series of Supreme Court rulings sparing teen offenders from the death penalty and mandatory life without parole sentences. Decades of research shows that adolescent brains don’t fully mature until the mid-20s, leaving teens with poorer impulse control and the inability to foresee consequences.
Still, in the second Trump administration, Washington, D.C. and states such as North Carolina and Missouri have backtracked on such reforms — or attempted to.
Others, like New Jersey and New York, continue to support keeping minors in the juvenile court system.
“We know what works: treating kids as kids,” Ryan told The Imprint. “And we owe our young people nothing less.”
