In the wake of the December shootings in Portland, Ore., and Newtown, Conn., Washington lawmakers are grappling with gun-law efficiency.
One proposed piece of current legislation would send more youths to juvenile rehabilitation. The bill handles cases depending on age, type of conviction and past offenses, but many juveniles convicted of unlawful possession of a firearm for the second time would face a sentence of around 15 weeks in a juvenile rehabilitation program. Additional offenses would result in increased time in lockup, under the proposed legislation.
Currently, it takes five firearm convictions before a juvenile is sentenced to 15 weeks in juvenile rehabilitation, according to King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg, who is spearheading the legislation in collaboration with Sen. Adam Kline (D-37th District, Seattle).
The legislation would cost around $2 million per year, but estimates vary.
The ACLU of Washington opposes the legislation.
“What this does is put more people behind bars,” said ACLU spokesperson Doug Honig. “It also takes away discretion from the judge to look at each individual situation.”
Counterproductive measure?
Honig said that putting more teens in detention is counterproductive. When incarcerated, teens inevitably socialize with other youths who have committed more serious crimes. As a result, the nature of the stay is not therapeutic. Instead, “mild” teens learn from the more “severe” teens how to be a better criminal next time around.
“That’s not positive,” Honig said.
In general, once people are incarcerated, the chance that they will commit more offenses once released is high. As a result, the teens effected by this legislation may have a higher likelihood of getting stuck in the criminal-justice system’s revolving door for the long haul.
Honig said that gearing that money instead toward intervention efforts is wiser.
“It would be better to devote more resources to what works: creating programs about intervention for at-risk kids before they get involved in guns and serious crimes.”
Kline said the legislation would include an educational curriculum for the rehabilitation, so teens would learn about the medical and legal consequences of owning a gun.
However, no curriculum exists at this time.
Not ‘punishment’
Kline said this bill is not intended to “punish” the teen. Rather, it is to take the teen out of his or her deleterious environment and provide self-empowerment for the future.
“Generally, I agree with the ACLU, and I would like us to have another way to do this, but currently we don’t have one,” he said. “What we have now is allowing a juvenile to stay in his community with negligent adults. Rather than punish the juvenile by putting them in juvie, we need to put them in rehabilitation.”
Many juvenile offenders would go to the Echo Glen juvenile detention facility in Snoqualmie. The bill would send around 90 juveniles to rehabilitation per year, Satterberg said.
“It’s not that we’re locking people up and throwing away the key. If this is the second or third time of this felony, with this legislation, we can get to the root of the problem,” he said. “This will also warn them about the consequences of having a gun.”
Satterberg’s effort is supported by both gun-control activists and gun-rights activists.
Sponsors of the bill include Rep. Christopher Hurst (D-Enumclaw).
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