Boys sentenced as adults have a special facility, Wackenhut Corrections Corp.'s Michigan Youth Correctional Facility in Baldwin, to keep them separate from older inmates, and the protection of a law that mandates age separation for males. The maximum age for boys sentenced to the Michigan Youth Correctional Facility is 19. There's no question about it, these girls are very much at risk. Prison officials say there are so few girls sentenced as adults that building a facility just for them would be too costly. Plus, they say, the girls in their custody are watched closely and offered supplemental education.
Critics say that the situation is still unfair and unsafe for girls.
His hands were tied by the law, he said. If you made a prison for the boys, you've got to make one for the girls. It's not a good situation for the victims, the defendant or for the people of the state of Michigan. Nathaniel Abraham was 11 when he killed Ronnie Greene Jr., and Oakland County Circuit Judge Eugene Moore used his discretion to sentence him as a juvenile when he was convicted of second-degree murder. But boys 14 and older who are sentenced as adults do not serve time with grown men.