The committee also will try to determine why the state Department of Corrections allows juveniles to share prison cells with adult inmates. Guards called it consensual. Under all circumstances, there should be no possibility of physical contact between a juvenile and any adult prisoner. That makes me angry.
Punishment is one thing.
VanRegenmorter worked with the office of Gov. John Engler to write the legislation, allowing adult court judges to send kids as young as 14, and juvenile court judges to send kids of any age, to state prisons for serious crimes. Before, the minimum age was 15. VanRegenmorter said the youth prison was meant to help separate the expected flood of juveniles from older inmates. The maximum age for inmates at the youth prison is 19. But The Press found that one-third of the 54 juveniles in prison as of late last year were at other adult prisons.