IV 
116TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1193 
Expressing support for the designation of October 2020 as ‘‘National Youth 
Justice Action Month’’. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
OCTOBER 16, 2020 
Mr. CA´RDENAS (for himself and Mr. TRONE) submitted the following 
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Education and Labor 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing support for the designation of October 2020 as 
‘‘National Youth Justice Action Month’’. 
Whereas the historical role of the juvenile court system is to 
rehabilitate and treat young offenders while holding them 
accountable and maintaining public safety, and the juve-
nile court system is therefore better equipped to work 
with youth than the adult criminal justice system, which 
is punitive in nature; 
Whereas youth are developmentally different from adults, and 
those differences have been— 
(1) documented by research on the adolescent brain; 
and 
(2) acknowledged by the Supreme Court of the 
United States, State supreme courts, and many State 
and Federal laws that prohibit youth under the age of 18 
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•HRES 1193 IH 
from taking on major adult responsibilities such as vot-
ing, jury duty, and military service; 
Whereas youth who are placed under the commitment of the 
juvenile court system are able to access age-appropriate 
services and education and remain closer to their fami-
lies, which reduces the likelihood that those youth will 
commit offenses in the future; 
Whereas, every year in the United States, an estimated 
76,000 youth are tried, sentenced, or incarcerated as 
adults, and most of those youth are prosecuted for non-
violent offenses; 
Whereas most laws allowing the prosecution of youth as 
adults were enacted before the publication of research- 
based evidence by the Centers for Disease Control and 
Prevention and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delin-
quency Prevention of the Department of Justice, dem-
onstrating that prosecuting youth in adult court actually 
decreases public safety as, on average, youth prosecuted 
in adult court are 34 percent more likely to commit fu-
ture crimes than youth retained in the juvenile justice 
court system; 
Whereas youth of color, youth with disabilities, and youth 
with mental health issues are disproportionally rep-
resented at all stages of the criminal justice system; 
Whereas it is harmful to public safety and to young offenders 
to confine youth in adult jails or prisons where they are 
significantly more likely to be physically and sexually as-
saulted and are often placed in solitary confinement; 
Whereas youth sentenced as adults receive an adult criminal 
record that hinders future education and employment op-
portunities; 
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•HRES 1193 IH 
Whereas youth who receive extremely long sentences deserve 
an opportunity to demonstrate their potential to grow 
and change; and; 
Whereas, over the past 15 years, 80 percent of the States 
and Washington, DC, have changed their laws, making it 
more difficult to treat children as if they were adults in 
the adult criminal justice system; and; 
Whereas two Federal laws, the Juvenile Justice and Delin-
quency Prevention Act and the Prison Rape Elimination 
Act, incentivize States to remove youth from adult jails 
and prisons, leading to a 66-percent decrease in children 
being placed in adult facilities; 
Whereas 80 percent of children sentenced to adult time are 
children of color, despite children engaging in delinquent 
behavior at roughly the same rates; and 
Whereas, in October, people around the United States par-
ticipate in Youth Justice Action Month to increase public 
awareness of the issues facing youth transferred to the 
adult criminal justice system and to provide people across 
the United States with an opportunity to develop action 
oriented events in their communities: Now, therefore, be 
it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) acknowledges that the collateral con-
sequences normally applied in the adult criminal jus-
tice system should not automatically apply to youth 
arrested for crimes before the age of 18; 
(2) expresses support for the designation of 
‘‘National Youth Justice Action Month’’; and 
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(3) recognizes and supports the goals and ideals 
of National Youth Justice Action Month. 
Æ 
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