As North Carolina Sidelines Juvenile Justice Reforms, Communities Step In
Based on provisions in 46 other states, cases involving young people 18 years old and under were heard in the juvenile system and 16- and 17-year-olds were not charged in the adult courts for misdemeanors or certain felonies. Youths charged with more serious crimes like armed robbery would have their cases heard in a juvenile court first before a possible transfer to the adult system.
The reason for keeping young people out of the adult courts is this: The juvenile justice system allows young offenders to "age out" of extreme behaviors in a controlled and supportive environment. That window closes when teens face assaults, solitary confinement, and other types of physical and emotional abuse that are prevalent in adult facilities. There are physiological reasons as well: The adult brain does not reach full maturity until around age 25—which explains why teenagers gravitate toward sensation-seeking behaviors like theft.
With the legislature committed to penalizing young people, Winston-Salem social services organizations have been moving in a different direction.
William Lassiter, North Carolina's deputy secretary of the Division of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (JJPD) had helped craft the RTA reforms to reduce juvenile recidivism rates and provide a cost-effective alternative catering to the unique developmental needs of teenagers.
"There's an opportunity for these kids to still be successful," Lassiter says.
But in June, North Carolina state lawmakers repealed RTA reforms like the transfer provision. The supporters of the repeal claimed that the move would help reduce juvenile case backlogs. Gov. Roy Cooper (D) vetoed the bill later that month, but the Republican-controlled General Assembly overrode his decision.
With the legislature committed to penalizing young people, Winston-Salem social services organizations have been moving in a different direction to devise much-needed strategies to guide and support young people, especially troubled adolescents, growing up in neighborhoods like East Winston.
For decades, residential segregation had consigned many African Americans to neighborhoods that were left to crumble. After World War II, the construction of a highway, U.S. 52 , essentially walled off East Winston, the historically Black Winston-Salem neighborhood, from the more affluent white areas. By the 1980s, the tobacco factories and other businesses where many African Americans worked began to transfer their operations or close . Those residents who did not own cars had limited access to employment elsewhere in the region. Decades later, the Great Recession doomed more residents who lost their homes in the foreclosure crisis, which accelerated East Winston's decay. Today, run-down houses and buildings line the streets. The neighborhood is a food desert, so a trip to a supermarket means heading to another area of the city.
This backdrop of physical neglect that East Winston's young people have grown up in extends to their academic and social environments. When A4E CEO Kellie Easton returned to Winston-Salem after a period away, she discovered that downtown Winston had been transformed with new stores, apartment buildings, and local fast-food chains. But the community leader found that the historically Black neighborhood where she grew up was "frozen in time."
Both academic and infrastructure resources fail to flow equally to schools serving Black and brown students, leaving them alienated. Easton's fight for education equity, for example, began in 2018, when she advocated for parents concerned that mold issues in one school had caused widespread illness. After protesting years of air quality issues, parents pulled their children out of the school.
Action4Equity (A4E), Forsyth Futures, and the Crossnore Communities for Children's Center for Trauma Resilient Communities (CTRC) have adopted age-appropriate early-intervention and neighborhood-based programs for local youths and their families. Their approaches peel back the layers of dysfunction that some young people often confront as they navigate families, schools, and the wider community.
Last year, the groups received a $4 million, four-year grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration in the Department of Health and Human Services to support youth and families in the city through violence prevention programs and outreach to community members.
Crossnore's Micha James believes the lack of job opportunities, inequitable education, and decades of disinterest from predominantly white state lawmakers—issues that sow the seeds for youth crime—have been overlooked for far too long. CTRC assists social service groups that work with children from birth to age 11 and trains people to shift how they approach young people seeking mental and emotional help. "Are we going to look at them when they're disheveled and say, 'What's wrong with you?' or are we going to shift that mindset and say, "I want to know what happened to you.'" James says.
At A4E, Easton set up youth programs to boost the mental and physical health of East Winston students. Its educational plans, according to the group, fit the unique learning styles of students who are not receiving the "proper, individualized support required for them to be successful." One of those efforts, Full Circle Mentoring (FCM), connects Winston-Salem families with mentors who "guide, support, and encourage" youths across schools, home life, and community settings. FCM also hosts art shows and other creative activities to celebrate youth success and fundraise for the arts programs.
Another statewide group, AMIKids North Carolina Family Services, specializes in short-term therapy for children and families to address home conflicts and reduce risky behavior. Of the 402 children the group worked with from 2021 to 2023, the vast majority—89 percent—avoided further involvement with the courts in the six months following the program. After 12 months, out of 292 youths who could be tracked, 83 percent had avoided further trouble.
The cost per child for AMIKids programs is $11,603 compared to over $135,000 for treatment in one of the five state-run youth development center s, residential facilities that offer treatment, education, and rehabilitation resources to juvenile offenders.
While developing Raise the Age, the JJPD partnered with Pew Charitable Trusts to evaluate the costs of juvenile-centered programs. In the 2022-2023 fiscal year, the cost per child for community-based contract programs was $8,100; for the state-run youth development centers, it was $136,692.
Those findings meshed with North Carolina's own Community Programs Annual Evaluation, an analysis of North Carolina's intensive intervention services conducted by the Department of Public Safety. The report found that after six months, 85 percent of juvenile offenders who participated in alternative community programs did not receive any criminal charges; after a year, 77 percent of juveniles had no additional charges.
Lassiter, the JJPD deputy director, told the that 60 percent of youths facing murder offenses aren't usually convicted on the initial charges. A hefty set of charges can be used as leverage to persuade youths to testify against the most culpable party, usually an adult who convinces a child to engage in risky behavior—in exchange for a lesser, more accurate charge.
"We should be going after the adult with the most serious punishment possible and not the child," Lassiter says. "They're still a child at 16 or 17 years old and have a lot of life in front of them. They're not people we need to throw away."
There is little evidence to support the North Carolina legislature's beliefs that public safety would be strengthened by rolling back RTA's protections. These moves deny young offenders access to support systems, counselors, and specialized rehabilitation and social reintegration programs that are only available in the juvenile justice system and through local social service organizations.
