LANSING, MI (WKZO AM/FM) — A State House committee has sent to the full House a package of bills that would raise the age a teenager can be tried as an adult from 17 to 18.
Sponsor Peter Lucido says Michigan is one of only 4 states that charge 17-year-olds as adults, subjecting them to adult sentences and holding them in adult facilities.
He says it’s like putting guppies in a shark tank.
He says they aren’t considered to be adults when it comes to entering the military, serving on juries, voting and a number of other acts of citizenship, why should when they are judged to be adult criminals be different.
Lucido says in the long term it will reduce the costs to taxpayers by keeping more people out of prison.
But the state’s Fiscal Agency says it will significantly increase the cost of juvenile justice because of the larger number of offenders in the system and because juvenile treatment and rehab programs tend to be more expensive than just tossing someone in a cell.
The package of bills still has to clear the full house and then go through the State Senate process, and do it in the next three weeks or it will die at the end of the session.
The usual slow flow of legislation through Lansing has gone into overdrive as a there is a year-end drive to complete unfinished business before the end of the session in a month.
On Wednesday a number of bills flew out of committee.
They include allowing local governments to greatly restrict the use of fireworks, stripping local municipalities of the right to regulate tree cutting on private land, issuing licenses for certain professions that are already licensed by the state, or banning the ownership of pit-bulls and rottweilers.
Bills that would protect the privacy of donors who give to political non-profits that then make “dark money” donations to political causes and candidates cleared committee.
Another bill would require that any agency, business or group that has a data breach, notify its customers within 45 days.
And there are many others working their way in expedited fashion through the house and senate that were considered too controversial to tackle before the election.
They call it “lame duck,” but this bird is flying.
That’s a cause for concern among those who feel transparency and public input should also play a role in legislating.
