Counterpoint: Moriarty-style youth justice keeps us safer

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Since her election, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty has taken a different approach to youth justice than her predecessor. It is an approach that prioritizes rehabilitation over punishment, that is evidence-based and trauma-informed, and that aspires to treat children like children.

It is also an approach that has been repeatedly condemned in the pages of this newspaper. By my count, the Star Tribune has published more than 50 articles, letters, opinion pieces and editorials over the last year critiquing Moriarty's decisions in individual cases and openly questioning her commitment to public safety.

One of the most recent is "Our family's been denied justice. Yours could be next" (Opinion Exchange, Dec. 26), which ends with this stark warning: "Everyone in our community should be afraid."

Yet, amid all of this reporting and commentary, this newspaper has never interrogated the very question that it has repeatedly evoked: Will Mary Moriarty's approach to youth justice keep us safer?

According to most of the world's leading criminologists, the answer is yes. This is why her approach has been adopted by much of the Western world. Austria, Belgium, Germany, Norway, Finland, Denmark, Sweden, Switzerland, France and the Netherlands, for example, all ground their approaches to youth justice in two key principles: that young people are still developing, and that youth interventions must be rooted in rehabilitation rather than punishment.

At the heart of their models is the fundamental tenet that kids should always be treated like kids. This concept shouldn't be foreign to any of us. From voting, to marriage, to drinking alcohol, to renting cars, we treat young people differently every day for one simple reason: We presume that they are not yet capable of making adult decisions.

Outside the U.S., this presumption often extends to crime and punishment. In Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain and Switzerland, children cannot be prosecuted as adults until the age of 18. Even then, it is rare. Juvenile court jurisdiction in Croatia, Germany, the Netherlands and several other Western countries extends to age 21, and most young adults receive juvenile sanctions, even for the most serious crimes.

In Germany, 80% to 90% of the young adults convicted of murder, rape and robbery are sentenced under juvenile law. Youth incarceration is also treated as a last resort in many Western countries, and when it is imposed, it is parsimonious and humane. Rarely do terms of confinement exceed five years, and facilities strive to mimic the outside world as much as possible.

Why do so many other Western countries take this approach to youth justice? Because it enhances public safety. Advances in neuroscience have confirmed that the brains of adolescents and young adults are both structurally and functionally different from the brains of fully mature adults. The regions of the brain responsible for higher order cognition, strategic thinking, information processing, impulse control, risk assessment and emotional regulation are continuing to develop until about age 25. At the same time, neurotransmitters that encourage sensation-seeking and risk-taking are unusually active. As their brains mature, the vast majority of youths age out of lawbreaking — even youths who have committed violent offenses. This is because the primary underlying cause of delinquency is psychosocial immaturity, which is inherently transient.

Incarceration not only impedes the development of psychosocial maturity, it also increases the likelihood of recidivism. Multiple studies have shown that youths who are incarcerated develop psychosocial maturity at much slower rates than youths who remain in the community. Others have found that youths sent to confinement experience higher rates of re-arrest, new convictions and reincarceration than do youths placed on probation.

Notably, a study by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention also found that youths prosecuted as adults are more likely commit violent crimes in the future than those retained in the juvenile court. The longer the incarceration, the worse the outcome, these studies show. This research is so compelling that a 2016 article in the Juvenile & Family Court Journal offered this blunt assessment: "Higher rates of incarceration may actually create more crime."

Many Western countries have designed their youth justice systems with all of this in mind. And by all indications, their systems are far more effective than ours. In Germany, recidivism rates for youths and young adults are about 30%. In Norway, they are about 20%, and in the Netherlands, somewhere in between. By comparison, recidivism rates for youths incarcerated in the U.S. are as high as 70% to 80%. We also incarcerate youths at 10 times the rate of both Europe and Asia, yet our rates of violent youth crime offenses are considerably higher.

Why, then, if the Moriarty's approach to youth justice is backed by data, science and so many other Western countries, has there been so much pushback when she has declined to prosecute a child as an adult? Because it is also true that youths can commit horrible crimes. Crimes that can take the lives of innocent people and leave devastated families and communities in their wake. These crimes are rare, but when they happen, they shake us to our core.

For decades, this country has responded in one primary way: by locking up the children who committed them for a long time. We have been conditioned to believe that this will keep us safer. But the evidence says otherwise.

The job of the Hennepin County attorney is not to maintain policies and practices that haven't worked. It is to weigh evidence, heed science, listen to experts and, ultimately, to adopt an approach that will make our community safer. When it comes to youth justice, this is exactly what Mary Moriarty is doing.

Perry Moriearty is an associate professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who codirects the Child Advocacy and Juvenile Justice Clinic.