Despite passing a law in 2018 aimed at reducing the number of youth charged as adults, recent data revealed that Black and Native youth disproportionately make up the number of kids still being charged as adults.
According to AP, data from the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families found that 83% of kids charged as adults in 2023 were not white. “All that’s left are youth of color,” state Rep. Roger Goodman (D-Kirkland), chair of the House Community Safety Committee, told AP. As nonprofits and researchers from the University of Washington pored through the data, they came to a simple yet deeply problematic conclusion: Black, Native American, and Latino youths are overwhelmingly subjected to adult courts, face harsher sentences, and are left with records that follow them into adulthood.
This issue has greatly affected Native American youth in the state of Washington, as hundreds are serving time in adult prisons for crimes they committed before they turned 18. For some, this is because they were simply children charged as adults, and for others, this is due to their sentences automatically being extended due to crimes they committed when they were children…