BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Louisiana’s Republican-controlled Legislature approved a constitutional amendment on Friday that would allow them to expand the number of crimes in which juveniles between 14 and 16 years old could be tried as adults.
The state’s constitution currently outlines 15 violent juvenile offenses, such as rape, murder and armed robbery, which prosecutors can handle in adult courts. Any changes to that list of crimes must be approved by voters.
But the constitutional amendment sponsored by Republican Sen. Heather Cloud — which require voter approval in March 29 elections to take effect — would allow legislators the power by a two-thirds vote to decide what juvenile crimes can be transferred to adult courts.
It’s part of a wider push in Louisiana, which already has the second-highest incarceration rate in the country behind Mississippi, to implement tough-on-crime policies under Republican Gov. Jeff Landry. Since taking office in January, Landry has passed laws to treat 17-year-olds as adults in the criminal justice system, largely eliminate parole and allow surgical castration as punishment for certain sex crimes against children.