San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan this week took aim at California’s juvenile criminal laws, saying they “make it easier for gangs to use children as weapons.”
“When a 15- or 16-year-old is being manipulated by an older gang member, we can’t ask them to identify the adult, we can’t stop the recruitment and we can’t stop the cycle,” Mahan wrote. “It’s a loophole that gangs understand better than most lawmakers.”
He called on the state Legislature to act to close this kind of loophole in California’s juvenile justice system…