RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — In less than two months, at least five juveniles escaped from North Carolina juvenile detention facilities. Those escapes are symptoms of what Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman calls a broken juvenile justice system.
“We all want our young people to be able to get on a path that allows them to have successful, productive lives, but I think we also have to be realistic about the fact that we have seen a significant increase in violence from some juveniles,” Freeman said.
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She traces many of the problems back to 2019, when Raise the Age went into effect in North Carolina, a law where 16 and 17-year-olds accused of crimes are no longer automatically put into the adult criminal justice system. Since then, there’s been a ripple effect of consequences.
“We have about twice the number of kids in juvenile detention centers that we had just four years ago,” William Lassiter, the Deputy Secretary for the Department of Public Safety’s Juvenile Justice division, said.