Barton fellow changing hearts, minds, and laws for young offenders
"When you're 17, you are still in high school. You are a child in every other way, but if you're accused of a crime in Georgia, you are considered an adult." - Kaitlyn Barnes 17L
She loved changing hearts and minds, but the work was slow. “I knew I had an analytical mind,” she says. “I began to think about changing the law.”
Barnes chose Emory for its location in the Southeast and its Barton Child Law and Policy Center, which opened in 2000 to bring about systemic changes for children involved in Georgia’s child welfare and juvenile justice systems. Six years later, the center began providing direct representation.
Today, the Barton Center has instructional and policy initiatives led by Executive Director Melissa Carter, clinical professor of law. The center also houses the Appeal for Youth Clinic, which provides legal services to youth in foster care who are being tracked into the school-to-prison pipeline. Also under the Barton umbrella is the Juvenile Defender Clinic, which provides holistic representation to young people charged with delinquent and status offenses.
Barnes got involved with Barton as a 2L and 3L and was hired upon graduation as a policy fellow. She works closely with Carter on the center’s signature juvenile justice reform agenda, which includes raising the age of juvenile jurisdiction from 17 to 18.
Georgia is one of a few states that tries 17-year-olds as adults rather than juveniles, one of many policies that creates a school-to-prison pipeline, especially for minorities. “When you’re 17, you are still in high school,” Barnes says. “You are a child in every other way, but if you’re accused of a crime in Georgia, you are considered an adult.”
If 17-year-olds were remanded instead to the Department of Juvenile Justice, they would receive education and other services appropriate for their age, services that could enable them to stay out of trouble and live independently after release. Adult prisons provide little beyond food and beds, and recidivism is high.
When it comes to the criminal code, changing hearts and minds at the state legislature can be difficult. Lawmakers have questioned the cost of providing additional services for 17-year-olds if they were remanded to juvenile court. And legislators have questioned the need to enact more legislation for young offenders when an overhaul of the juvenile code was passed just three years ago.
The search for data on the cost of raising the age of juvenile jurisdiction has led Barnes and her colleagues to a path that could prove beneficial to more than just the 17-year-olds caught between youth and adulthood. Research on brain development indicates that growth continues until age 25, meaning even offenders in their early 20s are impulsive and have trouble comprehending long-term consequences.
Could tailored services in the adult system for these “emerging adults” create better outcomes and reduce recidivism on a larger scale? It’s a new concept that has only been tested in a few counties around the nation.
Armed with solid data that goes beyond the anecdotes that too often drive legislative agendas, Barnes is encouraged.
“What I love about the Barton Center is we talk from the science, the data, the research, and the best practices,” she says. “We have an agenda, but we use facts to persuade people.”
