The Department for Children and Families wants lawmakers to once again delay implementation of a law that would send 19-year-olds to the juvenile justice system instead of adult court.
Vermont became the first state in the country to treat 18-year-olds accused of most crimes as juvenile offenders, rather than adults, after passing the “Raise the Age” law in 2018. This July, the state is set to raise the age of jurisdiction for family court to 19 years old.
The reform measure, based on research that shows young people’s brains are still developing into their 20s, was set to gradually increase the age that youth could be sent to family court, where cases remain confidential. Offenders receive rehabilitative services aimed at helping them avoid future criminal behavior. Young adults accused of serious violent crimes, like murder and a handful of other felonies, would still be charged in adult court.
The state brought 18-year-olds into the juvenile system in 2020, and 19-year-olds were set to follow in 2022 — but that’s been delayed twice by lawmakers after requests from DCF and the governor. DCF is now asking lawmakers this year to indefinitely pause the move.
In a report to lawmakers in December, and in recent testimony, DCF officials said that their staff is overwhelmed and that the state needs to build secure facilities to hold youth.
Gov. Phil Scott, in his budget address last month, also took aim at the law, saying he might have made a mistake when he signed it.
“Like many other areas, we moved too far and too fast into a policy experiment,” Scott said during his speech. “And we didn’t plan for, or build, the system needed to address extreme cases, or have the workforce to support it. We focused so much on our well-intentioned goals that we didn’t think through all the possible consequences.”
But new research found that the initial phase of "Raise the Age" didn’t overwhelm the juvenile justice system, and advocates say that’s a sign that Vermont should move forward with its plan to bring 19-year-olds into the system this July.
A report from Columbia University’s Justice Lab, published last month, found that juvenile criminal filings — called delinquency cases — have decreased in Vermont in the last decade, even with the addition of 18-year-olds.
According to the report, delinquency cases have remained fairly stable since fiscal year 2020. There were 647 filings in fiscal year 2020, and 700 in fiscal year 2023. That’s down from the number of cases filed pre-pandemic and in the years before 18-year-olds were brought into the juvenile justice system.
The number of youth on probation rose between 2019 and 2020, but has since declined by 19%, the report says. There have also been fewer youth placed in DCF custody as a result of delinquency cases in that time period.
"There was a lot of concern — 'Are we going to overwhelm the juvenile system, how are we going to do this, are cases going to go up?And the good news is that's not what ended up happening.”Lael Chester, Columbia University
“There was a lot of concern — 'Are we going to overwhelm the juvenile system, how are we going to do this, are cases going to go up?'” said Lael Chester, director of the emerging adult justice project at Columbia University’s Justice Lab, in an interview. “And the good news is that's not what ended up happening.”
It’s not clear why juvenile filings have decreased, but it could be that more cases are being kept out of the courts, Chester said.
According to a 2019 report, the vast majority of charges filed against 18 and 19-year-olds are low-level misdemeanors.
“Those are the types of cases that you don't want to have clogging up your system,” Chester said. “Vermont may be doing a really good job sifting through cases … and saying, ‘Look, these are the cases that we actually need to apply our justice resource, and these are the kinds of cases that we can resolve really well using restorative justice and diversion.’”
But DCF Commissioner Chris Winters told the Senate Judiciary Committee last week the department is stretched too thin to handle any potential increase in its workload, “even if the numbers are not high.”
According to the department’s December report, there were 109 cases filed in fiscal year 2023 that would have been added to DCF’s workload if 19-year-olds were in the juvenile justice system. Nearly 80% of those cases were misdemeanors.
Around the same time Vermont passed the "Raise the Age" law, the state also expanded the jurisdiction of its youthful offender law, which allows people up to the age of 22 to petition for their case to be transferred from adult court to family court. Youthful offender case filing jumped from 33 in fiscal year 2018 to 500 in fiscal year 2019, but that number has dropped and stabilized to around 300 in recent years, according to Columbia University’s research.
DCF, in their December report, wrote that lawmakers should delay the next step of "Raise the Age" until the state implements several initiatives, including hiring more DCF workers and building a new secure facility for youth — which could be years away.
In 2020, the state closed Woodside — its sole juvenile detention facility — amid regulatory reports and lawsuits that found staff used excessive force and unnecessary restraints on kids. The state was also housing few children at the 30-bed facility.
The department is slated to open a temporary four-bed secure facility in Middlesex in the near future, and DCF recently announced that it was considering building a 15-bed secure facility in South Burlington or Vergennes.
“We also think that having this slightly larger facility is going to relieve a lot of pressure on the system of care,” Winters said during his testimony last week.
"We also think that having this slightly larger facility is going to relieve a lot of pressure on the system of care."DCF Commissioner Chris Winters
Chief Juvenile Defender Marshall Pahl said the lack of a permanent facility shouldn’t delay "Raise the Age," especially since Woodside only held between zero and five kids during its final months.
“To the extent that they're still pointing to that as a barrier, it doesn't make a lot of sense — they have the Middlesex facility that's going to be opening,” Pahl said. “And that'll provide fully secure beds.”
The Office of the Child, Youth and Family Advocate, an independent state office that advocates for youth in the child protection and juvenile justice system, agrees that DCF needs more staff. But the office has pushed back on the department’s request to further delay "Raise the Age."
In a letter to DCF, Matthew Bernstein, the Child, Youth, and Family Advocate, and deputy advocate Lauren Higbee wrote that the research from Columbia University and data from the judiciary indicate there’s “no need to pause 'Raise the Age' at all.”
Their office, using 2023 court data, found that juvenile delinquent case filings were at their lowest point since 2016.
"'Raise the Age' will add to DCF’s workload in some way,” Bernstein said in an interview. “But what I think I hear DCF saying is that even that minimal add is more important than the positive benefits to young people.”
Those benefits include getting youth offenders more age-appropriate treatment and keeping them out of the adult court system, Higbee said.
"The intervention of 'Raise the Age' on 19-year-olds will reduce recidivism and be helpful to public safety, because these emerging adults get a chance to practice adulthood and become productive citizens."Lauren Higbee, Deputy Child, Youth and Family Advocate
“The intervention of 'Raise the Age' on 19-year-olds will reduce recidivism and be helpful to public safety, because these emerging adults get a chance to practice adulthood and become productive citizens,” Higbee said.
The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to take more testimony on DCF’s request, though last week, members of the group appeared wary of granting another delay.
“A cynic might say that saying each year that you support the policy, but you want to delay and then asking for another year delay and another year's delay totals up to not supporting the policy change,” said Senate Pro Tem Phil Baruth during last week’s Senate Judiciary committee meeting.
Sen. Dick Sears, the powerful chair of the committee, said during last week’s hearing he’s concerned about postponing 'Raise the Age' again. But he told DCF he wants to hold more hearings. They have not yet been scheduled.
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