We should ensure the legal system treats all children as children by prohibiting direct filing and transfer of cases involving children to the adult system.
 
Between 2017 and 2021, an average of 450 youth per year were charged as if they were adults, the vast majority of them automatically. However, more than two thirds of these cases were eventually dismissed, withdrawn, or returned to juvenile court. This practice is both inefficient for taxpayers, and traumatizing to youth who often await its outcome in adult jail.
 
Nearly 90 percent of youth prosecuted as adults arrive in adult court through direct file, and more than two thirds of them are Black. Young Black men account for 57 percent of adult convictions while only making up 7 percent of the statewide youth population.
 
Originally heralded as rehabilitative and a deterrent, Act 33 of Special Session 1 of 1995 requires individuals between the ages of 15 and 17 charged with certain felonies be charged in adult court if they meet certain requirements, such as the use of a weapon during the alleged crime. Children as young as 10 years old can be tried as adults for homicide. This practice is a direct remnant of the racist so-called “super-predator” era.  
However, instead of helping our youth, this “direct file” law has been proven time and time again to be a failure, nothing more than a cruel, unnecessary punishment that forces children into the adult prison system. Research has shown again and again that young people tried as adults have higher rates of recidivism than those who remain in the juvenile system.
 
We cannot allow this any longer.
 
This legislation aims to protect and rehabilitate young Pennsylvanians by repealing the direct file law so that our youth can be tried as youth and given the resources they need to avoid a lifetime in the criminal legal system. It goes further by requiring that all children be treated as children, and never prosecuted as adults.
 
Charging children as adults is damaging to their well-being, the well-being of their loved ones, and the well-being of this commonwealth.
 
I urge your support for this vital legislation.
 

Statutes/Laws affected:
Printer's No. 1752 (May 28, 2025): 42-6302