HOUSE BILL NO. 16 "An Act relating to delinquent minors, to the taking of action based on the alleged criminal misconduct of certain minors, to the services to be provided to the victims of criminal misconduct of minors, and to agency records involving minors alleged to be delinquent based on their criminal misconduct; and amending Rule 19 and repealing Rules 6, 7, 11(a), 12(a), and 21(f), Alaska Delinquency Rules." - BILL POSTPONED SB 63 - DEADLY WEAPON OFFENSES BY JUVENILES [Contains discussion of HB 6 prior to number 0600 and at 0877 of tape 97-71; contains discussion of HB 16 prior to number 1268 of tape 97-71] Number 0863 CHAIRMAN GREEN announced the next item of business was Senate Bill No. 63, "An Act providing for automatic waiver of juvenile jurisdiction and prosecution of minors as adults for certain violations of laws by minors who use deadly weapons to commit offenses that are crimes against a person, and relating to the sealing of the records of those minors." Number 0904 SENATOR DAVE DONLEY, sponsor, noted that SB 63 had passed one body or the other of the last three legislatures, and it had passed through the current committee the previous year. The bill follows up on the juvenile waiver statutes from a few years before. SENATOR DONLEY explained, "As you know, several years ago, we adopted the automatic waiver of juveniles who commit class A felonies, crimes against the person. And this reaches down a little bit further than that, into the list of crimes, to try to address the violent crimes that are not class A crimes and, specifically, the use of deadly weapons to commit assaults. And what Senate Bill 63 would do is say ... that if a juvenile over the age of 16 has been previously convicted or adjudicated as a delinquent as guilty of a[n] assault with a deadly weapon, then if they're subsequently charged with assault with a deadly weapon, they'd be waived to adult court." SENATOR DONLEY said the department estimates that between five and eight juveniles a year would fall in this category. He said there is no mandatory sentencing requirement for those in this classification. This only deals with the question of automatic waiver to adult court for "this very, very small class of the most violent types of juveniles." He said statistics show that violent juvenile crime is one of our growing problems. And this is a narrowly-targeted proposal to deal with the most violent types of juveniles that are currently not being dealt with in adult court. Number 0994 CHAIRMAN GREEN asked whether it would be reasonable for someone to believe his or her life might be in danger, if accosted by a juvenile several years younger than 16. SENATOR DONLEY replied, "As you know, under federal law, the only way to open up these type of cases is to ... put them into adult court. As it is, unless they were a class A felony or unless they moved through the optional waiver process, the proceedings would be closed." He noted that another bill addressed that. He stated, "But this is the one way to get them all the way opened up, so the public can know who is committing these kind of crimes, without the potential loss of federal funds also associated with that. So, it would allow people to know who is committing crimes with a deadly weapon multiple times. And the reason it's 16 years old [is] because, frankly, the Governor is very opposed to anything under 16, and the Administration is opposed to even this one, because they don't support any additional automatic waiver." Number 1090 REPRESENTATIVE CROFT asked whether, under the same facts that this would be an automatic waiver, there currently is the discretion to waive. SENATOR DONLEY said yes. REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG observed that the Senate Finance Committee had zeroed out the Department of Corrections fiscal note. He asked who would be testifying. CHAIRMAN GREEN advised him that Margot Knuth from the Governor's Children's Cabinet and one person on teleconference planned to testify. REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG asked Senator Donley to speak about the fiscal note. Number 1130 SENATOR DONLEY pointed out that packets included an analysis from the Senate Finance Committee explaining reasons for zeroing out the Department of Corrections fiscal note. He said the assumption of the department's fiscal note was that eight juveniles would be waived to adult court, convicted of felonies and serve prison time. However, the bill has no mandatory sentencing provisions, and the Senate Finance Committee had not thought it was reasonable to assume that all these juveniles would get extended criminal sentences. SENATOR DONLEY stated, "Additionally, for every one of these individuals, if you're going to assume that they would get a sentence like that, since our current juvenile facilities are all desperately overcrowded already, there would be an offsetting impact in the juvenile facilities; but, of course, that's in [the Department of Health and Social Services] and it doesn't reflect. So, another reason the Finance Committee zeroed it out is because we viewed it as pretty much a `net zero' because anybody in their second time of a deadly weapon assault, we were hoping that [the Department of Health and Social Services] would be institutionalizing some of those folks also. And so, if they're not there, they're going to be here." SENATOR DONLEY continued, "And finally, the basis for their request for a 180-bed facility was mostly based on the mandatory waiver that was already passed, for class A felonies from past years, and not on the individual impact of this bill. So, they wanted a 180- bed new facility to deal with the five-to-eight new people that this bill would move in adult court, which are not necessarily mandatory-sentenced." Number 1226 REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG asked for confirmation that unclassified and class A felonies are not included in felony-with-a-deadly- weapon-type assaults. SENATOR DONLEY replied, "There's a higher category of assaults with a deadly weapon that result in serious permanent damage to the victims that do become class A felonies. But the simple assaults, and things that don't result in permanent physical damage to people, I believe, are only class B felonies and [class] Cs." He noted that Representative Berkowitz was looking up the definition. REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG asked whether there was a "laundry list" of those in the file. SENATOR DONLEY replied that although it was not in the committee packets, he had a memorandum that identified that list. REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG asked that it be made available to the committee. He requested examples. Number 1312 SENATOR DONLEY responded, "Criminally negligent homicide, assault in the second degree, assault in the third degree. They're the ones that involve a deadly weapon. Assault in the second degree is a class B felony. Assault in the third degree is a class C felony. Those are the primary targets of the bill." REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG asked, "The existing statutes, the fact that a deadly weapon was involved is not a determining characteristic of the definition of a type of assault, for example? It may be a contributing factor, but there's other elements?" SENATOR DONLEY replied that he believed if a deadly weapon was not involved, it was a misdemeanor assault. Number 1370 REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ said there is no clear delineation between the four degrees of assault; there is some overlap between each one. The lowest degree is assault IV, a class A misdemeanor. For example, there could be an assault IV misdemeanor involving a deadly weapon if a person recklessly caused physical injury by playing with a gun and accidentally shooting another person. Under other circumstances, it might be moved up the scale. "Dangerous instrument" is part of the terminology in assault III, a class C felony. The continuum basically goes from physical injury to serious physical injury. "And I know we had a discussion of serious physical injury in another context," Representative Berkowitz added. Number 1438 CHAIRMAN GREEN asked whether those involve an offense against a person. REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ said those were all the assaults involving an offense against a person. CHAIRMAN GREEN asked whether an assault against a person would involve intent, rather than being reckless. REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ replied, "Not necessarily." SENATOR DONLEY responded that a misdemeanor assault would not be covered by this bill; one element under this bill is that it be an offense punishable as a felony. Number 1467 REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ noted, however, that if someone recklessly caused grave physical injury by playing with a gun, that could be a B felony. Number 1492 REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG stated his understanding that there are no degrees of intent in criminal law. REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ affirmed that, adding that four mental states apply to criminal statutes. The highest is intentional, followed by reckless, negligent and strict liability; for the latter, there is "really no mental state at all." REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG asked whether there had to be intention to have a crime. REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ said no; there are crimes involving strict liability, such as many fishing violations. REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG said they were statutory crimes, then. REPRESENTATIVE PORTER said they were crimes because somebody says they are; otherwise, they would not be. REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG suggested that intent was needed under the common law, then. REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ responded, "Or recklessness." CHAIRMAN GREEN said he was looking at a list submitted by Jack Chenoweth. He stated, "And I see intent in all of these. Now, I don't know what necessarily constitutes criminally negligent homicide, but that seems to be that there's got to be some intent in there somewhere." REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ responded, "No. For example, if someone's driving drunk and they run over a pedestrian ...." CHAIRMAN GREEN said, "But we're talking about a weapon, now." REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ pointed out that a vehicle can be a weapon. REPRESENTATIVE JAMES asked whether they had a list of weapons that are deadly. REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ replied, "There's nothing that's definitive, but the statutes define weapons. I believe Senator Donley had a list." He noted that under appropriate circumstances, fists or boots have been defined as dangerous weapons or deadly weapons. CHAIRMAN GREEN suggested that did not go along with the driving incident. It seemed that if a person used a fist on someone, it would be intentional. REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ agreed. CHAIRMAN GREEN stated, "And that's the concern we've got, is whether there is intent." Number 1637 REPRESENTATIVE PORTER asked what Mr. Chenoweth had been responding to. SENATOR DONLEY said those were all the crimes against a person that are punishable as a felony. REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG stated his understanding that there had to be a crime against a person, a felony and a deadly weapon, under this bill. REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ stated, "Hypothetically, ... if you hold a knife at someone's throat and coerce them to do something, you've got the coercion but the knife hasn't done any actual harm." REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG asked whether that would not be assault. REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ said it would be an assault. REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG suggested it could also be an exploitation; there could be two different crimes committed in the same act. REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ agreed. Number 1740 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES indicated that when she sees "deadly weapons," she thinks of guns. However, by using that language, it raises different conceptions of what that means. She asked: Since guns are such a tool used now by children, why didn't the bill just say guns? SENATOR DONLEY explained that the bill had originally dealt only with firearms, as a response to guns in schools and the failure to hold juveniles accountable for repeated firearms violations. However, there was a reluctance to single out firearms because other weapons such as brass knuckles, billy clubs, pipes and so forth could be used. Therefore, a floor amendment passed several years before in the Senate, to expand it to deadly weapons. Number 1871 REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ advised members that there is a distinction between "deadly weapons" and "dangerous instruments," and he may have overlapped the two definitions in his earlier explanation. He read: "A deadly weapon means any firearm or anything designed for and capable of causing death or serious physical injury, including a knife, an axe, a club, metal knuckles or an explosive." REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ contrasted that with dangerous instrument, "which includes any deadly weapon or anything that under the circumstances in which it is used, attempted to be used, or threatened to be used, is capable of causing death or serious physical injury." He said, for example, the car would be a dangerous instrument, not a deadly weapon. He emphasized that he was retracting that portion of what he said earlier. BLAIR McCUNE, Deputy Director, Public Defender Agency, Department of Administration, testified via teleconference from Anchorage, stating that the courts now have discretion to waive juveniles in appropriate situations. His agency is concerned that an automatic waiver would not be commensurate with the current statute. "Right now, you have to have an unclassified or a class A felony, you know, obviously very serious crimes, or arson," he said. MR. McCUNE referred to earlier discussion about mental states. He clarified that criminal intent occurs when a person's conscious objective is the completion of an act. In addition, many assaults and crimes against the person that are felonies occur with reckless behavior, which he defined: "Recklessness is when you're aware of a risk that a circumstance or result might occur, but you disregard that risk and complete the act." MR. McCUNE said assault III offenses happen in many ways. A deadly weapon can include a club or an unloaded or loaded firearm. If a juvenile scares another person, so that that person fears imminent serious physical injury, that is an assault against the person. If a club or gun, loaded or unloaded, is used, that is assault III. While in some situations assault IIIs are very serious offenses, they also can be less serious, depending on the facts. MR. McCUNE said his agency was concerned about juveniles who commit assault III offenses. For example, someone may have been adjudicated regarding a theft or burglary that is a felony but not have been placed in an institution or received treatment. If that person committed a relatively minor assault III, he or she would be institutionalized. Mr. McCune commented, "And, you know, you could institutionalize that person probably, and still treat them as a minor. So, we're concerned about that class of people being automatically waived into adult court." TAPE 97-71, SIDE A Number 0006 REPRESENTATIVE CROFT requested a brief explanation of how discretionary waiver works. Noting that the courts decide, he asked whether it requires a filing by the department. MR. McCUNE cautioned that there had been recent changes in the law and he was not as up on it as he should be. The burden of proof had changed, once the department filed, depending on the age of the child. He stated "And so, the filing, as I understand it - and I hope I'm correct in this - is done by the department or the attorney general handling the case. And then, quite often but not always, the burden of showing that the minor is amenable to treatment as a juvenile ... is on the minor and the minor's attorneys." Number 0120 MARGOT KNUTH, Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division, Department of Law, came forward to testify, specifying that she was representing the Governor's Children's Cabinet on legislation relating to youth and justice this session. She said Senator Donley had correctly indicated that the Governor's Children's Cabinet has serious concerns about this bill and believes that it would be a mistake to pass it in its current form. MS. KNUTH, speaking of Senator Donley, explained, "He characterized this bill as reaching down a little bit further than where we have automatic waiver already. And I cannot disagree with that more strongly; I cannot agree with that at all." MS. KNUTH explained, "Right now, we have automatic waiver for class A and unclassified offenses for 16- and 17-year-olds. And when it comes to assault, that means that the offender must have caused some physical harm to the victim." She said most of the offenses do not involve physical harm to the victim but rather brandishing a gun or a knife, which recklessly places a person in fear of serious physical injury by means of a deadly weapon. MS. KNUTH stated, "And the difficulty that we have with dropping down to class B and class C felonies is that currently, we have a pretty bright line on where automatic waiver ought to be occurring. If you're going to drop down to B and C felonies, first you're going to do it where there is use of a deadly weapon, and I just have a significant concern that we're going to start patchworking this and that there are many serious B and C felonies that don't involve the use of a deadly weapon, and that to the extent we have serious concerns with the way our juvenile system is operating, what we need to do is to step back and look at some thoughtful, holistic approach to revisiting it. And the Administration is very concerned about piecemeal approaches, and especially this one, because this is the camel's nose getting under the tent in a significant fashion." Number 0328 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES said one of her biggest concerns is the misuse of guns. She asked whether a solution would be to make the use of guns a more serious crime and whether that was possible. MS. KNUTH replied, "Again, I think that people have studied our criminal code as a whole and have tried to assign the seriousness of certain offenses. And especially when we get to assaults, it's a combination of mental state, whether or not an instrument is used and whether or not harm was caused. And merely threatening harm with a dangerous instrument should always be a less serious offense than causing harm, versus causing serious physical harm. We've got to have gradations in it. If you were to raise old juvenile offenses involving a weapon to ... a class A felony crime, I think there would be a basis for a challenge under equal protection of why, when it's juveniles versus adults, considering the serious of weapons." MS. KNUTH continued, "But I'd ask the committee also to look at what other class B and C felonies you can have that don't involve a deadly weapon and yet, I think, are terribly serious crimes, namely, sexual assault in the second degree. A 16-year-old who engages in sexual intercourse with an incapacitated person is guilty of a class B felony offense of sexual assault in the second degree, and I think that's a mighty serious offense. Sexual abuse of a minor in the second or the third degree are B and C felonies. Criminal mischief, intentionally damaging the pipeline, is a class B felony. Tampering with medicines, aspirin, say - I think there was a case that happened somewhere in the nation that a whole bunch of bottles had been tampered with - that's a class B felony. Drug offenses, selling any amount of cocaine, a 16-year-old who sells a pound of cocaine to a 14-year-old, that's a class B felony." MS. KNUTH continued, "And I don't know how we could say these offenses are less serious or less damaging than an offense of, `I point a gun at you, and it may not even be loaded, but you should always assume that it is loaded and you should be afraid as though it were loaded.' But in terms of the actual harm that's caused by the offenses, I don't know how you could say that that one is more worthy of a different result than the other offenses that I've outlined." MS. KNUTH continued, "One of the props for this amendment was before we had House Bill 6, which is now in Senate Finance, on disclosure of juvenile offenders. And there was a concern that there are offenders out there who are using guns and committing serious crimes, and we didn't know who they are. That problem is being addressed in disclosure of juvenile records and opening those court proceedings. And to the extent that that was a motivation for this bill, it's being cured in that separate form." Number 0600 MS. KNUTH continued, "One of the things I'd like to note is that we do have a usable ... petition-for-waiver procedure. And it's most likely to be used and most likely to be successfully used when a juvenile has a prior, which is one of the requirements of this bill, because in order to waive a juvenile to adult court, you need to show that it's unlikely the juvenile can be rehabilitated within the juvenile justice system. One of the best measures of that is the kid's already been through the juvenile system and it didn't work, it didn't take. And so, we're talking about a group where the discretionary waiver is more likely and more appropriate to be used." MS. KNUTH continued, "And certainly from the prosecutor's viewpoint and from the Department of Health and Social Services' viewpoint, this is not a big problem that demands fixing. They feel more comfortable with it being discretionary because use of a gun can often be an equalizer for -- suppose you have a 16-year-old boy who is not very big and his mother's boyfriend, who beats up on the mother on a fairly regular basis, is 300 pounds, 6'3". The kid goes too far in pointing the gun at that guy, and it's an inappropriate circumstance; maybe he comes back a week later or something like that. But a gun is often used in these circumstances that can be terribly serious but also might not be. It might be an indication of something else going on there. And you could have somebody who is in a situation where it happens more than once, even. So, for that reason, the state feels more comfortable if they are able to decide whether to petition for a waiver, whether to say, `This is a bad case, that we need to get an adult sentence there.'" MS. KNUTH advised members that Bruce Richards from the Department of Corrections was present and could answer questions about the fiscal note. She stated, "It was based on the department's need for a 64-bed facility for juveniles because, as a result of the automatic waiver statutes that have been passed already, which were not funded, we now have a number of juveniles in the adult system. And one of the evils that we can all imagine as we sit here is that when you put these kids in with adult population, they've got some pretty bad role models there. And we would like to have them separated." MS. KNUTH continued, "They're not required by federal law to be separated once they're an adult offender, but in terms of what's appropriate for them and the special treatments that they need -- because psychologically they're in a different frame of mind, they have poor impulse control, they have a whole set of problems that's pretty particular to them. And a separate facility is a reality that we need to face at some point. And we said that before. We'll say it with this bill. I expect we'll probably be back and say it again sometime." Number 0787 CHAIRMAN GREEN referred to Ms. Knuth's example of a young boy being confronted by his mother's bully boyfriend. He asked whether use of a gun there would be considered a crime or self-defense. MS. KNUTH said it would depend on the circumstances, although it should be defense. She explained, "I consider most juveniles judgment-impaired; I think that's the definition of being a teenager. And their call on the situation can be wrong. Their timing can be wrong. It could have been, last time, bully thumps on mother; and this time, the kid's reacting too soon and bully hasn't done anything, and the kid's just flying off the handle. But he didn't do anything except say, `I've got a gun,' you know, `You're dead meat,' whatever the scene is." MS. KNUTH continued, "Especially if alcohol should be involved on the part of the adult, then the stories of what happened become more difficult to unravel, and if the kid's the one with the gun, sometimes arresting the kid and getting him out of the house is what makes the most sense in that circumstance. And so, there's a continuum of these events, all the way from really appropriate, righteous conduct to, you know, serious mistake. And the blurry lines are along the way." Number 0877 REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG said he somewhat shared her concern about how this would fit in if HB 6 should pass. He asked, "Do you think that, were that to pass, that that ... would meet some of the requirements of the bill sponsor here and will allow the court to go deeper down, at their discretion, for the waiver?" He asked Ms. Knuth to explain how that would work. MS. KNUTH replied, "House Bill 6 is a matter of disclosure of juvenile offenders who have committed crimes against a person, which include the offenses that we're talking about here, as long as it's a felony crime against a person. So, it would be the B and the C felonies, as well as the As and the unclassifieds. And there is currently a debate still going on whether that disclosure should be made at the point of when the petition is filed or should it be made at the point of the adjudication. But the sponsor amended the bill in Senate Judiciary to also have a provision for the court proceedings to be open. So, not only do we get the information about the offense and the offender from Health and Social Services, but the state will be able to have the proceeding open to the public." MS. KNUTH continued, "And I think the part of this bill that that takes care of is the concern that there's this veil of secrecy about juveniles, we don't know who the dangerous ones are, and by treating them as adults, that was one way of making sure that there would be full disclosure about who they are, what they've done. If you can have that same disclosure within the juvenile system, you don't need to waive them to adult court just to find out who they are and what they did; you can find that out while they're still in the juvenile system." Number 1000 REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG referred to HB 6 and stated his understanding that the courts wouldn't be mandated or even have the discretion to do an automatic waiver, unless it fit under the unclassified or class A felony definition. So, their hands would be tied as far as actually pursuing prosecution as an adult. MS. KNUTH replied, "The court never makes that call unless the state petitions for it anyway, although if the legislature has made it automatic waiver -- I mean, their hands are equally tied. They have to take it as an adult case. They don't have the means of bouncing it back ... to juvenile proceedings." REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG asked, "If the state had decided the fact pattern was such, even with a third degree assault, for example, ... that they felt that the alleged criminal should be prosecuted as an adult, do they have that ability to petition?" MS. KNUTH said absolutely, yes. Number 1064 REPRESENTATIVE BUNDE referred to Ms. Knuth's characterization of SB 63 as going deeper regarding the waiver process. He asked for an idea of numbers or recent cases where someone would be affected under SB 63 but not under existing legislation. MS. KNUTH said the Department of Health and Social Services had prepared a list of examples of cases but she did not have a copy with her. An unidentified speaker advised Ms. Knuth that it was in the committee packets. MS. KNUTH noted that results from nationwide studies on the success of automatic adult waiver are not promising. They are finding that kids who go through automatic waiver are more likely to re-offend than those treated as juveniles, and the new offense is likely to occur sooner and be a more serious offense than if they had gone through the juvenile proceedings. MS. KNUTH stated, "So, the three measures that we use for success of rehabilitation of a system, all three of them are worse for kids who are going through automatic waiver than for the kids who are going through the juvenile system. And part of that is because you're teaching them something they didn't know before they went through the adult system: that they can survive it. They will find a way to live as somebody with an adult conviction." MS. KNUTH continued, "And it's the same thing the first time you put a juvenile in detention. As long as you had that as a threat over their head, it meant a lot. But the moment they actually spent their first night in detention, they realized they can live with that. They're going to be here tomorrow, and they're going to find a way to get on with their life, and they made some new friends that I'd just as soon they hadn't made. And you have the same thing happening in the adult system." MS. KNUTH stated, "The conference [on youth and justice] recommended instead of having automatic waiver - either go down in age or go down in the seriousness of offenses - what the conference recommended was a dual-sentencing provision where the kid gets both a juvenile and an adult sentence. And if they screw up, then you impose the adult sentence. But it gives them that window of opportunity to straighten their own life out, and it gives them some control and some investment and some motivation to get back on the straight and narrow." She said that is part of HB 16, an alternative which she believes shows a great deal of promise. Number 1268 REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ referred to the list of examples drawn from the Division of Family and Youth Services (DFYS) files. As he read it, of those six examples, three would not have come within the reach of this bill because they did not involve deadly weapons. For one, somebody had used a vehicle; for another, someone had another youth attack a third party; and for the third, someone used a glass bottle. None of those is a deadly weapon. REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ said the one that troubled him most was where someone was charged with an assault II and pled to an assault IV. He said that seems to typify the problem more. His experience has been "that you charge high and plead low." MS. KNUTH commented, "Of course, we deny that ever happens ...." REPRESENTATIVE BERKOWITZ said they got good sentences out of it. He stated that the concern was that at first blush, there might appear to be the elements to make a higher-level charge, but when investigated further, they are lacking. On the other hand, that was only one case in fiscal year '95-'96 that fell into that area. Number 1340 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES said a trend she has seen over the last few years is what she calls "coddling," giving offenders repeated chances. It seems there should be a day of reckoning when juveniles must realize they are responsible for what they do. She referred to Ms. Knuth's indication that if juveniles serve time with adults, they would learn bad behavior. Representative James asked about the bad influence of that juvenile on other juveniles if they served time together. She mentioned her experience with reform school issues and foster care and stated, "I guess that I think we've tried coddling. And I think we need to get more serious with some of these issues." She asked for a response. MS. KNUTH replied that first, there definitely needs to be the ability to subdivide within juvenile facilities, to isolate the bad offender from the run-of-the-mill property offender, for example. As for coddling, she did not consider it an answer to "throw the kid out and say good-bye forevermore." She stated, "That really troubles me. When you saddle a kid with an adult conviction, you have just disqualified him from entering the military. You have made it a whole lot more difficult for him to get a job. You have made it very difficult for him or her to go to college. And if a kid can't do any of those three things, what are they going to do?" MS. KNUTH continued, "I know we want to reach them. I know we want to work with them and bring them back, but a kid has got to have a way of being a productive member of society. And before we say, `no job, no army, no college for you,' I mean, I want it to be a pretty extreme situation." MS. KNUTH emphasized that she would not minimize the seriousness of a B or C felony. However, those crimes are not nearly as significant as a class A or an unclassified offense. She stated, "in our attempt to deal with the serious juvenile crime problem, we've got to focus on those who are the chronic serious offenders, be mean-as-heck to them, but not throw out the rest of the juvenile population with them, because we're going to pay, pay, pay if we do that." Number 1488 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES said that many times, people older than 18 in a group get the underage ones to do something because they know they will not be in any trouble. She asked: How do you deal with that? Number 1509 MS. KNUTH replied, "This is, I think, the most important conversation that's occurred from the youth and justice conference, and I really appreciate the opportunity to have it. I think the answer to what you're saying is part of the conference's recommendations, which is that we let communities start responding to some of the low-level offenders, because the state has done has done a pretty bad job of responding consistently in seeing that there are any consequences. And what we want to stop is what you're talking about, where these kids say, `There are no consequences; so, I can keep screwing up and I don't need to toe the line.'" MS. KNUTH continued, "If we allow communities to use more youth board initiatives, more diversion panel projects, and if they will implement them, as they say they want to do, in a consistent, meaningful way, then I think we can start breaking the cycle of kids feeling like there are no consequences." MS. KNUTH continued, "What's a problem is when we have no consequences, no consequences, no consequences and then boom, you know, it's the whole thing's over. That's where we lose that kid, and we haven't done anything, really, for all the ones that are coming along, because they aren't able to see that. And I just think it's important that we start approaching this in a ...." Number 1568 REPRESENTATIVE JAMES said the only way it can be addressed in that way is with the discretion of the people doing the arresting, charging and so forth. "But history has proven that it's not been effective," she said. "And that's where the general public comes back and wants to have some more severe treatment. So, somehow or other, we have to address that with the public." Number 1590 REPRESENTATIVE PORTER stated, "I think that part of the discussion centers on the point that once they get into adult court, I think it was `boom, it's over.' Well, if that were the case, we wouldn't have these problems in the first place. `Boom, it's over' on a C and B felony doesn't happen in adult court. `Boom' is a strong SIS is what happens with a B and C felony. Well, I don't think that the concern that this kid is going to get thrown away and locked up for the rest of his life is a reasonable concern in the first place." REPRESENTATIVE PORTER continued, "I agree with Representative Berkowitz that the examples cited, three of them are incorrect, the fourth one, maybe, and the fifth one, I'd want to put this kid in there anyway. So, we're not talking about that big a group of kids. We're not talking about an absolute `they're going to get thrown away in jail for the rest of their lives' anyway, because at this level of offense, they're probably going to get, if we're lucky, an SSIS, which is a serious suspended imposition of sentence. They are going to get the benefit of an adult court. They are going to get the benefit of the exposure that we've been trying to do through other kinds of bills. The parents are going to get that same exposure. I think it's a positive thing, and I'm ready to move this bill." REPRESENTATIVE PORTER made a motion to move SB 63 from committee with individual recommendations and the fiscal notes as attached from the Senate Finance Committee. There being no objection, SB 63 moved from the House Judiciary Standing Committee.