Senate Bill S6524

                                BILL NUMBER:S6524

TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the criminal procedure law, in
relation to increasing the age of a person deemed a youth for youthful
offender status

PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:

This bill would change the age of eligibility for youthful offenders,
making older teenagers and those who were twenty or twenty-one at the
time the crime was committed eligible for youthful offender treatment.

SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:

Section one of the bill amends subdivision one of Criminal Procedure
Law section 720.10 by changing the upper age of eligibility for
youthful offender treatment from less than nineteen" to "less than
twenty-two."

Section 2 is the effective date, which is 60 days after the bill shall
have become a law.

JUSTIFICATION:

As the United States Supreme Court recognized in Roger v. Simms, 543
U.S. 551 (2005), adolescents and teenagers differ significantly from
              

adults with respect to characteristics that lead to a conclusion that
juveniles have diminished culpability. Youth are less mature and have
an underdeveloped sense of responsibility; they are more vulnerable to
outside pressures, including peer pressure, and other negative
influences; and their characters are less well formed and still
developing. Id. at 569-570. Youthful offender status recognizes those
differences and provides a mechanism for different treatment of young
offenders when appropriate. In light of the research discussed below,
eligibility for youthful offender treatment should be extended to
those who were less than twenty-two at the time the crime was
committed.

Studies reviewed and summarized by the National Conference of State
Legislatures support a conclusion that the neurobiological,
psychosocial and developmental differences between juveniles and
adults continue into the late teens and early twenties. A longitudinal
study conducted by the chief of Brain Imaging in the Child Psychiatry
Branch of the National institute of Mental Health concluded that the
average human brain is not fully developed until age 25; critically,
the frontal lobe, which is responsible for functions such as advanced
cognition, controlling impulses and judging consequences, continues to
develop into the early twenties.  The MacArthur Foundation has
conducted psychosocial and developmental research that corroborates
the neurobiological findings.

PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

Assembly: A.10267 (2012),referred to Codes;
Senate: New bill

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:


None.

EFFECTIVE DATE:

To take effect 60 days after the bill shall have become a law.