I have had a couple of posts recently on the question of how to treat children who commit horrible crimes.  As I have suggested, both Confucians and Taoists would disagree with the movement within US law of late to treat child criminals as adults.  Confucians would hold fast to the moral distinction between children and adults while Taoists would reject the distinction altogether, neither of which positions fit with US legal practice.

      Today I found this story, which would simply appall both Confucians and Taoists on this issue:

It was conceived as a way to save money in the face of a $450 million deficit in Rhode Island’s
current budget: making 17-year-olds adults in the eyes of the law,
shifting their cases to criminal from juvenile court and putting
offenders in the state prison rather than the youth correctional center.

The measure, which took effect July 1 and was expected to save $3.6
million a year, has ignited a firestorm, with children’s groups, the
state public defender and others calling it bad policy that in any
event is not a money-saver.

“It’s a gross failure of
responsibility,” said the state’s attorney general, Patrick C. Lynch.
“It’s not saving money. It’s creating enormous questions and problems
in the system, never mind ruining lives” of young offenders who are
left with criminal records.

 It seems the primary motivation for changing the universal age of adulthood from 18 to 17 was money.  Two problems here:

      1) Universality.  Adulthood, from a Confucian perspective, is a moral status, the time of life when a person comes to understand his or her personal and social responsibilities and, most importantly, assumes responsibility for fulfilling those duties.  Age limits are the grossest form of definition of adulthood: we all know persons who understand and assume responsibilities before they turn 18, and we all know persons who take much longer to become moral adults.  Relying exclusively on an age standard alone, for a legal definition of adulthood, is obviously inadequate; but lowering that standard arbitrarily (i.e. for purposes not at all related to the moral development of individuals) would clearly be rejected by Confucians and Taoists.

     2) The money motive.  This is all wrong.  Justice and juvenile justice pose complex and difficult issues.  Each case must be weighed and mitigating factors considered.  Changing the definition of adulthood in an effort to save money for the state budget makes no good normative sense at all.  It should not matter that implementing this new standard turns out not to save money.  What should matter is that we have legal systems that carefully weight the circumstances of young offenders so that punishment for criminal activity is combined with continuing moral education and the possibilities for human improvement are kept open.