Providence Journal: Activists make case for Training School

The Providence Journal - Activists make case for Training School
01:00 AM EDT on Thursday, July 12, 2007
By Elizabeth Gudrais

Journal State House Bureau
CRANSTON — From the front entrance of the state prison’s high-security center, you can see the Rhode Island Training School.

The first facility is home to 17-year-olds who are accused of crimes. The second facility is where those same youths would have gone, had the General Assembly not lowered the age of majority to 17, from 18, on July 1.

“Young people do not belong here,” Rhode Island Kids Count executive director Elizabeth Burke Bryant said yesterday, during a news conference outside the high-security center. “The most serious criminals in the state are housed here.”

Though this year’s legislative session is over, advocates haven’t given up on the idea of getting lawmakers to change their minds. “We believe there is still time to turn this around,” Burke Bryant said.

General Assembly leaders have not said yet whether they will return before January to override any vetoes by Governor Carcieri. But the list of vetoes includes some major leadership-backed bills, and if lawmakers do come back, advocates are going to be pressing them to take up the 17-year-old issue, too.

“This absolutely stands out as the top bad policy for this legislative session,” Teny O. Gross, executive director of the Institute for the Study & Practice of Nonviolence, said yesterday.