There is a wilding spree going on in almost every state. This time, it’s not the teenagers who are raging out of control. It’s the adults who have gone on a rampage, enacting regressive laws and ballot petitions that will send thousands of youth to prison rather than to college and on the road to a better life.

Between 1992 and 1997, 47 states made it easier to try kids as adults, according to the Justice Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. In Wisconsin and Vermont, children as young as 10 can be tried as adults when suspected of murder and, if found guilty, given adult-like sentences.

Almost two-thirds of California voters last year voted in favor of Proposition 21, the nation’s toughest crackdown on youthful offenders. The ballot measure mandates that youth 14 and older be tried as adults for murder and sexual assaults. Additionally, some minor offenses, such as vandalism, are now classified as felonies when damages exceed $400.

Proposition 21 also gives prosecutors the power to charge juveniles as adults for certain crimes. However, a California appeals court recently ruled that transferring such power from judges to prosecutors is unconstitutional. That decision is being appealed.

A California case certain to be appealed after it goes to trial involves Andy Williams, 15. He is being held by California authorities after opening fire at Santana High School, killing two and wounding 13 others. Williams is expected to be tried as an adult and possibly be sentenced to life in prison

In Florida, another teenager is already serving a life sentence with no chance for parole. Lionel Tate, 14, was sentenced as an adult after he was found guilty of first-degree murder in connection with the death of a playmate. His lawyers argued that the youth, who was 12-years-old at the time, was imitating professional wrestlers he had seen on television. The jury did not buy that argument and, consequently, Tate is the youngest person in the country sentenced to life in prison.

Although the cases in Florida and California have received widespread media attention, they do not typify teenage behavior. In fact, juvenile crime has declined to its lowest point in a generation, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Murders by teenagers have been on the decline for six years, down 68 percent from its peak in 1993.

School shootings, the object of mass hysteria, have also fallen. Last year, there were 16 school-associated deaths, a decline of 71 percent since 1992. In a student population of 52 million, 16 deaths from firearms amounts to a less than 1 in 3 million chance of being killed on school grounds. In other words, students have a better chance of being struck by lightening, not to mention an automobile, than being shot to death at school.

Critics of the juvenile justice system say that it wrong to treat teens as though they have the same maturity and reasoning skills as adults. It is a problem that cannot be ignored. Between 2010 and 2020, the population of 10- to 19-year-olds is expected to reach 44 million, the highest youth population in U.S. history and a direct outgrowth of the children of baby boomers growing older.

More than likely, African-American teens will continue to bear the brunt of a punitive juvenile justice system. Today, although Blacks represent only 15 percent of the 10-years-old to 17-years-old population, they are 30 percent of youth arrested, 40 percent of teens held in custody and 50 percent of all cases transferred to adult criminal courts.

Overall, 2.6 million arrests of youth under the age of 18 were made in 1998, according to the Justice Department.

Although the U.S. holds itself out to the international community as a model of democracy, when it comes to the treatment of children trapped in the criminal justice system, it is a rogue nation. The United States is one of only two countries (Somalia is the other) that has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The international treaty, already signed by 192 countries, establishes adulthood at 18 and declares no child younger than that age should receive the death penalty or serve a life sentence with no chance of parole.

According to Amnesty International, 26 children under the age of 18 have been executed around the world since 1990. More than half - 14 - were in the United States. As of June 1998, another 70 persons were on death row for crimes they committed as teenagers.
Even though juvenile crime is down, public opinion polls show that most adults believe it is on the rise. And that’s not the only misperception they have of teenagers.

Testifying before Congress earlier this year, Vincent Schiraldi, president of the Justice Policy Institute, observed: “Overall, despite the fact that this year’s graduating class will take drugs less, will binge drink less, will be less violent, will commit fewer crimes, and will have fewer pregnancies during their teenage years than was the case for my graduating high school class in 1977, this generation of adults will think worse of them. It is no more fair to stereotype America’s 52 million students as schoolhouse assassins than it is to taint all adults with the sins of Timothy McVeigh.”