A House panel on Tuesday signed a bipartisan plan to redirect some 17-year-old defendants to the state’s juvenile court system, supporting the bill over objections from Georgia sheriffs.
Georgia is currently one of three states where 17-year-olds accused of a crime are tried alongside adults in a federal Supreme Court. The bill’s sponsor, Canton Republican Rep. Mandi Ballinger, did urged to change that for a number of years through their proposals to “increase age”.
Ballingers Suggestion was voted out of the juvenile courts committee on Tuesday, which she chairs for the second time this year, as an important deadline fast approaches. A bill must be clear in at least one chamber by next Monday to have the best chance of becoming law this year.
The measure was sent back to its committee by the Gatekeeping Rules Committee on Tuesday morning for lawmakers to make an amendment that would give the state more time to pay for the cost of implementing the policy. The new age limit rules would expire in 2030 if left unfunded.
“The sheriffs are strongly against it. We have some fundamental concerns,” Michael Mitchell, a lobbyist for the Georgia Sheriffs’ Association, told lawmakers Tuesday.
The group, which represents county sheriffs statewide, has raised concerns about the cost, the potential strain more trips to regional juvenile detention centers would have on staff, and whether mixing older teens with younger children is even a good idea .
“I don’t know if we’re ever going to get over the fact that these ‘fundamental concerns’ of 17-year-olds are bad or that they’re going to have a bad influence on 16-year-olds,” Ballinger said.
“While incarcerating 17-year-olds with adult offenders in adult prisons doesn’t corrupt 17-year-olds arrested for open containers, I don’t know why it doesn’t corrupt them. I’m a little confused,” she said.
Ballinger has argued that the science is on her side, proving that a 17-year-old’s brain is still developing and vulnerable to the kind of peer pressure that an adult is better equipped to fend off.
Sending eligible older teens through the juvenile court system would give them more privacy and place them in a more rehabilitation-focused environment.
The law would not apply to 17-year-olds who have committed a gang-related crime who are not first-time offenders or who have committed the most serious offenses, such as murder.
Ballinger’s bill now goes back to the Rules Committee, which decides which bills will make it to the full Chamber for a vote and where the sheriffs will attempt to thwart it. A group of sheriffs on Tuesday sent a letter to the chair of the rules committee, warning that the policy “is impractical for many reasons and will inevitably affect the safety of Georgians.”
But if the law passes, the association wants implementation pushed back a year to Jan. 1, 2026, to give the state more time to increase bed and staffing capacity within the state’s Juvenile Justice Department.
Sheriffs also want to rename a proposed “implementation committee” that would meet in the meantime to review costs and plans to adapt the system to 17-year-olds. They argue that it should be called a “Feasibility Committee” or something that suggests adoption of the directive is not a foregone conclusion.
Ballinger said the Implementation Committee’s role is to ensure the infrastructure for the Juvenile Justice Department is in place. The state will cover the cost of increasing capacity, although she argued the restrictions included in the bill are likely to keep the number of newly eligible 17-year-olds down.
“I don’t know how else I can assure you that the state will pay for this,” Ballinger said. “I think it’s pretty clear in the bill.”
