Michigan shooting suspect is among thousands of U.S. minors charged as adults yearly

https://www.npr.org/2021/12/03/ [login to see] /michigan-school-shooter-is-1-of-thousands-of-u-s-juveniles-charged-as-adults-in-
For nearly three decades, juvenile crime and the number of juveniles actually prosecuted has sharply declined. But the deadly school shooting in Michigan brings into sharp focus some deep controversy surrounding juvenile justice: whether young people accused of crimes should be charged as a adults.

The 15-year-old accused of killing four fellow students is being charged as an adult with murder and terrorism.

The primary focus of the juvenile justice system is rehabilitation — providing services and treatments to young people in trouble and trying to understand why a child ended up doing what they did. Those legal protections evaporate once a child is charged as an adult.

Although children have been tried as adults since the juvenile justice system was created, there's been a big decline in those cases over the past 15 years. Marcy Mistrett, the director of youth justice at the Sentencing Project, which advocates to end what it calls extreme sentencing, says charging juveniles as adults dropped from nearly 250,000 a year to 50,000.