Sept. 22, 2025 – With the start of a new school year, high school students, particularly those with a driver’s license, find themselves with a new or renewed sense of independence. School sports and clubs mean more time with friends and less time with family. Those activities often lead to stronger friendships and more time spent unsupervised.
While teenagers can engage in plenty of activities that are safe and healthy, poor decisions can have serious consequences leading to encounters with the justice system. In Wisconsin, those penalties can be even more significant for 17-year-olds.
Since 1996, 17-year-olds have been treated as adults in Wisconsin’s criminal justice system, with no ability to be waived into the juvenile court system. Depending on the crime, minors younger than seventeen may be waived into the adult court system as well. Prosecution in adult court can lead to long-lasting negative impacts, not only on the lives of youth offenders and those who care for them, but also for victims and the public at large, because adult court takes an entirely different approach when it comes to those found guilty of a crime.
The juvenile justice system provides specialized services tailored to the rehabilitation of youth, and can provide an alternative to incarceration, often in the form of restitution and community service, with a heavy focus on treatment that reduces the likelihood of reoffending.
Lynne Davis, is a lobbyist with the State Bar of Wisconsin. She can be reached by email, or by phone at (608) 852-3603.
This is in stark contrast to the adult court system, which provides little in the way of rehabilitation. Studies[1] repeatedly show that youth placed in adult prisons reoffend after release at higher rates than those placed in a juvenile institution. Simply put, the adult criminal justice system is neither adequately equipped nor designed to handle juveniles.
The State Bar of Wisconsin’s Board of Governors hopes to change the way Wisconsin handles 17-year-old offenders by returning their original jurisdiction to the juvenile justice system. Doing so would provide those teens the resources needed to rehabilitate, rather than recidivate. When treated as juveniles, teens have a better chance to learn from the situation and take steps to find success in the future. This would not prevent waiving youth accused of seriously dangerous or heinous crimes into adult courts when appropriate.
With roughly six months left in the 2025-2026 legislative session, there is still plenty of time for lawmakers to pass legislation returning 17-year-olds to the juvenile justice system. Past legislative sessions have seen bills introduced that would make this change, and the State Bar Board of Governors hopes to see the reintroduction and final passage of similar legislation.
State Bar lobbyists will be hitting the Capitol steps in Madison to ensure legislators are aware of the need and support for this change, and we ask State Bar members to echo that same support to the legislators in your district.
What You Can Do: The Advocacy Network
Lawmakers in Wisconsin need to hear from members of the State Bar about why returning 17-year-olds to the juvenile justice system helps create better outcomes for victims, offenders, and the public at large. You can help by reaching out to your legislators using our
Advocacy Network. Pre-written email messages are editable to suit your own thoughts and opinions and help to demonstrate the breadth of support for policies that prioritize access to justice.
Don't forget to
subscribe to the Rotunda Report newsletter and follow us
on X (formerly Twitter) to stay informed and get involved in the legislative process.
Endnotes
[1] Dept. of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Juvenile Transfer Laws: An Effective Deterrent to Delinquency? June 2010.
