Federal prosecutors in D.C. currently have the ability to charge teenagers accused of violent crimes as adults — a decision that cannot be overruled by judges. D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine wants to change that, arguing that keeping kids out of the adult justice system would improve outcomes for young people convicted of crimes and make the city safer.

Racine introduced legislation today that would redefine the word “child” in D.C. law, a change that would mean anyone under 18 charged with a crime would have their case start in family court. A judge could still decide to transfer the case to adult court after reviewing the case.

Currently, the definition of “child” under D.C. law includes an exception, allowing people under 18 to be considered adults if they are charged by the U.S. attorney’s office with murder, first degree sexual abuse, or another violent crime.

Racine said this small tweak in the language of a law would have a big impact, and is supported by research on the development of young people’s brains. “Young people, even those who commit serious crimes, can learn and evolve into upstanding and valuable members of our community,” Racine said in a press statement.

The change could potentially alter the course of life for people like Deangelo Moore. Moore got out of prison last year, after being charged as an adult at age 16, more than a decade ago. “It was one night where I made the wrong decision to hang with the wrong individuals,” Moore says.

Back in 2007, he says, he was doing well in school, getting As and Bs and aiming for college. But then one night, he made some bad decisions that changed his trajectory, he says. While he was hanging out with some friends, he says someone brought up the idea of stealing a car. “Try to get girls, stuff like that,” Moore recalls. “Me, not being smart enough to just leave, I thought I was doing the right thing by saying ‘Alright man, I’ll go with you all but I’m not doing anything — like as long as we don’t harm nobody.'”

Moore was charged as an adult with armed robbery and carjacking.

“It really messed me,” Moore says of the adult justice system. “The adult system don’t give you rehabilitation. It pretty much traumatizes you more than anything,” says Moore.

Moore was locked up in the Lewisburg federal penitentiary, a prison where lawsuits and investigations have documented brutal treatment.

“I believe that if I would have stayed in the juvenile system, I would have had time to still be able to be a young man,” Moore says.

Eduardo Ferrer, policy director of Georgetown University’s Juvenile Justice Initiative, says research backs up Moore’s assessment. “We’ve known for many years that charging kids in the adult system just is not effective from a public safety standpoint,” Ferrer says. Ferrer cites research from the Centers for Disease Control showing reduced rates of recidivism for children who remain in the juvenile justice system, compared to those who are transferred to adult court.

Researchers for the CDC looked at six studies that followed teens after being convicted. Four of the six studies found that teens charged as adults were subsequently rearrested for violent crimes at much higher rates that those who remained in the juvenile system. Those charged as adults were found to be between 26% and 77% more likely to be arrested again for a violent crime.

Researchers wrote that policies allowing juveniles to be transferred to adult court did not appear to be reducing crime. “To the extent that transfer policies are implemented to reduce violent or other criminal behavior, available evidence indicates that they do more harm than good,” researchers wrote.

“This is a racial justice issue right now,” Ferrer says, adding that the vast majority of young people charged as adults in D.C. are kids of color, about 93% of them Black. “These disparities are ridiculous, and they’re on top of the disparities that our young people of color, particularly Black youth in D.C., experience with respect to living in under-resourced neighborhoods, under-resourced schools. It’s a kind of multiplier or compounding effect of the racial disparities that are present in the District of Columbia writ large.”

Ferrer says there are a few reasons why kids should generally be kept out of the adult justice system. “One is that the adult system is traumatizing. It was not built for kids. It’s not equipped to deal with the unique developmental needs that they have, and it also has enormous life altering consequences,” Ferrer says.

“On the flip side, kids in the delinquency system have a whole system that’s geared towards their needs. As young people, they get more by way of social work, they get case managers, credible messengers, better mental health services, better educational workforce development services,” Ferrer says.

The proposed legislation is part of a trend nationally to move away from harsh punishment for young offenders, says Marc Schindler, executive director of the Justice Policy Institute. “This is an issue that should have been remedied many years ago,” he says.

Schindler says policies making it easier to charge teens as adults gained traction 30 years ago.

“In the 90s, particularly when we saw spikes in crime, we saw a real demonization of young people, particularly young African American males, who at the time were were dubbed as ‘super predators’ with really awful and racist language,” Schindler says. That demonization led to a range of policies including mandatory minimums, “three strikes” laws, and adult sentencing for juveniles.

“The old saying is, if you do the adult crime, you do the adult time,” says Schindler. “It was really misguided, was not based on research or evidence, and again, hit young people of color disproportionately.”

Schindler and Ferrer both frame the proposed bill as an issue of D.C. self-governance.

“For too long we let the federal government dictate who our young people are, who our children are. Attorney General Racine’s bill would redefine ‘child’ in line with our D.C. values,” Ferrer says.

D.C. Councilmember Charles Allen, who chairs the judiciary and public safety committee, supports Racine’s bill, calling it “the safe and just decision for all District residents.”

“Young people should be treated like young people,” Allen said in an email to DCist. “The District’s juvenile justice system is one of the best in the country, and it appropriately prioritizes accountability and rehabilitation,” Allen said.

As for Moore, who was charged as an adult at age 16, he says he’s now doing great. He was able to find a job driving trucks for a moving company, and he’s working on creating his own program to help young people stay out of the justice system.

“If you just sit back and think about it, what can you actually get out of sending a 16-year-old, 15-year-old off to a prison system with 30, 40, 50-year-olds?” says Moore. “Like, how does that help?”

This story was updated to add comment from Charles Allen.