Carolina Journal Radio No. 730: Compromise delays N.C. class-size changes for one year

From Cherokee to current attack from the largest city to the smallest and from the statehouse into the schoolhouse Carolina Journal radio your weekly news magazine discussing North Carolina's most of public policy events and issues welcome to Carolina Journal, radio, luggage, coca during the next hour, Dr. Martinez and I will explore some major issues affecting our state. Some of today's hottest political debates stem from disagreements to go back to the earliest days of the American Republic will learn why with the help of a renowned Georgetown University constitutional law professor, despite a veto from Gov. Roy Cooper North Carolina lawmakers still want to combine the state boards that oversee elections and ethics enforcement your debate on that topic. A recent Duke University lecture targeted the topic of pharmaceutical freedom learn what that means I will hear the latest developments in the raise the age campaign. It evolves 16 and €17 criminal offenders learn why some believe these people belong in the juvenile justice system.adult court. Those topics are just ahead of first data Martinez joins us with the Carolina Journal headline, Gov. Roy Cooper has signed into law a bill that gives school officials flexibility in dealing with cutting the number of children who are in each case through three classroom. The law is a combination of a contentious debate over seats and funding.

Dr. Terry stoops is been following this debate in the general assembly joins us now. He of course is vice president for research and the director of education studies here at the John Locke foundation Terry welcome back.

Thank you for number of years now, as I recall that the debate tab from school officials. There were cries for needing to have fewer children in each classroom and now we reach the point where that actually was a proposal in the general assembly, but there was a problem with it though.

What was the problem I wasn't even debated well. The problem is really due to the way that we fund our public schools and the way that the funding was set up was was always extra padding added to the budgets based on a formula that was used to fund classroom teaching positions that padding was taken out, thus leaving funding for elective positions.

Essentially, music and art teachers sort of by the wayside. Not quite sure what was going to happen with funding for them. So in order to try to ensure that we had a years of funding left for those teachers. There were some adjustments that had to be made to the class-size ratio. I know Scott is hard to explain that there is some sort of relationship to our class sizes and the way we fund public schools and I think that's probably the bigger issue here is that Republicans of course have been trying to lower class ides in grades K-3, but they have to sort of decouple that from the way that we fund public schools, thus allowing schools to have money for those extra elective teachers as well as classroom teachers. In fact, I think you several weeks ago had pointed out in the locker room, which is the John Locke foundation's online blog.

There was even one school system that put out a video using the children saying please don't cut our arts teachers and things like that so it pretty interesting that debate. It did then. Unfortunately a lot of these issues about how the funding is tied to the class-size fell by the wayside. Just because it's so complicated to explain. But the basics are essentially what we needed to do was we needed to give a little more class-size foot flexibility for the upcoming year to ensure that all the funding was in place for those extra teachers and that's what the Republicans did in this bill was to take care of that short-term issue to give them flexibility for another year and they're going to look at the funding issues that are related to that in future years.

The long-term issue was figuring out where the money went. For years Republicans have been giving additional funding for schools to lower class sizes in grades K through three and when they asked school districts to account for where that money has when how many teachers were in the classroom and what the class sizes look like many school districts had trouble providing that information and so what Republicans thought that they would do very wisely. I might add is to add provisions in this bill that have a reporting requirement for school districts so that the public knows where this money is going knows what class sizes look like at the school level in the district level and her baby better able to ascertain whether school systems are spending the money for class-size reduction in grades K through three wisely.

Does this mean Terry that folks who have kids in a North Carolina public school are either in kindergarten, first, second or third grade that next year there's gonna be a smaller class size that their child is attending.

Yet this is where it gets complicated because we are talking about average class sizes and that means that when you get into an actual classroom you find class sizes of all different numbers. It depends on any number of factors, the number of teachers in schools number special needs students, whether those students require accommodations and scheduling armor when I was a classroom teacher just because of scheduling. I would have one class that had 18 kids in it. Another class with 32 kids and had nothing to do with the kids themselves. It had everything to do with scheduling. What other classes they were taking whether they were signed up for an honors class or regular class and what lunch. They had those are all factors in what class sizes look like at the classroom level actual class sizes here were talking about averages and so you find that when you when you look at just averages it can be misleading because you have class sizes in some instances the far exceed the average and you have class sizes in other instances that are far below the one I sent you focus on kids in K through three this is an important reform that's been advanced by the Republicans for the last five or six years is a focus on grades K through three we have a great deal of research that tells us if kids are not successful by third grade they will not be successful. Later on in their academic career, and one may argue, even beyond that, the research says that they are less likely to graduate less likely to go to college and less likely to have a job at a steady job in the workforce. If they're not literate if they're not reading at grade level by third grade and so Republicans thought that the best approach to ensure that kids are able to read at grade level IIIrd grade is to make sure the class sizes remain low as well. Some other initiatives that they had so the focus is really been on grades K through three. The research is not so clear when it comes to grades four through 12. There some research that says that Class sizes matter, but in order for the class-size to have an effect on student achievement.

You have to get it down to say 14 students for every teacher and in that case, the cost to become so high to not only hire the teachers but to have the space to be able to kind of accommodate those classes that it's really not cost-effective so they have focus on breakthrough grades K through three and I think they've done so in a very wise way. That's really incredible what you just said I'm very young kids here if someone is in second or third grade their way – seven, eight, nine years old perhaps and we can tell that at that point that early point in their school careers.

Whether or not there got there likely to succeed. Yes, the research we have research that shows this for for several years. In fact, the any Casey foundation has been one in the forefront that have looked at the relationship between third grade reading outcomes and outcomes later on in eighth grade and in high school and the relationship is very clear now. There's also some other factors that play a role. Socioeconomic status sometimes race will play a role. Although socioeconomic status really the where the kids are as far as their parental income their household income makes a difference, but it just shows you how critical reading skills are infected knowing reading and math skills are in those early grades because what happens is is that if they don't get the skills in those grades. The gaps widened as they get older and students start to disengage when they're in middle school because they feel like they can't catch up. So it just shows you how critical those early years are and this is really the crux of the reason why that the Republicans have chosen to focus the reform efforts on the early grades there been other initiatives and in you reference that MR I recall one having to do with them.

Teachers teaching other teachers how to teach reading and down. Perhaps that's why that's so important.

Because of this research shows this.

This connection with reading, that's right, teacher training is absolutely critical and I think that's the next frontier for Republicans is now that they've had all these measures in place for these early career teachers. I think it's absolutely essential for them to look at teacher training and to ensure that those early year teachers. Those that are in the elementary grades are prepared been talking with Dr. Terry stoops.

He is the John Locke foundation's vice president for research. Same with as much North Carolina journal radio to come in just a moment government plays a key role in your life affecting your paycheck the way you educate your kids the way you do business. How can you tell if government is doing a good job making the right choices.

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Many of today's most heated political debates involve fundamentally different views of the role of the United States Constitution and those different views knew they reflect disagreements that go back to the earliest days of the United States of America. Our next guest examines the history of those disagreements in a book titled our Republican Constitution securing the liberty and sovereignty of we the people, the author of that book is Randy Barnett, Prof. of constitutional law at the Georgetown University Law Center and Dir. of the Georgetown setter with the Constitution. Thanks for joining such great to be here so we all know that the were very politically divided the United States. Your book our Republican Constitution says shouldn't surprise anyone who's look at the history and sees these long-standing debates about how our government should be run, including what the Constitution means what were you surprised to see how divisive things have become in recent years. No, not exact. Not at all. I mean, I think. Not only are we divided as a people amongst the two conceptions of the Constitution. I described my book the Republican conception of the Democratic conception but most people are actually divided within themselves about this. That is, most people carry around within them a Democratic conception of the Constitution and an inconsistent Republican conception of the Constitution, they tend to favor one when it comes out for them.

One way and they favor the other when it comes out when it comes the other way so we can talk about what that is in and hopefully if I described these things accurately describe what your listeners and viewers recognize about themselves. Ellis talk about those who two fundamentally different conceptions.

What are the right there based on two different notions of popular sovereignty, which is the idea that it's we the people who are the sovereign and these are two different notions of popular sovereignty based on two different conceptions of we the people you can if you view we the people as a group and then you say what popular sovereignty means is that we the people as a group are entitled to rule that the only thing that could possibly mean is that a majority is entitled to rule will rule according to the people's will must be the will of the majority, because you can't have rule by everybody. And then what we need is a Constitution a Democratic Constitution that will be provide the structure by which the will of the people will be expressed oftentimes in the form of representation representative legislatures and infected legislatures could be thought to re-present the will of we the people on a microcosm basis and that's and so we need a Democratic Constitution to represent the will we the people, and if you have that you then role of judges in such a regime is kinda problematic because judges are not elected and they don't represent the will of the people are not supposed to.

And so here's the idea that judges should not get in the way if they can possibly help it of the will of the Democratic majority. That's the Democratic conception of we the above of the Constitution based on the collective view of we the people. Now there's an individual view as well. Right widened it if what I've said this, somebody in the audience is likely civil course that's right. What else could there be an element describe the other one and I but I predict that your listeners going to say oh yeah, well, I guess. I think that two and the other one is the individual view of we the people.

Is this still starts with popular sovereignty. But if use. We the people as individuals, each of whom are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights among those are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That may sound familiar to your audience. All those rights by the where individual rights, the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Each belong to the individual and then the book focuses on the next set of the Declaration of Independence, which says to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. So first come rights and then comes government to secure these rights.

This vision of government is a government as the servants of the people we hire are if the government is not us. They don't necessarily represent are we all, anymore than the garbage people who caught that we pay to complete collect agar garbage reflects us in our well except I will that we want the garbage gone. We delegate the responsibility of take of disposing of our trash to a subset of us in government is a subset of us. They are what we might call the agents or how is this the servants of we the people.

There's no archaic way of looking at government service we the people and their tasked with the job accomplish certain beneficial public ends. But first and foremost secure the rights retained by the people. That's with the declaration tells us now if you take this view. What we need a Constitution for a Republican Constitution is on the one hand, to empower the government to do what needs to do. But on the other hand, to constrain its power so it doesn't violate the rights that it's been created to secure which is the individual rights of each and every one of us under this view of the Constitution. Judges fit in quite nicely because judges themselves are agents or servants of the people and they have a job to do and their job is to be a fair and impartial magistrate when a member of the sovereign public bus. We the people. An individual comes into conflict with one of their agents or servants.

A judge is supposed to be an independent tribunal of justice in order to adjudicate fairly at a dispute that the citizen has that says you know you and the government. You've exceeded your just powers on and in the words of the declaration and the judge should be neutral and so the fact that the judge doesn't represent the will of the people is actually a good thing because we don't want the judges to be biased in favor of one party or the other – the Republican Constitution. So here's what ends up happening when the majority is on your side. People like to assert the will of the people and get mad at judges for getting in the way. Now, when the majority is not on your side. People talk about the tyranny of the majority and they hope the judges will be there to protect their rights against this tyranny. So those are the two competing conceptions. We carry within us. This book is an argument for why the Republican conception is the right one in the Democratic conception is not that is the voice of Randy Barnett, Prof. of constitutional law at the Georgetown University Law Center.

Also, director of the Georgetown center or the Constitution just mentioned your book argues for the small, our Republican view rather than the small D Democratic view. Why do you say the Republican view of the Constitution is the better because I think the declaration is right. We start with the rights. I believe that's true. These are individual rights to life, liberty and The Pursuit of Happyness are the book talks about the fact that James Mason's draft of the declaration of rights was actually the more canonical formulation of these rights, which includes, for example, the right of property and government is our our outcry correctly viewed is our servants and so we need a Constitution to protect us from our servants to ensure that they don't exceed their proper powers, and so that's what we need judges for I think that's right.

And the reason I wrote the book is because as as I described in the book I was involved in the challenge to Obama care on the one that formulated the argument for why the individual insurance mandate is right in and and we and you normally would if you went on the law, you win. In the case and we actually got five votes for our view that the individual insurance mandate was correct and yet, as some of you may know we lost in the sense that Judge John Roberts, who agreed with us about the law said nevertheless he was gonna pull the law how to do that he did that by reinterpreting the mandate so that it wasn't a mandate that he could uphold the law. He called that a saving construction and the reason he justified that the way you justify that is by saying he had to defer to the Democratic majority Aryan Congress to do that which taught me that is not enough to be right on the law.

You also have to be right on the role of judges and this is a book about the proper role of judges in a Republic, which is what we have our time is running short. But if people read this book what you hope they will take away with them as they approach who they're electing who they want to see is judges, what, what's the what's the proper response you hope will happen. Well, when you evaluate and nominate you want to ask two things about them. One is does he interpret the Constitution in the right way which would be to give its original meaning, and the second is does he feel that he is a judge has the responsibility and indeed the duty to enforce that meaning against the more majoritarian branches that is the voice of Randy Barnett, Prof. of constitutional law at the Georgetown University Law Center director of the Georgetown center for the Constitution, author of the book we've been discussing our Republican Constitution and also the lecturer at NC State University delivering the annual John Pope thinks of doing is my pleasure level on Carolina journal radio just are you looking to make North Carolina more free the John Mott foundation is in here are three things you can do today to help us make it happen. First, know the facts visit John Mott data work for data analysis, interviews, and more and read Carolina journal.com to learn what government is doing with your money.

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Welcome back Carolina journal radio amateur coca despite a veto from Gov. Roy Cooper North Carolina lawmakers are moving forward with a new bipartisan member body to oversee state elections and ethics enforcement Republican representative David Lewis defended the plan to his colleagues of having bipartisan administration consistent administration of ethics and elections remains the same is my firm belief that this video provides a good pathway for so that each and every person speaking specifically to the governors objection letter now that each and every person can fully participate in the election process and exercise their constitutional right to vote this this is an idea that this body in one form or another has considered 2011. This video provides that there will be bipartisan administration of elections. This bill provides that there will be consistent interpretations of the law between elections and ethics issue house Democratic leader Darren Jackson fears North Carolina's new board will mirror the Federal election commission, three Republican vote one way, and three Democrats for one another and nothing gets done and that's what you're doing tomorrow. Elections board by doing your making sure there's deadlock and dysfunction in our elections board and I think that that's the intention behind this bill is that things will and because the default is course is the statutory minimum number of early voting is threatened statutory minimum number of songs.

The defaults are against voting and so when people can agree that'll be the default nothingness by design.

I think this is a bad bill of things. This is going to lead to more lawsuits in force when the governor is challenging the legislature court were pagan taxpayers pay for the court system in court on taxpayers paying for the attorneys on the governor -sized taxpayers benefit attorneys on the legislative side. They're just losers all way around the Republican Lewis disputed the Democrats remarks. I know this can work on people that will be selected by the other input on this board will be able to work because they like.

I believe that the right to vote is one of the most sacred rights that we hold and they will make sure that it is carried out understand the responsibility of administering ethics law in a fair and impartial way and will make sure that it is carried out. We need to pass this legislation that's Republican state representative David Lewis defending a new bipartisan state elections and ethics board will return with more Carolina journal radio development are you tired of fake news. Well you won't find it here at Carolina journal. We don't make things happen and we don't presume or assign motives. There's no simpler way to put it then that were proud to say that honest, factual, rigorous journalism is the Carolina journal way our reporting team is focused on accountability in government and policymaking. No matter which political party is in power, and regardless of the person taken to task in the story, Carolina journal were beholden to the truth and to transparency. Unlike fake news lies, innuendo, questionable sourcing all meant to create controversy not inform the debate. So the next time you're confronted with fake news one onto Carolina journal.com or pick up the latest print edition you'll find compelling news reporting from a team that knows what it means to be real journalists committed to truth Carolina journal.

You can count on us for the facts. Welcome back Carolina journal radio coca governments should do a better job of protecting patients rights when they set policies related to drugs. That's one of the key themes University of Richmond Prof. Jessica Flanagan made during a recent speech at Duke Flanagan Hayek lecture tackled the topic pharmaceutical freedom.

She basted on a particular right right of self medication right and I'm thinking, verify that because I think that it's been mistakenly forgotten in our language about rights. I think that our existing system. Pharmaceutical regulation violate the self designed to self medication. So prescription requirements existing approval policies of premarket policies for neutron policy that stand between patients and access to pharmaceuticals violate their rights to make decisions about their own bodies. In general, it's wrong to disrespect a person's authority to make intimate and personal bodily deficient regulations do that so those five regulations are Flanagan argues that drug approval policies violate rights.

She says they also lead to bad health outcomes. The first plane.

I'll think about how the contract law and I mean that because of the approval process currently takes 5 to 8 years.

Billions of dollars, it's very difficult to bring a new drug to market because it is difficult to bring a new drug to market it raises the barrier to innovation honest Frank Lichtenberg that you look that the benefits of pharmaceutical innovation of the 20th century and says it is on the primary contributor's life expectancy.

There is ample evidence that as you increase the cost of approval. It decreases the rate of innovation as you decrease the cost of approval such as with the 92 prescription drug user fee act or the orphan drug act that carries people to invest in you increase the nation and so there is a direct link between costly approval processes and less pharmaceutical innovation and less pharmaceutical innovation.

We have reason to believe cost live so cost money that could be devoted to the medical, because one of the cheapest ways to provide medical care through God.

Even the drugs are very expensive in the beginning it still is the case. The drugs are less expensive than a lengthy hospital stay and so if you'd like always care about medical outcomes and what can be in the interest like the broader health system. The fact that the current approval process is so expensive and it takes a long and that it discourages innovation means that who knows which treatments and therapies that carries could have been created had we not had extraordinarily costly credit approval process. There's another way the drug approval policies hurt health outcomes. Unseen cost that is still very real is drug lacked one thing that the approval process does is it prevents people from accessing potentially effective treatment so the drug is approved by FDA hypotheticals and the FDA says Dragon is an imprint available to patients. It'll save 10,000 lines here extraordinary say that it took being generous, typically five years to bring that out to market and outlines. During five years that the job is being tested. People died waiting right 50,000 people could've been saved, but never had.

If Mexican drug clause.

That's University of Richmond Prof. Jessica Flanagan speaking recently at Duke. She also pointed to individual examples including the case of Steve Hall received an experimental cancer vaccine in 2010 and it was risky and it might've been the case that taking an experimental untested cancer vaccine would've killed him quickly because coronary amount of pain, but he jibes that it made sense for him to enroll a child access the totally untested bare-metal therapy because that was the only thing that would give him a chance of making it a daughter's wedding. They had cancer diagnosis located in less than a 30% chance of surviving to his daughter's wedding and he taught P&L at it's worth it for me to try the uncertain path because a certain path seems horrible and so he tried uncertain drug he made the judgment given his life as a whole that taking an untested experimental cancer vaccine as his therapeutic option was the right choice for him on other patients may have disagreed other patients. It is sad is that I can't tolerate that kind of uncertainty is not worth it for me.

How in the FDA now whether or not a person's interest to take this criminal cancer vaccine protection to your daughter's wedding regulatory agency know what's in a person's interest in the whole many different everybody's lines are different people, and how to illnesses at different points in their lives only think of the FDA.

Everything about pharmaceutical regulators as being expert will lend expertise that they have their medical experts. They know about the properties of the drug but invalid matters when it comes to the decision to use an external cancer vaccine Steve Hall in the expert about his life, whether drug is acceptably risky property of the drug is not evenly look under a microscope and be like. I asked if this criminal cancer vaccine that's acceptably risky, given the treatment inlets treating judgment whether or not risk is acceptable is about whether or not the risk of using a drug fits into the tapestry of a person's life in a way that makes it make sense for them to use it regulators they can't tell if it's acceptably risky to use the drug has unacceptable risks to persons life they'll know somebody's holding out to see their daughter wedding is trying to avoid pain in saying that he should treat the patient not the condition existing pharmaceutical regulations treat the condition, not the patient. How would Flanagan change the current drug approval rules rules set by the federal food and drug administration. The proposal that I would advocate for certification so that everything he does.

Right now though the FDA my favorite regulatory agency alone. Many people think. And think they can do everything right now they can certify that they can oversee clinical trial, they can expand the label recertified rather effective as a judgment on the market and more evidence comes in. The only thing that I'm saying the FDA shouldn't do is stand between patients and access to treatment so not that we had a certification system is that of an approval system how much would change so would you want purchase uncertified unlabeled experimental Rando untested drop drugs probably what it probably wouldn't be like you care about your health and you wouldn't be like signing up for that, although maybe some of you thinking about you already. Dale right people already make 100 of the user to unlabeled uncertified drugs that are grown like in somebody's basement or whatever.

And like they they make that risk-benefit calculus, but probably not more than you already Dale probably you and go to Walgreens and be like signing up for some untested unlabeled drug when a certified drug was available to treat the condition you're trying to treat so I don't think too much would change if we do shift into certification approval unless the existing system is depriving patients accessing therapies that could benefit them. That's Prof. Jessica Flanagan of the University of Richmond discussing pharmaceutical freedom during a recent Hayek lecture at Duke University, will return with more Carolina drove radio in a moment.

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Welcome back to Carolina Journal radio I'm Donna Martinez. North Carolina is the only state in the country automatically sends 16 and 17-year-olds charged with crimes into the adult justice system rather than the juvenile system and a bipartisan group of state legislators is seeking to change that. It's a change that John Mark foundation has been analyzing and writing about for many years now here to look at the race the age issue is John can say he is an attorney and he is the director of legal studies for the John Locke foundation John welcome back to the program.

Explain current North Carolina Pl. Well it's really just exactly what you said the way the statutes are written.

It defines adult jurisdiction to start at the age of 16 anybody 16 years of overs of adult or all criminal justice purposes.

The two different forks in the road so to speak juvenile system versus adult system are they very different very different in the juvenile system. The emphasis is on rehabilitation and the doctor had quite a lot of success about that.

If it's an expensive and time-consuming intensive process, but it does seem to work for a significant number of these kids. It involves possibly detention in a juvenile detention center. It certainly involves some kind of counseling some kind of educational efforts, including conventional high school for many who otherwise wouldn't get it and it involves helping them after they have completed the process in terms of finding employment, find apartments, all these kinds none of that happens about jurisdiction you're punished one way or another afterwards. That's why do some legislators want change this.

I think the main reason is because of the evidence about recidivism.

Study after study over longer time has come to the same conclusion which is that juvenile jurisdiction juvenile processing does a much better job of rehabilitation metal processes. In fact, I don't processing really amounts to be in the school for crime he put 16, 17 or older children at any age for that matter, you lock him up with hardened criminals who are in their 20s and 30s the Riddler to become all lifetime criminal thoughts was to happen if you get in the juvenile system you got a chance at least of rehabilitation rehabilitation and the thing about reducing recidivism rates is not just important for the sake of these kids because it gives them a chance to become honest, and productive members of society. It's important to the rest of us because lower crime rates means that are all safer. We save money on on the criminal justice system on incarceration on processing records and of course no benefit to if these kids can become rehabilitated and get jobs and pay taxes to the growth of the economy.

When we use the term crime that can conjure up all sorts of different scenarios in in our minds in terms of the legality of it. John what is the range of crime that someone can be charged with well it's faster North Carolina members.

There's there's hundreds and hundreds of crimes.

The ones that the main the main breakers between misdemeanors and felonies felonies of the more serious crimes are crimes or can be punished by a significant period of time about penitentiary. There are also the ones that generally involve both violence and then even among the felonies. There is conventional breakdown between the A3 felonies, which are considered the violent and serious crimes that would be things like murder, rape, like a first-degree murder like assault a deadly weapon and many of the higher level drug offenses, and so on as well and then you've got after I felonies which are conventionally referred to as the nonviolent felonies of these involve things like larceny by small amounts of Connex like breaking and entering things like that because of the range of crimes that you just described. There is not consensus really among advocates or among legislators as to what would be the appropriate to fork in the road for these teenagers to take an act that is created an interesting discussion over whether or not or Carolina should change this law tell us little bit more about that discussion, but I really is the focus of the debate right now.

I think most legislators accept the idea that every other state in the union is raise the age from 16 to at least 17 and almost all of them have raised to Texas just did it last month New York State that it last month.

So were left is the only state that such a limited 16. But there's more to it than simply deciding to raise it and if so to what age the question is do we raise it for everybody.

For everybody who 16 or 17 or do we make some exceptions of the some people that we feel either because they're so depraved because they're so dangerous because of so incorrigible. Off to stay in the old system. As far as I know nobody is proposing that every single sick student.

Some of them every 6270 get processed as an adult, all the proposals I've seen make some exceptions, and the question really is where to draw the line. The two main proposals that are before the legislature right now. One of them, which is based on the recommendation of a commission that was set up by the Chief Justice would draw the line out would say that A3 felonies are automatically going to remain in adult jurisdiction, but everything below that will go to juvenile jurisdiction unless there's a reason there's always there's also a provision in that proposal that would allow the judge initially. Here's a case to transfer to adult jurisdiction for cause and so that's important to keep in mind, but the other other proposal would draw the line at the level of the misdemeanor assault. 16 sentinels were charged with misdemeanors would stay in juvenile jurisdiction, but everybody was charged with a felony. Every 16, some general charged with felony would go to adult jurisdiction.

That's the main debate right now which way to go. As the discussion has Sam taken shape. There are some folks who are not on board with this idea of changing this and typically what you hear is well there are some 16 and 17-year-olds who may have committed a lower level felony, or even a misdemeanor. But perhaps their gang members and their they're dangerous to society. So where do we draw that line and and between protecting society and giving a second chance. While there is no perfect answer there, so they are 16 and 17-year-olds were a danger to society at all to be behind bars, but we can't walk about, just because we know the bad kids we have to wait until they've committed some sort of crime. The general thinking here is that we if we draw the line and at a point where the ones who commit the most serious crimes go to adult jurisdiction will be accomplishing what we need to compass, but as I said, it's also important for a judge to be able to say on the basis of other factors. This is somebody who needs to be dealt with at all system, are there cost considerations to this type of change. Yes there are. It's going to cost some money. At least upfront because it cost more to process the kid to the juvenile system in the adult system and we get more as I said we.

This is how we managed to reduce recidivism. Because of this kind of intensive attention, but it cost some money. On the other hand though processing kids to the juvenile system saves money in the long run because they commit so many more fewer crimes throughout the rest of their lives. We spent some money now, but will go to groups of economic benefits down the road. I think everybody agrees with the date on that because is very clear. You mentioned a few moments ago that the Chief Justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Mark Martin has taken an interest in this subject. You followed some of his writings in his reports on this. He held recently, a press conference about this give us a sense of of his views and why he so concerned about this will actually this is all happening primarily because the commission that he convened two years ago came up with a series of recommendations for how to improve the justice system in North Carolina. This was at the top of their list and press conference. He said that it's his most highest legislative priority so he's completely on board behind us. That speaks volumes and the fact that the entire commission, which was made up of stakeholders from every part of the criminal justice system in the general citizenry.

They all got behind it to so there's a strong support in the drama foundation is one of those groups that is looked at this end and has said the research does show that a move should be made. That's right we been advocated for many years we been talking with John today. He is the director of legal studies for the John Lott foundation. He is an attorney himself. John, thank you very much appreciate talking with you the pleasure gone. You can read all of his analysis of this issue@johnlock.org time we have for the program this week. Thank you for listening on behalf of my cohost Mitch. Okay I'm Donna Martinez hope to join us again next week for another edition. Carolina Journal radio Carolina Journal radio is a program on the John Locke to learn more about the John Locke foundation donations that support programs like Carolina Journal radio send email to development John Locke done or call 66 JL left 166-553-4636 Carolina Journal radio nation airline is running all opinions expressed on this program nearly commission about Michelle or other programs foundation is any airline sponsored Carolina radio again