Please see my new post on Boston Magazine's about sentencing 17 year-olds as juveniles instead  of as adults and housing them with adults in jails, prisons and other lock-ups.

Here's how it begins: "When it comes to incarceration, Massachusetts has recognized 17 as the age of adulthood since 1846. Of course, anyone who has a 17-year-old might question that assumption, as have citizens in 38 states across the U.S. Even some states we think of as far more conservative than Massachusetts—Arizona, Alabama, and Mississippi, for example—send lawbreakers younger than 18 to juvenile instead of adult court.

In May, the Massachusetts House of Representatives voted unanimously that most 17-year-olds could no longer be tried and sentenced as adults…"