Juvenile crime rates have been improving in recent years in North Carolina, and some hope to see even more positive developments with the proposed “Raise the Age” initiative.

The idea is to treat nonviolent 16- and 17-year-old offenders as juveniles rather than adults. William Lassiter, the deputy commissioner overseeing juvenile justice in the N.C. Department of Public Safety, offered a juvenile crime update during a presentation Monday to the John Locke Foundation’s Shaftesbury Society.