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The United States is an outlier throughout the world in the practice of trying young children in court and confining them. The most common minimum age of criminal responsibility internationally is 14 years old, and the United Nations has urged nations to set their minimum age of criminal responsibility to at least 14 years old. Yet in the U.S., there are still only a bare majority of states (26) that have established any minimum age of prosecution. Of those states with a minimum age, no minimum age is as high as 14 years old, and the majority of states that have set an age of prosecution (16 states) have set it at the low age of 10 years old.

Map of U.S. State Laws on Minimum Age Limits
Updated June 2023

Created with mapchart.net

NJJN has been working with our members and others around the country to change the shameful practice of prosecuting, detaining, and committing young children. 

Download our latest brief on the state of minimum ages of jurisdiction, detention and commitment across the country. This new brief includes charts that provide detailed information on the laws in each state and several territories on the minimum age of arrest, pre-trial detention, and commitment, for delinquency offenses in juvenile court, in order to further advocacy efforts and provide potential models states can look to as they reform their systems.

Please contact us if you have any edits, updates, or questions at info@njjn.org. We will update the chart regularly.

>>Download: Brief: Charting U.S. Minimum Ages of Jurisdiction, Detention, and Commitment