He said he fears that the trend is to treat young offenders more harshly.
His proposals also come when many states are moving to treat youthful offenders like adults.
Sentencing disparity - treating similar offenders differently - has always been an ingrained part of our criminal justice system.
A program called AniCare Child is used to treat offenders under age 17.
Evidently juries and judges treat offenders less seriously if they are white.
At the same time, officials are concerned that the programs not appear to be just a more lenient way of treating white, middle-class offenders.
One problem is the difficulty of successfully treating sexual offenders.
How can we ever hope to make the sport clean when we treat offenders so leniently?
The bill would offer $1.5 billion to the states if they met new standards of harshness in the way they treat young offenders.
In 1981, the Special Offender Center was opened to treat offenders with mental health issues.