CRANSTON — The state has finally found a solution to its overcrowded prisons — smaller inmates.

Steven Brown, executive director of the Rhode Island Affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, delivered that zinger yesterday as a coalition decried the General Assembly’s plan to try 17-year-olds as adults when they’re accused of crimes.

The House Finance Committee included the proposal in a budget article as a way to save $3.6 million, noting it costs an average of $98,000 a year to house a youth at the Training School while its costs an average of $39,000 a year at adult prisons. The Senate Finance Committee is set to vote on the budget package today.

“The purported savings that are in the budget are illusory,” Brown said. “But what is tangible are the devastating and damaging effects that this change in criminal justice policy will have on young people in this state.”

During a news conference in front of a razor-wire fence at the Adult Correctional Institutions, Brown and other members of the Rhode Island Youth Justice Coalition called for the General Assembly to back off the plan, saying legislators could save just as much money by diverting 40 youths from the Training School.

Brown said that while a small number of youths charged with “serious offenses” are now tried as adults, “this proposal in the budget subjects every 17-year-old, no matter what crime they are alleged to have committed, to the adult courts and to the ACI. Whether it’s shoplifting or some offense that carries a $1,000 fine, they are now going to be in the adult court system and in the ACI.”

Also, Brown noted that 22 national organizations, ranging from Human Rights Watch to The Sentencing Project, have signed a letter against the proposal. And he said, “The trend across the country has been the other way — to recognize that putting younger teens in adult prisons doesn’t work, doesn’t make sense and doesn’t save money.”

Elizabeth Burke Bryant, executive director of Rhode Island Kids Count, said that in the majority of states, people are not tried as adults until they’re 20 or 21. According to a House analysis, three states — Connecticut, New York and North Carolina — try juveniles as adults for any offense committed after they turn 16, and nine more states start adult court jurisdiction for all criminal offenses at age 17. A bill to change Connecticut’s cutoff to age 18 has passed one legislative chamber.

Bryant said the coalition realizes Rhode Island is facing tough budget times but believes the proposal is “not cost effective.” She questioned whether the state would realize the $3.6 million in projected savings because extra care would be required to deal with youths in an adult prison and those youths would still require educational services. Also, she said recidivism rates for youths tried in adult courts are higher than for those who go through juvenile justice systems, so that would drive up the long-term costs.

Bryant said the coalition believes “the Adult Correctional Institutions is no place for high school-age youths who need the chance to become rehabilitated by the youth rehabilitation system that is our Family Court and our juvenile Training School.”

House Finance Chairman Steven M. Costantino, D-Providence, has said he’d be willing to entertain alternatives that save the same amount. Bryant said that an alternative does exist: Have Family Court and the Department of Children Youth and Families work with organizations under contract with DCYF to divert the equivalent of 40 youths from the Training School. Tides Family Services, the Institute for The Study & Practice of Nonviolence and other groups already work to divert youths from the Training School, she said.

Brother Michael Reis, chief executive officer of Tides Family Services, said his organization reintegrates youths released from the Training School — and does so at a fraction of the cost of putting people behind bars.

Reis said he used to work in New York City, where 16-year-olds are sent to the Rikers Island prison. “That is a nightmare,” he said. “And my friends in New York, when they hear what Rhode Island is doing, think that it’s absolutely ludicrous that we want to go back to an archaic system.”

State Child Advocate Jametta O. Alston said developmental psychology has identified good reasons for treating young people differently than adults in the legal system. The parts of the brain that control impulsivity, judgment and planning are not finished maturing until people are in their early 20s, she said. “That is why rehabilitation is such a necessary component in juvenile justice.”

Alston noted her job is to put the safety of children first. “And putting a 17-year-old into an adult correctional facility is not placing them in a safe situation,” she said. “It’s already overcrowded. It’s already a dangerous situation for the adults there.”

efitzpat@projo.com