PROVIDENCE — Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch says one unintended consequence of the state budget approved last year is that his office has been seeking to prosecute more juveniles in adult courts.

And that is not a good thing, Lynch said this week, predicting that a move meant to save money will end up costing more in the long run, while leaving juveniles with criminal records and undercutting their chances for rehabilitation.

For years, Family Court retained jurisdiction over wayward or delinquent youths until they turned 21, but last year the General Assembly acted on a proposal by Governor Carcieri and lowered that cutoff to age 19.

The state now has less time to rehabilitate juveniles through the Training School and through programs and services offered by the Department of Children, Youth and Families, Lynch said. And as a result, his office is filing more petitions seeking to waive teens out of Family Court and into adult courts such as the Superior Court, he said.

“The practical effect of this provision is that two years have been cut off any sentence that my office can seek regardless of the seriousness,” Lynch said. “So when you change the equation on the back end of juvenile cases, you have to change the front-end analysis as well.”

In 2007, the attorney general’s office filed 19 waiver petitions — including 8 during the last two months of the year, after the law had changed. Through the first 3½ months of this year, prosecutors have filed 9 waiver petitions, and Lynch predicted the number of waiver petitions filed by the end of this year will be at least double last year’s total.

But now, chief public defender John J. Hardiman is pushing for a bill that would return Family Court jurisdiction to age 21. Senate Finance Chairman Stephen D. Alves, D-West Warwick, introduced Bill 2423 in February and it has been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“The attorney general is more likely to waive now because he doesn’t feel he has enough time for 17-year-olds to serve time in the Training School,” Hardiman said. “I would prefer kids that young remain under the jurisdiction of the Family Court for their entire sentences.”

Being convicted as an adult carries “collateral consequences” such as making it more difficult to secure loans, get into colleges and land jobs, Hardiman said. Also, he noted that juveniles tried as adults can end up at the Adult Correctional Institutions rather than the Training School.

The General Assembly has already reversed course on another of last year’s controversial budget moves. Just 4½ months after passing the measure, legislators reversed a decision to treat 17-year-olds as adults in criminal matters. Projected savings turned out to be questionable, at best, and the Assembly repealed the law without making the repeal retroactive, creating a group of 500 “gap kids” charged between July 1 and Nov. 8.

As an example of the increase in waiver petitions, Lynch noted his office initially filed a petition seeking to prosecute a Barrington teenager as an adult for a Nov. 5 fatal drunken-driving accident.

“The driver is now 17,” Lynch said in December, soon after the petition was filed. “If we did not seek a waiver, once the case has been prosecuted and adjudicated, the Family Court will have far less than two years of jurisdiction for purposes of sentencing, assuming that we prove the case in court. This is simply not enough time to impose an appropriate sentence for the offense charged.”

The driver, Michael J. Silveira, ended up entering a plea agreement and was sentenced to two years in the Training School for driving under the influence with death resulting. The crash killed a 16-year-old passenger.

As part of the plea agreement, prosecutors asked that Silveira be “certified” under a section of state law that provides a half step between keeping someone in Family Court and waiving them into an adult court. “We wanted to do something proportional and appropriate, and at same time we try to be creative,” Lynch said this week.

Still, the case illustrates how last year’s budget decisions limited the options available to prosecutors, Lynch said. While Silveira’s case ended quickly with a plea agreement, it can take a year to a year-and-a-half to bring a case to trial, and that can leave insufficient time to rehabilitate youths before they turn 19, he said.

The decision to lower Family Court jurisdiction from 21 to 19 was “driven purely by the economics of the moment,” Lynch said. “And it’s a decision that will result in the waiver of many, many more youngsters.”

Lynch said he does not know of any law-enforcement officials who were consulted about the decision. “I’m as sensitive as everyone else to dire economic straits, but to design these switches in policy in a vacuum is dangerous,” he said. “To save money, they essentially decided these kids are not going to be rehabilitated.”

Lynch cited a recent U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finding that youths are 34 percent more likely to reoffend when they’re transferred to an adult court rather than going through a juvenile court.

“We put them in a recurring cycle of crime,” he said. “It has changed the very tenets of Family Court. It’s no longer about rehabilitation solely. It gives them criminal records.”

And Lynch said he would be “stunned” if the change ends up saving money. “Ten years from now, where will we be?” he asked. “More people in prison, more costs, worse records. I’m not sure we are better off.”

Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal said, “The governor’s original proposal was made in February 2007. The General Assembly considered that proposal over the course of the next five months before approving it. Subsequently, they chose to alter the law once again based on concerns that were raised. The attorney general had every opportunity to make his views known to the Democratic General Assembly during that time.”

Elizabeth Burke Bryant, executive director of Rhode Island Kids Count, said, “I’m concerned about this trend because clearly the waivers are happening with greater frequency as a result of the age of jurisdiction going from 21 to 19.” Research shows a greater likelihood of rehabilitation when young people remain in juvenile justice systems, she said.

Bryant emphasized that the discussion is focused on “discretionary” waivers as opposed to “mandatory” waivers. State law mandates that adult courts have jurisdiction if a person being charged is 17 years old and Family Court finds, after a hearing, that probable cause exists to believe that the accused 17-year-old has committed either murder, assault with intent to murder, first-degree sexual assault or first-degree child molestation. The law also gives the attorney general’s office the discretion to seek to waive a juvenile into adult court because of the “heinous or premeditated nature of the offense and/or the juvenile’s history of offenses or history of treatment,” prosecutors said.

Bryant said key parties should get together to “reevaluate the impact of this change in the law to determine if another change should be made so fewer youths are waived.”

efitzpat@projo.com