A package of bills to classify 17-year-olds as minors in Michigan’s criminal justice system were overwhelmingly approved in the state Senate Wednesday.

Michigan is one of the few remaining states where 17-year-olds are automatically tried, sentenced and incarcerated as adults if they’re charged with or convicted of a crime.

The bipartisan 14-bill package from Sens. Peter Lucido, R-Shelby Twp., and Sylvia Santana, D-Detroit, would amend various areas of Michigan law to categorize 17-year-olds as minors. The legislation allows for exceptions when it comes to violent crimes.

Santana and Lucido said the move would help put teenagers who come into contact with the criminal justice system on a path of rehabilitation instead of a life of crime.

“We need to right this wrong,” Santana said Wednesday. “This legislation is long overdue.”

Lucido said work on the bill started years ago, and it makes sense.

“You can’t vote in this state until you’re 18,” he said. “You can’t enter the military until you’re 18. You can’t even serve on a jury until you’re 18.

“This bill will give our children a chance,” he said.

The bills approved Wednesday by the Senate now go to the House, where Santana and Lucido said there is a similar package of bills pending. “We hope we’ll come to some consensus and get this to the governor as soon as possible,” Santana said.

She said the biggest sticking point is funding; treating 17-year-olds in the juvenile system would shift those costs to county governments. “But we’re going to make sure (county governments) are made whole, and that they have proper funding" to serve 17-year-olds in the juvenile system, Santana said.

Alicia Guevara Warren of the Michigan League for Public Policy has said that if the bills are signed into law, it should “give kids a chance to learn from their mistakes and move forward.”

“Every day we delay this change, there are 17-year-old kids who are being forced into a system that wasn’t designed for them. Every day we hold off, these kids experience trauma," she said. “But today could be the day we start to change their lives.”