The Supreme Court has said emphatically that it is morally and constitutionally wrong to equate offenses committed by adolescents with those carried out by adults. And research shows that prosecuting adolescents as adults needlessly destroys their lives and turns many of them into career criminals. Yet these lessons have not penetrated some states. New York is tied with North Carolina at the top of the list of states with retrograde laws that automatically funnel 16-year-olds into the adult system.

New York lawmakers are balking at a bill submitted by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 18, the standard throughout most of the country. But legislators in Louisiana, which imprisons the most citizens per capita and has the worst record in the country for meting out life sentences to adolescents, are giving a similar bill a warm, bipartisan reception.

Louisiana is one of nine remaining states that automatically prosecute 17-year-olds as adults. But thanks in part to strong leadership by its new governor, John Bel Edwards, the State Senate voted to raise the age of adult prosecution to 18. The bill, which deserves to pass the House as well, would still permit adult prosecution for young people accused of committing serious crimes but would move most of the young accused into the juvenile system, which is better prepared to help them. Mr. Edwards calls the raise-the-age bill a “down payment” on a sweeping criminal justice reform package that he hopes to advance next year.