Raising the Age for Trying as an Adult

The article written by Vincent Schiraldi, "How to Reduce Crime: Stop Charging Children as Adults" in the New York Times, expresses the opinion that the age for prosecuting young people as adults should be heightened. The author, Schiraldi is credible and well informed on the subject of criminal policy, as he is the director of the Criminal Justice Policy and Management at Harvard Kennedy School. His long history, and research within the subject make his opinion relevant and well thought out. 
His argument is that increasing the minimum age for being tried as an adult will reduce crime overall as well as recurrences after incarceration, and prevent the risks that accompany locking up young people with older criminals. Evidence used in the article includes statistics from different states comparing those with a minimum age of 16 (2 states), 17,and 18, indicating that crime rates go down when the age higher. The logic he uses is largely based on research findings, which support his point. 
I agree with the author, completely, although he could have been more persuasive in his article. The large amount of research info and statistics makes sense considering his profession, and they are persuasive tools to use, but not to the extent that he did. If he had paired them with more pathos oriented, true occurrences relating to the data, they would have been more effective for readers who have a hard time visualizing a multitude of statistics, one after the other. He mentioned a few thoughts that he should have gone more in depth with, like the fact that incarcerating 16-18 year olds with older criminal adults, is a hazard to their safety as they are targets for many forms of assault. He also mentioned briefly the difference of brain development in younger people that he could have elaborated on a bit more. The last critique I have for this article is the fact that he ends it with a slightly controversial example of a past occurrence, which I understand is used to highlight his point, that having the names of accused persons withheld from the public can be beneficial for protecting their image, in case of their innocence. In the case that he mentions, the boys accused of rape were released because "the prosecutor concluded that no assault had taken place", and so the boys who were tried as adults will have proof of their accusations online and available to potential employers, etc. The main issue I have with this example, is that even though the prosector concluded no assault had taken place, and even if that is the truth, people can remain skeptical of our justice system, which I think is notorious for not incarcerating rapists as often as it should. Because of this skepticism, I don't think this was a wise argument to end on, and I think that his other points regarding crime rates falling, etc., were much more convincing than the fear of tarnishing reputations. It's not as pressing of an issue, or as convincing as the previous information in the article.