The North Carolina House voted Wednesday to raise the state's lowest-in-the-country threshold for juvenile prosecutions and make it so 6- and 7-year-olds could no longer be charged with a crime.

The measure had near unanimous support in the House, but it doesn't go as far as many advocates, and a state commission that did an in-depth study of the state's juvenile justice system, recommended.

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That group asked lawmakers to raise the age to 10 years old, but this proved a bridge too far for a number of Republican lawmakers who called attention to a handful of serious crimes committed in recent years by 8- and 9-year-olds.

“If you want your heart strings tugged, think about the victims as well," Rep. Allen McNeill, R-Randolph, said on the House floor as he argued against going further.

Even as is, Senate Bill 207 would keep all but a handful of children under 10 out of the juvenile justice system each year, automatically diverting them to six months of therapy instead. Six- and 7-year-olds couldn't be charged at all. Eight- and 9-year-olds could be charged only with more serious felonies, classifications A through G.

Ninety percent of the 8- and 9-year-olds charged in recent years wouldn't have been charged under this bill, Bill Lassiter, the state's deputy secretary of juvenile justice, said Wednesday. Combining that with the changes for 6- and 7-year-olds, "this takes 1,147 kids out of the system completely," he said.

The Senate passed a broader version of this measure in March, voting for the full move to age 10. The state's Conference of District Attorneys pushed back, and this version represents a compromise, Lassiter and others said.

The House's vote was 101-1, with Rep. Larry Pittman, R-Cabarrus, voting against it. The bill now heads back to the Senate, which will either accept the House's changes or extend negotiations.

House Democrats, including Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, who was previously a District Court judge and has years of experience in juvenile justice, argued that children under 10 are too young to understand court proceedings and shouldn't be subject to them.

Rep. Sarah Stevens, R-Surry, said that doesn't mean the state can excuse their crimes.

“A 9-year-old who’s forcibly raped a 6-year-old needs further help than just six months' counseling," Stevens said.

As of now, North Carolina has the lowest prosecutable age in the country among states that set a limit by law. Changing that is part of a multi-year criminal justice reform effort that started with a 2017 law that raised the age threshold for charging people as adults.

That bill also created the Juvenile Jurisdiction Advisory Committee to look for other changes, and that committee recommended raising the age in the juvenile system to 10.